Matt Towery said the final pre-election poll leaves the Georgia gubernatorial race dead even, with Keisha Lance Bottoms and Rick Jackson tied at 49% apiece. InsiderAdvantage released the survey after collecting responses from 2,500 likely voters between Saturday and Monday, making it the last public poll from the firm.
The survey separated Bottoms and Jackson by just 0.3 percentage points, 49.03% to 49.0%, with 2% of likely Georgia voters still undecided. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 1.96 percentage points, so the result sits inside the survey’s statistical range rather than outside it.
Matt Towery and InsiderAdvantage
Towery, co-founder and chairman of InsiderAdvantage, said this was the firm’s final public poll and the end of his 26-year polling career. He said, “For once, I have nothing to say except please don’t make us come back to poll a runoff which, with write-in candidates, could theoretically take place.”
He also said, “This final survey is dedicated in memory of Georgia Gang Panelists Dick Williams and Tom Houck. Let politics never stand in the way of friendship,” tying the release to the final survey he said he would ever conduct.
Georgia gubernatorial race
The same survey showed Jon Ossoff ahead of Mike Collins 53% to 46% in the U.S. Senate race, with just 1% undecided. That leaves the governor’s contest as the closest race in the poll, even as the Senate matchup shows a seven-point lead for Ossoff.
InsiderAdvantage conducted the survey for James Magazine using a mixed-mode system of text messaging and panels, weighted for age, race, gender and political affiliation. The result gives Georgia voters a final snapshot before they vote: a governor’s race locked at 49%-49%, a tiny undecided share, and no gap wider than the poll’s margin of error.
Likely Georgia voters
For voters, the practical takeaway is simple. A final survey with this layout leaves very little room for a late shift to be obvious in the numbers, and the two candidates enter election day separated by a fraction of a point. Whether the tied governor’s race will actually require a runoff is not answered by the poll, but Towery’s own words show the possibility remained in play because of write-in candidates.
