Georgia Senate starts as toss up – Public Policy Polling

PPP’s newest Georgia Senate poll finds that with Michelle Nunn joining the field, the race is a toss up.

Nunn herself is not all that well known- 61% of voters don’t have an opinion about her and those who do have one are closely divided with 20% viewing her favorably and 19% unfavorably. But there’s no doubt that the Nunn family brand remains very strong in the state- her father has a 56/12 favorability rating even after nearly 20 years out of office and his appeal cuts across party lines- he’s at 64/7 with independents, 58/16 with Republicans, and 50/12 with Democrats.

Nunn currently leads or is tied with all the Republicans in the race. The ones she’s dead even with are Phil Gingrey (both at 41%) and David Perdue (both at 40%). She leads Karen Handel and Jack Kingston each by 2 points at 40/38, Paul Broun by 5 at 41/36, Derrick Grayson by 6 at 42/36, and Eugene Yu by 7 at 42/35.

Barack Obama’s approval rating in Georgia is just a 43/54 spread. But Nunn’s keeping it competitive because the Republican candidate field is a combination of unknown and unliked. Handel has the highest name recognition but it’s still just 52%, followed by Gingrey at 51%, Broun and Perdue at 44%, Kingston at 41%, Grayson at 27%, and Yu at 24%. None of the Republicans have positive favorability ratings, probably owing to the contentious primary election developing on their side.

Gingrey is the early leader for the Republican nomination with 25% to 19% for Broun, 15% for Kingston, 13% for Handel, 5% for Perdue, 3% for Grayson, and less than 1% for Yu. Only Gingrey (+14 at 33/19) and Kingston (+4 at 25/21) even have positive favorability numbers with GOP primary voters. 20% of voters remain undecided- at least at this early stage it looks like four top tier candidates competing for two spots in an inevitable looking runoff.

via Georgia Senate starts as toss up – Public Policy Polling.