Turnout in Georgia

Some assorted notes on our first Georgia runoff poll:

-The level of response to this poll was 17% less than that for our final pre-election Presidential poll in the state. It's not totally an apples to apples comparison since the two polls were not conducted in exactly the same way in terms of when the calls were made and things like that but nevertheless it is a clear indicator that fewer people are planning to vote this time around than did for the general election.

-We did not detect any drop in black turnout relative to the Presidential election. We expect that will again be in the 28-30% range.

-We did, however, find a significant drop in those under the age of 30 planning to vote in this race and a related increase in the percentage of voters over 65. That could have a pretty significant impact on the election since we found Saxby Chambliss up by 38 points with senior citizens but down by 8 with young voters. Some of the younger voters who Barack Obama brought into the political process this year and voted for Jim Martin as long as they were at it may not come out to vote in a contest with Martin as the main attraction.

On the whole we don't sense there will be a huge difference in the demographic composition of the electorate compared to November 4th, but the changes we did detect at least for this first runoff poll work to the incumbent's advantage.