Friday is the last day to vote early in Georgia ahead of Tuesday’s midterm election, and leaders from both parties have been poring over the record early voting numbers to try to figure out where their voters are turning out and where they need to marshal their resources.
Some of Georgia’s top races are expected to be tight. The governor’s race between Republican Rick Jackson and Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms is polling within the margin of error, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball, which rates the competitiveness of contests, recently shifted Georgia’s attorney general and secretary of state races from lean Republican to toss-up.
The early voting numbers are in flux, and unlike some other states, Georgia voters do not indicate their party affiliation when registering to vote. That makes using early voting information an imprecise measure, says Trey Hood, director of the survey research center at the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs.
“We have to be cautious about inferring what’s going to happen for the election outcome as a whole just from early voting in Georgia, especially because we don’t have party registration figures,” Hood said.
“People just love to speculate using any kernel of information that may be out there, but it is speculation,” he added.
That being said, the partisan breakdown of the counties in which voters are casting ballots can be illustrative, especially in the context of what polling says about voter attitudes. Top Georgia Republicans have also been sounding the alarm about early voting turnout on the campaign trail.
Nearly 2.4 million ballots had been cast as of Thursday. In general, turnout has been higher in metro Atlanta and other areas where Democrats make up majorities and lower in more rural areas of the state where Republicans cast more votes. Data suggests that young and nonwhite voters are also turning out at a faster clip than in previous years, said University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock.
“Democratic areas are turning out well. Blacks are turning out well. Younger voters are turning out better,” he said Wednesday. “And for Democrats, the younger the voters, the better Democrats do. So yeah, it does look like the wind is blowing in Democrats’ direction right now in terms of this early voting.”
High Democratic enthusiasm jibes with what Georgia voters tell pollsters.
In a recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll, only 42% of respondents said they approved of Republican President Donald Trump’s performance, and only 33% of respondents said they feel the nation is headed in the right direction.
Voters report high levels of consternation over the economy as prices increase amid the continuing war in Iran and the White House’s tariff policies. The midterm election is widely seen as a referendum on Trump’s second term, with even the president pleading with his supporters to “pretend” he is on the ballot.
A tale of ‘Two elections’
One of the most important questions for Election Day will be whether Republicans can make up enough ground in one day to overcome the advantage Democrats build up in early voting.
Georgia GOP Chairman Josh McKoon said he’s hopeful they will.
“Historically, with the exception of the 2024 presidential election, Democrats have turned out in greater numbers during early voting in Georgia,” he said. “Essentially there are two elections — the early voting led by Democrats and Election Day voting led by Republicans. We will need Republicans, particularly in rural Georgia, to turn out on Election Day in order to win this election. This has been true for most election cycles since the advent of in person early voting.”
Bullock said that phenomenon might be less pronounced this year since President Donald Trump has stopped encouraging Republicans to wait until Election Day. And in a midterm election in which the president of the incumbent party has low poll numbers, Republicans could be hard pressed to outperform their baseline, he added.
“All the indications are the Republicans probably won’t,” Bullock said. “And if you go back and look at what happened in our primary, there were 150,000 more Democratic than Republican ballots cast there. That’s only the second time since 2010 where there’s been more Democratic than Republican participation in the primary, and the other time that happened was 2020, which was a good year for Democrats. So lots of evidence that the enthusiasm gap this year is favoring Democrats.”
At campaign events, Jackson has expressed concern about turnout in rural Georgia, indicating he believes that voters there could be taking the election for granted.
“If people in rural Georgia and other places think, ‘Oh, well, this is going to be easy,’ and they don’t show up, we’re going to lose,” Jackson told reporters at a stop in DeKalb County Tuesday. “This is a turnout race. When it’s this close, it’s a turnout race.”
Bottoms does not appear to be taking victory for granted, urging supporters to keep up their momentum from a Clayton County rally with former President Barack Obama Wednesday night.
“With just three days of voting remaining, we still have thousands of calls to make and doors to knock on,” she said. “Our turnout is looking great, but it ain’t over until it’s over. We’re starting to see an uptick in Republican votes, and we don’t want to be overtaken on Election Day.”
