High-profile Georgia races could head to runoff

ATLANTA — A pair of Georgia races with national interest could head to runoffs as no candidate currently has the more than 50 percent threshold necessary to win outright, a new poll suggests.

Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, holds a slight lead with 48 percent of the vote while Democratic challenger Jason Carter, a state senator, has 42 percent and Libertarian Andrew Hunt has 5 percent, according to a Monmouth University Poll. Five percent are undecided.

In another high-profile race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, Republican David Perdue has 49 percent of the vote while Democrat Michelle Nunn has 41 percent and Libertarian Amanda Swafford has 3 percent, the Monmouth University Poll revealed. However, seven percent of likely voters in the Senate race are undecided.

“Perdue is clearly in the lead, but there is a sizable number of truly undecided voters in this race,” Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch, N.J., said in a news release. “If most of them swing to Nunn in the final days, a run-off is possible.”

The poll found that 51 percent of independents favor Deal to 32 percent for Carter. Concurrently, 50 percent of independents favor Perdue to 33 percent for Nunn.

Roughly one if five voters cast their ballots as part of early voting, according to the poll. A runoff in the governor’s race would be held on Dec. 2 while a runoff in the Senate race would be held on Jan. 6.

The Monmouth University Poll of 436 Georgia voters likely to vote in the November general election was conducted by telephone between Oct. 26-28. Conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute, the poll has a 4.7 percent margin of error.