The Citadel Poll’s Southern Battleground Survey finds voters expect a close election feel confident the election results will be accurate

The Citadel Poll conducted two surveys ahead of the 2024 election. One included 1,241 registered voters in South Carolina. The other included 1,216 registered voters in Georgia. The intent was to gauge candidate and policy preferences across two states to see if different contexts or shared experiences shaped those attitudes. The Citadel Poll’s measure of the opinions of Black voters in Georgia and South Carolina have a smaller margin of error in this study, because interviews with Black voters were over-sampled and then weighted back to the share of Black voters on the voter rolls. This ensured that there is no bias in the estimates, but the analysis can be more detailed.

Consistent with the election four years ago, former President Donald Trump holds a narrow lead over Vice President Harris in Georgia (49-47), but Trump’s lead is considerable in South Carolina (54-42). The lead in Georgia is within the margin of error, but in South Carolina the difference is well above the #.#% margin of error for the likely voter sample. What makes the election interesting is the variation in how votes are distributed by race, gender, geography, and how long someone has lived in the state.

In both states the breakdown of preference by race and gender show that the preferences of each group are remarkably similar whether they plan to vote in South Carolina or Georgia. However, Black female voters in Georgia are far more likely to vote for the Democratic nominee than Black women in South Carolina, because fewer said they would vote for someone else.

The reasons voters selected for supporting the candidates also differed by race and gender, but not by geographic difference. Voters who support Vice President Harris responded with a variety of reasons as to why they supported her. Black voters had the widest range of reasons for their preference, while a majority of white voters of both genders who supported Harris were focused on defeating former President Trump. The same pattern appears to hold in both states.

A similar look at what attracts supporters of Donald Trump to his candidacy shows a stronger commitment to the campaign’s primary message that the first term had a good track record of success. Agreement with Trump’s policies also appear to be an attraction for Trump supporters regardless of race, gender, or state residence. A key difference, however, is that Black males in South Carolina did say that America needed a new direction more than Black males in Georgia. This is notable, because in an election that is either about passing the baton or resetting the direction for the country the message of change itself does not seem to be a dominant choice for voters.

Across the state of South Carolina, support for former President Trump continues to look like the election map in 2020 and the 2024 Republican primary. Trump is most popular with voters in the counties that make up Florence and Myrtle Beach media market and he is least popular in the counties that surround Columbia. But if you look at the Charleston media market – that expands outside of the city – the former President is likely to cover what is lost in the Midlands with support in the Lowcountry.

Voter responses to the poll in both states show that Hurricane Helene is still on the minds of voters. In both states a majority of voters say they have seen more news about the effects of the storm after late-September than other past storms (51% in GA, 54% in SC). When we look deeper into the data for the media markets that were most affected by the storm, Augusta and Greenville we see that voters in Georgia who still think of the storm say they are less likely to vote for Vice President Harris. The contrast is even prevalent within voters who live in the August media market that staddles the Georgia and South Carolina border.

Finally, are candidate preferences influenced by how long someone has lived in their state?

This is an important question for two of the fastest growing states in the country. South Carolina is right in the middle as far as most to least populated states, but it is growing faster than other states. At the same time, Georgia has experienced tremendous population growth and is becoming a larger prize in the Electoral College as a result.

Candidate Preference based on residence in South Carolina

If we consider when a voter moved to South Carolina, Donald Trump consistently attracts 10% or more of the votes from those who moved to South Carolina in the past 5 years, more than 10 years ago, or always lived in the state. The one group where the trend does not hold is are the likely voters who moved to the state 5 to 10 years ago (10% of the electorate). Among these voters Kamala Harris is slightly favored over Donald Trump (+3%) in this sample but the comparison is within the margin of error. Trump’s largest lead is with the newest residents of the state, which is some evidence to consider that the state’s politics are not changing quickly despite being the fastest growing state in the country.

Candidate Preference based on residence in Georgia

In contrast to South Carolina, new residents of Georgia who are likely to vote in this election clearly prefer Vice President Kamala Harris. Those voters who were born in Georgia and have always lived in the state are a strong base of support for former President Donald Trump.

In South Carolina, Donald Trump won the state in 2016 (54.9%) by receiving 14% more of the vote than Hillary Clinton. Trump also won the state of South Carolina in 2020 (55.1%) with a 12% margin over Joe Biden.

In Georgia, Donald Trump won the state in 2016 (51.3%) by receiving 6% more of the vote than Hillary Clinton. Then in 2020, Joe Biden won the state of Georgia (50%) with a 0.3% margin over Donald Trump.