Harris closes Trump's once-comfortable lead in Georgia as election rules in the state are weighed on

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump continue their intense battle for the battleground states. In Georgia, the race is expected to be a close one, particularly as election officials worry a GOP-led board will approve last-minute voting changes.

The new poll comes from the Atlanta-Journal Constitution/University of Georgia among 1,000 likely voters in the Peach State from Sept. 9 through Sept. 15. It includes a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The survey found the former President leading the Vice President 47% to 44% with less than two months before the election. Roughly 7% of voters say they are undecided, and third-party candidates received below 1%.

By comparison, in a July AJC poll that looked at a hypothetical Trump and Harris contest— right before Biden dropped out— the GOP candidate led Harris by a wider margin of 51% to 46%.

Trump's lead was also even wider in June when Biden was his opponent. Back then, the former President had a 5-point lead over the incumbent, with 8% of voters undecided.

Other polls, however, show the race to be much tighter. For instance, FiveThirtyEight shows polls to average a small 0.7% lead for the former President, and in an average of 25 polls, The Hill places Trump at a 0.3% lead in the state.

But despite trailing behind, Harris is seemingly not only closing the gap, but also gaining ground with some key constituents.

Analysts expect the race in the southern state will be decided by independent voters, WSB-TV Atlanta reports. The poll indicates that independent voters favor Harris by more than 16 points. Similarly, for the people who consider themselves Moderate, that range gets even wider with more than 43% of voters supporting the Vice President.

Likewise, 77% of Black voters and 86% of Democrats support Harris in her bid for the White House.

Conversely, support from the base of the Republican Party remains solid for Trump, with more than 90% of Republicans in Georgia, roughly two-thirds of white voters and a majority of people 65 and older backing Trump.

Also, about 5% of white women voters said they support Trump, and less than 4% remain undecided.

The closing gap emerges as Georgia's State Election Board prepares to vote on nearly a dozen changes Friday that could take effect before the upcoming election, concerning local officials who are training poll workers and processing absentee ballot applications, according to NPR.

Among the changes up for a vote on Friday is a new requirement that a polling place's manager and two witnesses hand-count the paper ballots in every ballot box to verify that the count matches the number of ballots recorded by voting machines.

Other proposals include adding hand counts of absentee ballots, requiring the public posting of all required voters in the upcoming election and expanding access for poll watchers.

The Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, which represents 500 members statewide, has urged the state board to pause implementing new rules until after the election. In a letter, the association wrote that its members are "gravely concerned that dramatic changes at this stage will disrupt the preparation and training processes already in motion."