John Oxendine, Georgia’s fire and insurance commissioner, still has a 15-point lead over his nearest competitor in next year’s battle to be the state Republican nominee for governor.

New Rasmussen Reports telephone polling in Georgia finds that 27% of likely GOP Primary voters favor Oxendine, although that’s down four points from August.

Twelve percent (12%) prefer Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, while nine percent (9%) like Congressman Nathan Deal. Handel and Deal were tied at 13% each in the previous survey.

Rounding out the list is State Senator Eric Johnson, State Representative Austin Scott and conservative businessman Ray McBerry, each with three percent (3%) support among primary voters.

Seven percent (7%) favor some other candidate, and 35% are not sure. The number of undecided voters climbed four points from two months ago, suggesting that the race is far from decided.

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Oxendine has maintained a double-digit lead since Rasmussen Reports began polling on the race in April. Georgia Republicans will vote next July to choose their gubernatorial nominee for the November election.

Incumbent Republican Governor Sonny Perdue is term-limited from running for reelection. Among Democrats, former Governor Roy Barnes has been running ahead of the pack in the state’s Democratic gubernatorial primary contest. Rasmussen Reports will release new numbers from the Democratic race at 9 am EDT tomorrow.

With the primary nine months away, however, it’s not surprising that large numbers of primary voters don’t know enough about any of the candidates to express an opinion about them. While 21% have a very favorable view of Oxendine and only seven percent (7%) view him very unfavorably, for example, 22% are not sure what they think of him.

For Handel, very favorables total 10% and very unfavorables are five percent (5%). But 44% have no opinion of her.

All the other candidates register in single digits in terms of both very favorables and very unfavorables. At this point in a campaign, Rasmussen Reports considers the number of people with a strong opinion more significant than the total favorable/unfavorable numbers.

But the percentage of voters who have no opinion of these candidates range from 55% for Deal to 69% for McBerry.

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