8 min read
Georgia is not easing into Election Day.
It is sprinting toward a midterm turnout record, and Black voters built the lead.
By 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 300,686 Georgians had already voted in person on Election Day itself.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said the state was on pace for about 1.2 million Election Day voters.
Polls stay open until 7 p.m. Eastern, and the early numbers underneath those lines are even bigger.
Georgia turnout is the story of this Election Day, and it runs straight through Black Georgia.
Major Takeaways
- Georgia counted 300,686 Election Day voters by 10 a.m., on pace for about 1.2 million by the 7 p.m. close.
- A record 2,827,060 Georgians voted early, and the state passed 3 million total ballots before noon on Tuesday.
- Black Georgians cast 889,780 early ballots in person, up 29 percent from the whole early period in 2022.
- Black voters under 30 surged 79 percent, and Black early voting rose in more than 145 of 159 counties.
- The Senate race and the governor race both hang on whose voters show up in the final hours.
1. Georgia Turnout Is Running Ahead of 2022
The early vote alone rewrote the Georgia record book.
Early voting ran from October 13 through October 30 across the state.
In that window, 2,827,060 Georgians cast ballots in person or by mail.
That total set a new midterm record for Georgia before Election Day even began.
The early total alone represents 37.5 percent of the Georgia voting population.
Add the Election Day pace, and Georgia passed 3 million ballots before noon on Tuesday.
In 2022, about 3.9 million Georgians voted in the midterms in total.
If the 1.2 million Election Day forecast holds, Georgia will finish right at that mark or above it.
Raffensperger, a Republican, presented the morning figures at a press conference in Atlanta.
His office also reported that about 1,000 early ballots in Fulton County will be rescanned.
The rescan follows an equipment issue with those ballots.
Raffensperger said the rescan will not affect the timeliness of the vote counts.
2. Black Voters Built the Georgia Early Vote
The engine under the record is Black Georgia.
Black Georgians cast 889,780 ballots early in person this year.
That is 29 percent more than the 685,478 cast in all of early voting in 2022.
Black voters made up 32.9 percent of the early vote in person, up from 30.0 percent in 2022.
More Black Georgians voted early in person on every one of the 18 days of early voting.
Each day beat the same day of the week in the last midterm cycle.
Black women cast 558,618 of those early ballots in person, up 31 percent from 2022.
Black men cast 331,044, up 27 percent.
The surge also brought back voters who had sat out the last midterm.
A total of 139,575 Black Georgians who were registered before 2022 but did not vote then cast early ballots this year.
The growth was not just an Atlanta story.
Black early voting rose in metro Atlanta, in other Georgia cities, in small towns and in rural counties.
It rose in more than 145 of the 159 counties in the state.
The pattern matches the wider Southern surge in Black early voting reported here on Monday.
Across the South, Black voters have cast more than 160,000 additional ballots compared with the same point in 2022.
3. Young Black Georgians Are the Surge Inside the Surge
One group stands out inside the Black turnout numbers.
Black Georgians under 30 cast 119,946 early ballots in person this year.
The same group cast 66,804 in all of early voting in 2022.
That is an increase of 79 percent, the largest jump of any age group in the state.
Young voters overall cast 304,239 early ballots in person, up 48 percent from 204,907 in 2022.
Voters under 30 made up 11.3 percent of the early vote in person, up from 9.0 percent.
The Black growth spanned every generation at the same time.
Black voters ages 30 to 44 rose 31 percent.
Black voters ages 45 to 64 rose 12 percent, and Black voters 65 and older rose 40 percent.
Young women cast 182,635 early ballots in person, up 58 percent.
Young men cast 121,369, up 35 percent.
Young early voting rose in all 15 counties with the most young registered voters.
The biggest percentage gains among young voters came in Gwinnett County and Clayton County.
Clayton County is a majority Black county south of Atlanta.
Its young voters are now voting like a bloc that expects to be courted, not ignored.
4. The Senate Race Runs Through Black Georgia
The top race on the Georgia ballot is the fight for the United States Senate.
Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff is seeking reelection against Republican Representative Mike Collins.
Ossoff is the only Democratic senator on the ballot this year in a state President Donald Trump won.
His first Senate victory in 2021 was powered by historic turnout among Black voters in Georgia.
His campaign spent this cycle trying to build that turnout again, on purpose and early.
Ossoff invested 3.6 million dollars in the state party coordinated campaign.
That operation opened 30 field offices and hired more than 140 staff members.
It is the biggest operation the Democratic Party of Georgia has ever built.
Recent polling put the approval rating of Ossoff at 55 percent.
That support included strong backing from independent voters.
It held up even after Republicans spent millions of dollars on ads against him.
Signs of his reach showed up in north Fulton County on Tuesday morning.
Several voters at the Robert E. Fulton Library in Johns Creek said they split their ballots.
They backed Republicans further down the ballot but voted for Ossoff for the Senate.
Those voters pointed to controversies around Collins as one reason they skipped his name.
Collins has faced accusations tied to white nationalist figures and a House ethics investigation.
5. The Governor Race Feels the Same Turnout Pressure
The governor race carries the same math.
Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, faces Republican Rick Jackson.
Late polls showed the two in a statistical tie.
A Bottoms victory would make her the first Black woman elected governor in American history.
That history was part of the historic firsts slate on the ballot across the country today.
Jackson, a billionaire businessman, warned his own party about the early numbers in plain terms.
“We have a serious issue here,” Jackson told reporters.
“People cannot solve a problem they are unaware of. And I think we waited a little bit too late to say, guys, we have a problem. We can lose this race, and you cannot take it for granted,” he said.
Jackson urged rural Republican voters to turn out in large numbers on Election Day.
Outgoing Governor Brian Kemp, who campaigned with Jackson, echoed the concern.
“They are seeing the numbers down there just like we are. But I do think people are waking up now,” Kemp said.
Rural areas that lean Republican trailed metro Atlanta in the early vote.
A Jackson win would extend a Republican winning streak in Georgia governor races that goes back to 2002.
President Donald Trump posted Election Day endorsements for both Jackson and Collins on Tuesday.
He also attacked Bottoms and Ossoff in those posts.
6. What to Watch in the Final Hours in Georgia
The last word now belongs to Election Day voters themselves.
Polls close at 7 p.m. Eastern, and anyone in line by then can still vote.
In Chatham County, home to Savannah, 22,677 ballots had been cast by 1:20 p.m.
The county counted 48,645 ballots on Election Day in 2022, so its afternoon pace matters.
Savannah Mayor Van Johnson made the coastal case for turnout at his Tuesday briefing.
“You cannot win without Savannah and coastal Georgia showing up,” Johnson said.
Fulton County voters also dealt with confusion on Tuesday morning.
Some voters received texts claiming their polling place had changed.
County officials said those texts did not come from the county.
Voters can confirm their polling place on the state My Voter Page or by calling the county at 404 612 7020.
All 14 Georgia seats in the House are also on the ballot.
So are races for lieutenant governor, secretary of state and attorney general.
Follow every Georgia and national result tonight on the UCP Election Tracker.
Whatever the final margins say, the turnout itself has already made its point.
Black Georgia showed up early, showed up young and showed up almost everywhere in the state.
Any candidate who wants to govern Georgia now has to reckon with that fact.
