Jon Ossoff and Karen Handel (Getty/YouTube)
A new poll shows Democrat Jon Ossoff increasing his narrow lead on Republican Karen Handel in a runoff election for a vacant seat in the House in Georgia’s 6th congressional district with just under two weeks to go.
The poll, which was performed by Landmark Communications on behalf of WSB-TV 2 in Atlanta, shows Ossoff with 49.6 percentage points compared to Handel’s 47.1 with 3.3 percent still undecided.
It surveyed 420 likely voters within the district and had a margin of error of 4.78 percent, meaning it appears Election Day will be a tight one, as has been anticipated.
Read below to see the the full findings of the exclusive WSB poll:
#BREAKING – Our exclusive #GA06 poll shows @ossoff with 49.6% of the votes and @karenhandel with 47.1% (3.3% other/undecided + M.O.E. 4.78%)
The Landmark poll is the first one conducted after the two had their inaugural debate June 6. A poll conducted by Landmark one week earlier showed similar results.
Click here to watch the full debate, which was hosted by WSB-TV 2.
“It’s still definitely a dead heat,” Landmark pollster Mark Rountree said to WSB. “Nothing has changed in the scheme of the whole campaign. Nothing has changed in the sense that this really does come down to getting out the vote.”
The poll asked participants if they watched the debate and, if they did, who they thought won.
A majority of respondents (50.8 percent) thought Ossoff won, while another 36.9 percent gave Handel the nod — 12.3 percent thought it was a tie.
Early Voting Approaching Historical Margins
Early voting in the congressional race to fill the vacant seat left by former Rep. Tom Price, who was confirmed as the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, started May 30 and runs through June 16.
So far, voters in the district have come out in historic numbers with almost 70,000 ballots already being cast. With 69,559 people already voting, there’s belief that it could top 100,000 early votes before the deadline.
That’s significantly ahead of the amount of people who cast ballots early for the April 18 special election. About 55,000 people did so then, and Ossoff won handily.
The United States Elections Project’s Michael McDonald has been charting the early voting data. His most recent graph shows that a majority of early voters don’t identify with a political party, barely edging the amount of Republicans that have already voted. The majority of those who have voted early are considered seniors.
#GA06 early vote (in-person and mail) update: 69,559 voted as of 6/7
Election Day Coming up Soon
Ossoff tallied 48.1 percent of votes in the April 18 election while Handel was second with 19.78 percent. But because no candidate got 50 percent of the vote, the top-two vote getters — Ossoff and Handel — would face off in a much-anticipated runoff.
From the start, Ossoff has led in virtually every poll, although that lead has slimmed in recent weeks.
The congressional race has garnered so much national exposure that Vice President Mike Pence is coming to campaign for Handel on June 9. That move stresses the importance for both parties of either keeping the seat red or flipping it blue.
A Democrat hasn’t served the 6th district in the House since John Flynt Jr. was elected in 1965. But the promising numbers for Ossoff has shown that Democrats have a real shot at winning.
According to PredictIt.com, Ossoff has about a 60 percent chance to win the race.
