Former President Donald Trump maintains an 8-point lead over President Joe Biden in a new poll of Georgia voters that was conducted as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis testified in a hearing to determine whether she should be disqualified from her prosecution of the former president.

The Emerson College pollsters found 48 percent of Georgia voters support Trump, and 42 percent support Biden, giving the former president an 8-point lead of the incumbent. Biden was declared the winner in Georgia during the 2020 elections with a margin of less than 12,000 votes.

Support for the former president was also consistent across age groups, as pollsters found Trump’s highest level of support, at 52 percent, is among Georgians aged 40 to 49. Georgians aged 18 to 29 supported Trump by the slimmest margin, with 42 percent supporting the former president, 41 percent supporting Biden, and 17 percent of voters undecided.

The pollsters reported that Trump’s support was consistent from their last survey, but Biden increased his polling by 1 percent.

Trump fared marginally better when pollsters included independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the question, with the former president increasing his lead to nearly 9 points at 45 percent of support.

With three names on the ballot, just 36.2 percent said they would vote for Biden, and 5.9 percent supported Kennedy.

Should Biden be replaced with Vice President Kamala Harris, the survey found Trump would win by roughly a 10-point margin with 51 percent of the vote. Just 41.2 percent of respondents told pollsters they would vote for Harris.

Pollsters surveyed 1,000 voters between February 14 and February 16 and reported a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.

Willis testified during the February 15 hearing in Fulton County Superior Court to determine whether she should be removed from the Trump case.

Her father testified the next day and backed up the district attorney’s claims that she hoards physical cash in her residence. Willis asserted she holds thousands of dollars in cash and used some of this money to explain how she repaid her former lover, special prosecutor Nathan Wade, for luxurious vacations the couple shared. Wade has been paid more than $650,000 in taxpayer money since Willis appointed him in 2021.

Trump’s poll results are consistent with those of a poll released last month, conducted after the allegations against Willis were made public, that showed Trump with 44.7 percent of support in Georgia, compared to 36.9 percent who supported Biden, similarly suggesting an 8-point difference between the candidates.

After Willis made a series of claims about the sources of her cash collection during her testimony last week, The Georgia Star News revealed on Sunday the district attorney repaid herself more than $8,500 from her 2018 campaign.

Willis made two loans to the campaign for $19,000 and $30,000, but the paperwork for one loan was missing a signature and date, and a Georgia election website indicated it was submitted nearly one month late, while the paperwork for the second loan was not available online.

– – –

Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Joe Biden” by President Joe Biden.