If the presidential election were held today, Donald Trump would win the state of Georgia, according to an exclusive poll for DailyMail.com. Just don't tell Pam and Patricia.
“I'm definitely not voting for him anymore,” said Pam, 64, who worked in accounting before retiring.
“The Republicans really need to come up with someone better.”
The two friends treated themselves to a rare breakfast at J. Christopher's restaurant in Brookhaven on the outskirts of Atlanta.
This is a prosperous area. The main street, just a twenty-minute drive from the center, is lined with chic restaurants and a barre studio.
Candidates who win this corner of Brookhaven, Georgia could win the entire state. The Ashford Park district voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and narrowly voted for Joe Biden in 2020
Former President Donald Trump has a three-point lead over President Joe Biden in Georgia, according to a new poll conducted by JL Partners for DailyMail.com
Smart low-rise apartments form a family home with double garage, where autumn leaves are raked into neat piles.
It is mostly conservative and mostly white. How it votes next year could go a long way in deciding how this once deep-red state, which voted for Trump in 2016 before turning to Joe Biden, awards its 16 electoral college votes.
Voting for Biden was simply not an option for Pam this time.
“I can't stand him, what he's done to our country and the economy,” she said, before Patricia, 62, a teletherapist, interjected: “And his age.”
They fall into the category of “double rejecters,” a group of voters unfazed by the thought of being faced with the same choice as in 2020.
How they break next year could be critical in battlegrounds like Georgia.
Biden won by the smallest margin in 2020. He received 11,000 more votes than Trump, or about 0.2 percent of the turnout.
It underscored that Georgia is not the deep red state of recent decades. Atlanta's rapid growth has shifted the balance to the point where Republican Governor Brian Kemp and Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock both won re-election last year, fending off Trump-backed challengers.
The result is that Georgia will be one of the most closely contested states in next year's presidential elections.
In Georgia, Biden lost by 11 points, with some saying they don't know how they will vote
JL Partners surveyed 550 voters in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin. The results show that Joe Biden is in danger of losing two states that helped him win in 2020
Still, voters sound tired.
The DailyMail.com poll, released Monday, gives Trump a three-point lead in the state, but that's largely because he has lost fewer of his supporters in 2020 than Biden.
So while Biden and Trump both scored about 47 percent of the vote last time, our poll found the president has lost 11 points, while the former president has lost eight points.
This corner of Brookhaven, which falls within the Ashford Park Elementary Precinct, may offer the best insight into what will happen next year.
“If we can get a Republican victory here with voters, we can win Georgia,” said Republican politician Brian Robinson.
The Ashford Park Elementary district is located in the western corner of Dekalb County, which is overwhelmingly populated by Democratic Party voters.
Yet this area went for Trump by the smallest margin in 2016: he collected 809 votes compared to 782 for Hillary Clinton.
That was reversed in 2020, when 1,075 chose Biden over the 890 who voted for Trump.
Trump is still the answer for businesswoman Cindy Lites, owner of lifestyle store Marguerite's in Dresden.
Cindy Lites owns Marguerite's in Dresden, a lifestyle and design store. She said Donald Trump is still the best choice for the business community that wants someone to fix the economy
“It takes someone raunchy and tough to stand up and change things,” she said.
2022 was a banner year for her store as people spent money after the pandemic. But the deteriorating economic picture does
“This year wasn't that good,” she said. “This is a prosperous area and even the people here feel that.”
The economy could be the most important factor in determining how this area and Georgia in general vote, Robinson said.
“If 12 months from now people feel the same way they do now about the economy…concerned about inflation, they feel the pressure when they go to the grocery store…that's really bad news for Joe Biden,” he said.
One thing that won't change, he added, is that Democrats have a candidate in his 80s.
“Georgians are concerned about his age and cognitive abilities,” he said. “And Democrats say the same thing as Republicans.”
It's going to be tight anyway. For Republicans, a win means winning over those Kemp-Warnock voters who liked the governor's conservative positions and the way he opened the state early during COVID but turned away from Trump's claims of election fraud.
And for Democrats, it's all about the enthusiasm and mobilization of the state's black vote.
“It's turned off now,” he said. “And if the Democrats make the election based on Biden's record, I'm not sure they'll get it.”