Majority of Georgians oppose moving of MLB All-Star Game from state: poll

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GOP lawmakers give MLB until May 6 to explain All-Star game move

Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., and Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., on GOP lawmakers demanding answers from the Major Baseball League.

A solid majority of Georgians say they oppose Major League Baseball’s move to relocate this summer’s All-Star game from the state in response to a new and controversial voting measure recently passed by Republican state lawmakers and signed into law by GOP Gov. Brian Kemp.

According to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll released on Wednesday, 53.5% of Georgia voters oppose MLB’s decision, with 35.7% supporting the moving of the game, which was scheduled to be held at Truist Park, the home stadium of the Atlanta Braves.

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Nearly 85% of Republicans and just over half of independents opposed the move, with nearly two-thirds of Democrats supportive of relocating the game, known as baseball’s "Midsummer Classic."

Democrats and voting rights activists have decried the new law as a voter suppression measure and have compared it to the Jim Crow laws that for decades suppressed the ability of Blacks in the South to vote. Republicans have praised the bill for improving voter integrity, and argue that it doesn’t restrict the ability to cast a ballot.

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The law, which has grabbed plenty of national attention, sparked severe corporate backlash. Besides the move by MLB, corporate giants Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines, which are headquartered in Georgia, have condemned the law.

Kemp told Fox News last week that Democratic critics "have all of their facts wrong and they’ve been lying about our legislation."

The governor emphasized that "the elections integrity act that we passed in Georgia ... makes it easy to vote and hard to cheat" and he said he’d spotlight the measure as he runs for re-election next year.

"I think the vast majority of Georgians support what we did," he insisted.

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But the new poll suggests that voters in the state are split when it comes to the new law.

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Just over 46% of those surveyed approved of the law, with nearly 44% disapproving of the measure. As expected, there was a wide partisan divide, with more than eight in 10 Republicans approving of the law and nearly three-quarters of Democrats opposed. Independents were split.

Overall, Georgians were also divided on whether the law will make it harder to vote in future elections and whether the motivation behind the bill was to make it harder for some groups to vote or to increase confidence in elections.

The poll also indicated that by a 60%-33% margin, Georgians oppose American companies trying to influence political, cultural, or social change.

"If you’re a corporation and you take a stand on one side or the other, you’re going to isolate a huge segment of the population. That’s why corporations have been loathe to do that, but it’s happening now," noted M.V. Hood, director of the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs, which conducted the poll.

He added that "beyond that, there’s also a subset of people who oppose the law but want may not necessarily want corporations directly involved in politics."

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll was conducted April 20-May 3, with 844 voters in the state questioned by telephone operators. The survey’s overall sampling error is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.