Olens
ATLANTA (Legal Newsline) -- With five days left until Tuesday's general election, Georgia's Republican attorney general candidate Sam Olens looks likely to defeat his Democratic opponent, according to the newest poll results.
According to a SurveyUSA poll of all statewide races on Monday, Olens leads his rival and former prosecutor Ken Hodges by 13 points in the open-seat fight.
The survey found Olens, the former Cobb County Commission chairman, with exactly 50 percent of the vote and Hodges with 37 percent.
Meanwhile, Libertarian candidate Don Smart was found taking 7 percent of the vote overall, 26 percent among independents and 18 percent among liberals.
The polling company said a Nov. 30 runoff election is "possible, but unlikely."
The poll, by SurveyUSA exclusively for WXIA-TV and V103-FM in Atlanta and WMAZ-TV in Macon, showed Republican candidates defeating their Democratic opponents in each of the five contests polled -- governor, U.S. Senate, lieutenant governor, attorney general and school superintendent.
After serving as a district commissioner, Olens was elected chairman of the Cobb County Commission in August 2002. In December 2004, he was elected chairman of the Atlanta Regional Commission.
A graduate of Emory University School of Law, Olens received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the American University in Washington, D.C.
He has practiced law in Georgia for more than 25 years, representing clients in both state and federal courts.
A graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law, Hodges received his bachelor's degrees in political science and sociology from Emory University.
After law school, Hodges worked at an Atlanta firm before returning to his hometown of Albany, Georgia, where he successfully ran as district attorney in 1996.
Hodges served as district attorney for 12 years and was re-elected in both 2000 and 2004 by wide margins.
The two candidates are vying for the seat left open when incumbent Thurbert Baker decided to launch an unsuccessful campaign for governor.
From Legal Newsline: Reach Jessica Karmasek by e-mail at jessica@legalnewsline.com.