DULUTH, Ga. — President of Landmark Communications Mark Rountree was nearly giddy just a few days before election day.
“There has never been a more interesting time to do polling than right now,” said Rountree.
His political consulting firm has been polling races for more than a decade. Rountree predicts a Republican statewide sweep this year, but said it will be a hard fight until the last vote is in.
“It’s not going to be by 30- and 40-point margins,” said Rountree. “There is still a very large Democrat vote in the state of Georgia.”
On Wednesday, Landmark released its latest gubernatorial poll. It showed Nathan Deal leading by 7 points. Rountree said his company has the most sophisticated voter database in the state, even better than the secretary of state’s office, and he warned voters about relying on polls that may have a single candidate’s interest in mind.
“If you don’t have a clear view of who has paid for the survey, than that has to be taken into account,” said Rountree.
And though the overall numbers haven’t changed much since Landmark’s last statewide poll, Rountree said he has noticed some interesting demographic shifts in the race for Governor.
“We’re finding that [Republican candidate] Nathan Deal has a 20-point lead among males,” said Rountree. “20 points is a huge deficit to make up if you’re [Democratic candidate] Roy Barnes.”
Rountree said the company has also seen the young vote start to shift.
“They were originally more for Barnes,” said Rountree. “They were the people who hadn’t lived through the Barnes governorship.”
CBS Atlanta will have new poll numbers on Monday, the day before Election Day.
Landmark Communications is a Republican firm, but they also work with Democrats.
The margin of error in this poll was +/- 2.4- percent.
