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Now that former state Rep. Jim Martin has won the Democratic Senate primary, it looks like the Peach State could be headed for a competitive race after all.
A post-primary poll conducted for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) shows Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R) leading Martin by just six points, 42-36.
The Mellman Group poll surveyed 600 likely voters in the days after Martin defeated DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones in the Aug. 5 primary runoff.
Martin was the preferred candidate of Democratic leaders, but the race hasn’t even been considered a second- or third-tier campaign by the national party.
Martin’s campaign asserted that that is changing.
“In other races around the country that are currently considered highly competitive, such as Oregon, North Carolina, Maine and Kentucky, recent polling shows the Republican incumbents faring far better than Chambliss’s 42 percent and their Democratic challengers further behind than Martin’s six-point gap,” Martin’s campaign said in a release.
Previous polling on the race had shown Chambliss ahead by comfortable double-digit margins.
Chambliss spokeswoman Michelle Grasso called the poll “bogus.”
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