Polling released on Friday reveals the majority of Georgia voters support the new Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, with only 12 percent of poll respondents expressing support for the controversial “Stop Cop City” petition to force a public referendum on the project.
Sixty percent of Georgia voters back the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, agreeing with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, according to polling by 20-20 Insight. An additional 28 percent of Georgia voters are unsure, and just 12 percent support the “Stop Cop City” petition.
Activists involved with the petition effort previously claimed to have received signatures from 116,000 Atlantans. If accurate, this is about one-fifth of the city’s population and greater than the number of voters who participated in the 2021 mayoral election.
Low support for the effort may explain why many Georgia Democrats have largely avoided supporting the petition effort, noted The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which added that the poll was conducted by a Democratic strategist who previously worked for Dickens.
The polling comes after activists delivered their petitions to the City of Atlanta on September 11, seemingly missing a critical deadline complicated by ongoing court cases. City officials said they would accept and safeguard the petitions but would not begin processing them without guidance from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
City leaders ultimately determined to scan and upload the petition signatures to the internet, and they became available for the public to review on Friday. AJC reported that a “preliminary” search of the scanned documents revealed “some addresses outside of Atlanta, incomplete personal information and duplicated entries.” For their petition to provoke a public referendum, the activists need 58,232 valid signatures.
The survey also found that 58 percent of respondents who are Republican primary voters support former President Donald Trump in his bid for the party’s nomination for president, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis placing in a distant second place at 16 percent.
An additional 7 percent support former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, 4 percent support former Vice President Mike Pence, 3 percent support businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, 2 percent support Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), and 6 percent remain undecided.
While 73 percent of Republican respondents reported being unsure who they would support in a hypothetical 2026 Republican gubernatorial primary race between Georgia Lt. Governor Burt Jones and Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, 52 percent of Democratic respondents told pollsters, “Stacey Abrams deserves a third chance” at earning the governor’s mansion. Just 34 percent of Democratic respondents said they want a new candidate.
Pollsters reported a margin of error of +/- 3.9 percent and conducted their survey between Monday and Thursday.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Georgia Star News and a reporter for the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Atlanta Public Safety Training Center” by atltrainingcenter.com.
