Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp led David Perdue by 11 percentage points in a fresh poll, casting doubt on the former senator’s prospects in a Republican primary contest with former President Donald Trump’s prestige on the line.
Kemp led Perdue 50% to 39% in a Fox News survey conducted March 2–6, with 10% “unsure.” The governor enjoyed a substantial lead and hit the all-important 50% mark with Republican primary voters across the state, despite Trump having endorsed Perdue upon his entry into the race in December. Both Kemp and Perdue garnered healthy favorable ratings in the poll, as did Trump, ahead of the May 24 primary.
Republican voters simply appear reluctant to jettison a governor whose leadership they are otherwise satisfied with simply because Trump blames him for his loss in Georgia in 2020 to Joe Biden. That’s certainly the Kemp campaign’s interpretation of this latest poll and others that showed the governor with a lead over Perdue.
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“This poll reflects what we have been seeing on the trail the last few months: Georgia conservatives are backing Governor Kemp’s record of keeping Georgia open for business, signing the No. 1 ranked election integrity law in the country, backing law enforcement and public safety, and putting hardworking Georgians first,” Kemp campaign spokesman Cody Hall said in a statement.
Trump is on track to run the table with the lion’s share of his endorsements in Republican primaries this year.
But a Kemp victory in the high-profile Georgia primary would be a major blow to the former president, who has invested much more of his political capital as a Republican kingmaker into ousting the governor than he has in other GOP nominating contests. Kemp defeating Perdue also would cast doubt on the efficacy of Trump’s continued, unsupported claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
The Fox News poll, conducted jointly by Democratic and Republican pollsters, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 points. The results were not all bad news for Perdue, who is set to campaign with Trump in Georgia as early as late March and hopes to turn things around as more Republican voters become aware that the former president is backing him. Among the survey’s additional findings:
- Republican voters with a favorable opinion of Trump prefer Perdue over Kemp, 52% to 39%.
- Self-described “very conservative” voters, and voters who live in rural communities, split their vote evenly between Kemp and Perdue, at 45% each.
- Among the 8 out of 10 Republican voters who said they were “extremely” interested in the election, Perdue led Kemp, 49% to 42%.
