Presidential race in Georgia heading to finish line too close to call

ATLANTA - As the 2024 presidential election heads into its final days, all signs in Georgia continue to point to a tight race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Recent history in the Peach State and early voting trends offer encouragement as well as cause for concern to both sides.

Republican Trump carried Georgia in 2016 by more than 200,000 votes over Democrat Hillary Clinton on his way to the White House, cementing Georgia's longstanding reputation as a part of Red State America. But since then, Democrat Joe Biden won Georgia's 16 electoral votes over Trump in 2020 by a razor-thin margin of fewer than 12,000 votes.

Georgia also has two Democratic U.S. senators, with the elections of Jon Ossoff in a January 2021 runoff and Raphael Warnock both in the 2021 runoff and again in 2022.

Those statewide victories by Democrats were made possible by demographic changes, said Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia. The state's growing ethnic diversity has helped Democrats, since minority groups including Blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans tend to vote mostly for Democrats.

There's also been increasing geographic diversity, with new residents moving in from other parts of the country with large concentrations of Democratic voters, Bullock said.

"They're coming from New England, California, Chicago," he said. "The people moving to Georgia are less likely to be Republican than the people who are here."

Despite those trends, Georgia remains a Republican state, said Kerwin Swint, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University. He pointed to GOP Gov. Brian Kemp's solid reelection victory over Democrat Stacey Abrams two years ago, wins by every other statewide Republican elected official on the same 2022 ballot, and the comfortable majorities Republicans hold in the Georgia House and Senate.

"We're competitive," Swint said. "A Democrat can win statewide, but the trending still benefits Republicans."

The record early voting turnout in Georgia shows unprecedented enthusiasm for voting this year. More than half of the state's active voters already had cast their ballots through Thursday, the next-to-last day of the early voting period, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office.

Such a large turnout isn't surprising considering Georgia's status as one of seven swing states in the presidential race means voters have been bombarded relentlessly by Trump and Harris campaign ads.

The constant ads and frequent rallies headlining the two candidates have combined to gin up emotion in this year's contest, as has the feeling voters have expressed that the stakes in the 2024 race are particularly high.

"A lot of people feel strongly about their candidate or dislike the other," said state Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, who chairs the Senate's Democratic Caucus.

But those turnout numbers don't indicate a clear-cut advantage for either side. As of Thursday, seven of the top eight counties for early voting in terms of percentages were heavily Republican counties in Atlanta exurbs or rural Georgia.

On the other hand, women accounted for nearly 56% of the early or absentee voters in Georgia, also as of Thursday. With Democrat Harris making abortion rights a key issue in her campaign, a strong turnout among women is expected to help the vice president.

Bullock said Harris' popularity among older voters also should help her in Georgia. The strongest early voting and absentee turnout in the state has come from voters ages 50 through 69, according to data from the secretary of state's office.

Republican political operative Brian Robinson said Kemp's endorsement of Trump should help boost the latter's support. The endorsement wasn't a given since Kemp refused to join Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.

Trump harshly criticized Kemp and backed an unsuccessful GOP primary challenge to the incumbent governor in 2022. In recent weeks, however, Trump has praised Kemp, particularly the governor's handling of recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene ravaged southeastern Georgia in late September.

"Brian Kemp provides a permission structure for Republicans who have doubts about our nominee," Robinson said.

Election officials are optimistic Georgians will know the results sooner than they did four years ago.

For one thing, there won't be nearly as many absentee ballots to count. Many voted absentee in 2020 - at the height of the COVID pandemic - because they were wary of going out into crowds. Also, legislation the General Assembly passed in 2021 limited the number of absentee ballot drop boxes.

Another factor is that record-setting early voting in Georgia this year means there won't be as many Election Day ballots to count after the polls close.

"At the county level, they're in a better position to count votes than four years ago," Swint said. "Hopefully, we'll know by Wednesday morning, but I'm not holding my breath."

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