Internal poll shows Cagle with big lead

The first poll that wasn’t conducted at a local GOP’s backyard barbeque is out for Georgia’s Republican gubernatorial primary. The news is good for Lieutenant Gov. Casey Cagle.

He has 41 percent of the vote among likely Republican primary voters, while his nearest rival, Secretary of State Brian Kemp, has just 12 percent. Hunter Hill, Michael Williams, and Clay Tippins are all at less than five percent, and nearly 40 percent of voters are undecided.

Moreover, the poll showed Cagle above water in his personal approval rating (+43 percent) and in his job approval rating (+56 percent). He and Kemp, who also has a net positive approval rating, are the only candidates that more than 50 percent of voters recognize, with 83 percent recognizing Cagle and 65 percent recognizing Kemp. While Hunter Hill, Michael Williams, and Clay Tippins were all slightly above water in their favorability ratings, they were unknown to most Republican voters.

Keep in mind that this was an internal (not public) poll conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, which is the same group that polled for Gov. Deal. According to the AJC, these polls are intended to puff up a candidate’s image and scare rivals. Still, the results are overwhelmingly positive for Cagle and seem to confirm the conventional wisdom that he is the frontrunner.

The poll was conducted via 600 live telephone interviews of likely Republican primary voters using a similar demographic distribution to previous statewide Republican primaries. The margin of error is +/- 4 percent. Dig deeper into the poll here.