5 Minutes 
The Swing Voter Project is an ongoing collaboration between Sago and Engagious. This initiative gives swing voters—those who voted for Trump in 2016 and then for Biden in 2020—the opportunity to share their viewpoints through monthly online focus groups.
Each respondent group comprises swing voters from the 10 most competitive states in the 2020 U.S. elections. In November 2022, we put the spotlight on Georgia.
Some Context for Georgia Voters
Among our 11 participants in this month’s focus group, seven are registered Republicans, two are registered Democrats, and two are Independent. Since 1964, Georgia has leaned red, having given its electoral votes in presidential elections to a Republican candidate all but five times during that span. Still, it is a state where conservative Democrats held most offices at the local level well into the 1990s.
We conducted our virtual session barely 24 hours after the polls closed for the general elections on Nov. 8, with runoffs to be held on Dec. 6 for those races which were not yet decided by a majority vote. We wanted to ask our respondents how they felt about certain candidates and the elections in general.
Senate Race Candidate Criteria
In the Senate race between pastor Raphael Warnock (D) and Herschel Walker (R), two things mattered most to our respondents:
- Candidate character
- The issue of abortion
Despite the group leaning Republican, eight out of the 11 respondents voted for the Democratic candidate Warnock on Nov. 8. That leaves only three who voted for the Republican Walker.
Walker’s poor showing with our small sample boiled down to character concerns and a lack of political experience.
On Walker:
“I don’t think I felt comfortable trusting Walker at all, as far as his past goes with women…”
“I came to the conclusion that this guy’s just not a political leader.”
“What have you done in government and how are you going to get into the Senate and fight for things that I believe in?”
On the flip side, those who voted for Walker questioned Warnock’s character and at the same time were able to look past Walker’s indiscretions.
On Warnock:
“His values, to me, are sometimes contrary to what a minister’s values should be.”
On Walker’s indiscretions:
“Walker is an imperfect person but I don’t believe Walker is bigger than the party. And so I think that the views of the Republican party will supersede what Walker represents as a Republican, and so I voted for the Republican party through Walker.”
On Abortion
When it came to abortion, all 11 participants said the issue affected their vote in some way. Abortion was a more important issue for our panel than inflation, crime, illegal immigration, or even election security and the future of our democracy.
Whether pro-life or pro-choice, our respondents took issue with the “all or nothing” nature of the GOP’s stance on abortion.
“And there were no circumstances where it could be allowed, such as rape, incest, other issues where you needed to abort the child. For someone in government to say all or nothing, it just didn’t sit well with me.”
“I’m pro-life. Walker’s a little hardline more than I would say because of life of a mother, incest, and rape. I think the Heartbeat Act of Georgia got it about right. But I am pro-life other than those reasons.”
Splitting Parties
From within our group were several instances of split-ticket voting between the Governor and Senate races.
Eight out of our 11 swing voters wanted to re-elect Governor Kemp (R), with the remaining three supporting Stacey Abrams (D).
Remarkably, our voters seemed to prioritize different criteria for the two different races. In the Senate race, candidate character dominated. In the Governor’s race, it was more about policy and party. Character barely registered.
Another interesting observation: The ticket-splitters were keenly aware they were voting for candidates of different parties. It didn’t happen by accident.
“I was a straight-ticket Republican and I felt that the issues and character were at play. And I think that Kemp does well on the economy. I think that Warnock has shown progress with issues, and so I knew going in that I was going to do a split ticket and that it was different than before. It felt liberating.”
How so?
“In the past, I felt like I had to be consistent with the party line, and I think we’re allowed more these days to color outside the lines. It feels more comfortable to do that, to get it right.”
Proposed Investigations for 2023
In what should be a massive red flag for Kevin McCarthy and his leadership team, none of the respondents believe it’s necessary for Congress to investigate Hunter Biden for possible criminal violations of tax laws as well as foreign lobbying and money laundering rules.
“If it wasn’t Biden’s son, I don’t think anyone would give a damn.”
“We have more pressing issues that we should be focusing on.”
Neither were any of the respondents in favor of investigating Anthony Fauci and the handling of the pandemic.
Continuing this trend, zero fingers were raised in favor of an investigation into the FBI for their raid of Mar-a-Lago. And we were met with another blank show of support for an investigation into the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year.
The only proposal that incited a favorable response was the notion to investigate the government’s handling of the border and immigration. Seven out of our 11 respondents would like to see that happen.
But overall, our swing voters’ attitude is clear: Focus on today and tomorrow—not yesterday.
