Sixty percent of respondents blame their state and local elected officials for not protecting the 2020 election from voter fraud in The Star News Network-Kaplan Strategies poll of 431 likely Georgia Republican voters executed May 7 through May 13.
“This poll shows that the handling of the 2020 election is still very present for a majority of Georgia Republicans,” said Doug Kaplan, the founder and president of Kaplan Strategies, the Florida-based firm that conducted the poll. The poll carries a 4.7 percent margin of error.
“We can see it in the fact that 60 percent of both men and women hold Georgia elected officials accountable for whatever happened then and there,” Kaplan said.
“I suspect the number could be higher because it is odd that there would be 22 percent of respondents telling us they were uncertain,” the pollster said. “Given the nonstop discussion of the 2020 election in Georgia, this might be the case of shy voters unwilling to give their real opinion.”
In the broader poll, Gov. Brian P. Kemp leads former senator David A. Perdue Jr., with 57 percent to his challenger’s 27 percent, he said. In the other closely followed race, Secretary of State Bradford J. Raffensperger is in a dead heat with his challenger Rep. Jody Hice at 26 percent for both men.
“The secretary of state race is ground-zero for the discussion about what happened in 2020,” Kaplan said. “Only 37 percent of Raffensberger supporters said Georgian officials did not protect the 2020 election compared to 77 percent of Hice supporters.”
In the governor’s race, 51 percent of Kemp supporters said Georgia officials did not protect the 2020 election, compared to 79 percent of Perdue voters, he said.
“In another key question, 39 percent of the sample population told us that they trust Raffensperger to run an honest election, compared to 25 percent who said they did not, with a whopping 42 percent telling us they were uncertain,” he said.
“It is interesting with that question how it broke down by gender,” he said. “It was 32 percent of women and 34 percent of men saying they did not trust Raffensperger, but on the Yes-side, it is only 20 percent of women and 31 percent of men—which tracks the breakdown for the nomination, where again 20 percent of women support Raffensperger, and 31 percent of men support the secretary.”
Two other questions dealt with election integrity, the pollster said.
One asked: “How confident are you that votes cast in Georgia in 2022 will be counted accurately?” In that question, 21 percent of respondents said they were very confident, and 36 percent were somewhat confident. Fourteen percent said they were not at all confident and 22 percent said they were somewhat confident.
“In that question about the accuracy of the 2022 vote, there is only 8 percent telling us they were uncertain, which tells me there is some shyness about talking about 2020,” Kaplan said.
Another question asked: “If the votes in Georgia in 2022 are not counted accurately, who would be most at fault?” In that question, 39 percent of respondents blamed local officials, 18 percent blamed Raffensperger, 15 percent blamed Kemp, 7 percent said someone else would be to blame, and 20 percent said they were uncertain.
“Going into the 2022 election, these likely Republican voters in our poll are on watch to see how things are going to go down.”
Read the full poll findings here:
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Neil W. McCabe is the national political editor of The Star News Network based in Washington. He is an Army Reserve public affairs NCO and an Iraq War veteran. Send him news tips: [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter, TruthSocial & GETTR: @ReporterMcCabe.
Photo “Election Day 2020” by Phil Roeder. CC BY 2.0.
