President Trump will head to Georgia on Friday as pollsters sound the alarm that a Republican presidential nominee is in danger of losing the state for the first time since 1992.
Republicans have dominated the state for a generation, but a new Quinnipiac University survey found Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden held a 7-point lead, fueled in part by a decline in the state’s aging white population and the population growth in Atlanta.
Local officials said the start of early voting on Monday attracted a record number of people.
Trump carried the state by 5 points in 2016, and plans for a Make America Great Again rally at the Middle Georgia Regional Airport in Macon delighted Democrats, who said it showed the state was now in play. It comes amid visits to crucial battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Florida, and Wisconsin.
The stakes are further raised by two keenly contested Senate races in a year in which Republicans face a battle to hang on to the upper chamber.
Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, two of the campaign’s biggest hitters after the president, already visited the state this week.
Trump officials said it simply meant the president was committed to visiting as many places as possible, but Tim Malloy, a polling analyst for the Quinnipiac University Poll, said the latest polls showed a troubled campaign.
“For Trump, 2016 is a distant memory. Defeating Hillary Clinton by 5 points when the polls closed then and now down 7 to Biden with three weeks to go, warning lights are blinking red and alarms are going off in the Peach Tree State,” he said.
The latest poll puts Biden’s support at 51% and Trump’s at 44%, with 4% undecided. Last month, the same survey put Biden’s lead at 3 points before the first presidential debate.
However, Quinnipiac has frequently given Biden a bigger lead than other polls. By way of comparison, a rolling average maintained by the analytics website FiveThirtyEight gives Biden a 1.5-point lead.
Trump campaign spokeswoman Samantha Zager said the president’s visit should not be mistaken as being driven by fear.
“In the home stretch of the election, President Trump wants to be on the road, actively connecting with voters every day,” she said. ”The Trump campaign is confident that the president will win Georgia, with his visit providing a boost as Georgians are casting their early ballots.
She added, “Joe Biden can continue sitting on the sidelines, hiding behind ads, and taking voters for granted. Our campaign refuses to insult Georgians in the same way.”
The secretary of state’s office reported that more than 128,000 people voted on Monday, a record for the first day of early voting, suggesting a keenly contested election.
