SurveyUSA Poll: McCain Leads By 7, Chambliss Headed Towards Run-off

WMAZ-TV (Macon) and SurveyUSA is out with a new poll today showing John Mcain leading Barack Obama by seven in Georgia and U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss facing a December run-off.

Chambliss leads in the poll, 48 percent to 44 percent. Libertarian Allen Buckley won support of 5 percent of those polled. Three percent said they were undecided.

In the race for Georgia's 15 electoral votes, John McCain led Democrat Barack Obama, 52 percent to 45 percent, with 2 percent choosing "other" and 2 percent undecided. [Source: 13WMAZ.com, "13WMAZ Poll Hints at Senate Runoff", November 3, 2008]

The poll, which included a sampling size of 683 likely and actual voters, did not include Hispanics in their methodology.

If the results of the WMAZ poll are applied to the 2,020,839 ballots that were cast early, Barack Obama would hold a lead of about 25,968 votes with 31,454 additional votes undecided.

Below is the demographic breakdown of the SurveyUSA poll along with the votes each candidate might have received during Georgia's early voting period using the poll's results:

	McCain	Obama	Other	Undecided
White	72%	25%	2%	2%
Black	6%	92%	0	1%
Hispanic	-	-	-	-
Other	-	-	-	-

After applying the percentage of the candidate's support in each demographic group to the number of early votes cast, we see that Barack Obama gets 46.9%%; John McCain gets 45.6%%; Bob Barr gets 1.2% leaving 1.6% undecided.

In other words, if the ballots from early voting were counted today, Barack Obama would hold a lead of about 25,968 votes with 31,454 additional votes undecided.

Below is the breakdown of votes each candidate might have received during Georgia's early voting period using the SurveyUSA poll:

McCain:

72% of the White vote - 878,484

6% of the Black vote - 42,312

0% of the Hispanic vote - 0

0% of Other
(including Native Americans and Asian/Pacific Islanders) - 0

Total - 920,796 or 45.6%

Obama:

25% of the White vote - 305,029

91% of the Black vote - 641,735

0% of the Hispanic vote - 0

0% of Other
(including Native Americans and Asian/Pacific Islanders) - 0

Total - 946,764 or 46.9%

Other Candidates (including Bob Barr):

2% of the White vote - 24,402

0% of the Black vote - 0

0% of the Hispanic vote - 0

0% of Other
(including Native Americans and Asian/Pacific Islanders) - 0

Total - 24,402 or 1.2%

Undecided:

2% Undecided Whites - 24,402

1% Undecided Blacks - 7,052

0% Undecided Hispanics - 0

0% Undecided Other
(including Native Americans and Asian/Pacific Islanders) - 0

Total - 31,454 or 1.6%