Donald Trump’s advantage over Hillary Clinton has shrunk significantly in Georgia, where he once enjoyed a comfortable lead.
Forty-four percent of likely Georgia voters said they planned to vote for Trump in the latest Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll, while 42 percent said they planned to vote for Clinton.
Trump’s two-point lead is smaller than the 5.3 percent average lead he holds in Georgia, according to RealClearPolitics, and suggests that race is tightening as Trump sees his gains slip both nationally and in key battleground states.
Although Trump enjoyed a polling surge in the weeks before the first presidential debate, his numbers have trended downward ever since. A series of unflattering stories — including leaked tax returns that suggested he had not paid federal income taxes, leaked footage of lewd comments he had made about women in 2005, and more than a half-dozen women who accused Trump of groping them without their consent — have caused his support to crater, even in states considered solidly Republican before the 2016 race.
Democrats have eyed Georgia as a potentially winnable state for several years given its rapidly-shifting demographics, especially around the Atlanta area. But no Democratic presidential candidate has carried Georgia since Clinton’s husband.
More than half of Georgia voters said Trump is not fit to hold the office of the presidency. Trump suffers from a sharp gender gap in that state, consistent with his trouble wooing women in other parts of the country. While he holds a 15-point advantage over Clinton among men, his opponent leads him 48 to 37 percent among women.
