Early voting ended in Georgia with a record 4 million ballots cast before Election Day, a huge turnout featuring many first-time voters, women and voters over 50 years old.
Nearly 3.8 million people voted in person during three weeks of early voting, including a crush of 292,000 voters on Friday, the final day. Another 242,000 voters have returned absentee ballots to push the swing state over the 4 million mark.
No votes will be counted until Tuesday, so it’s impossible to know whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump is leading in Georgia. But both campaigns can point to encouraging signs.
The heavy turnout — more than half the state’s active voters — featured a late surge in the heavily Democratic metro Atlanta. The left-leaning strongholds of Cobb, DeKalb and Fulton counties all finished ahead of the state turnout average.
But Republicans are also cheering the turnout boom. After long neglecting early voting, Trump’s campaign and its allies have pushed voters to the polls, and some Republican-friendly bastions also paced at record levels.
With many of the most reliable Georgia voters already casting their ballots, both campaigns can now shift their full attention toward turning out their core supporters and others who aren’t regular voters.
That’s one reason why both campaigns plan a busy itinerary in Georgia this weekend. Harris and her running-mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are both holding major rallies on Saturday and Sunday. Trump and vice presidential nominee JD Walz have events in Georgia scheduled Sunday and Monday.
Here are several other early voting trends:
- More than 834,000 of this year’s early voters didn’t participate in the 2020 election, a group that includes new Georgia residents and voters who turned 18 during the past four years.
- Women are outpacing men in Georgia, accounting for 56% of voters so far in the election.
- Older voters dominated early voting, accounting for 58% of overall turnout so far, a higher rate than their 45% of all registered voters in Georgia.
- White voters made up 58% of Georgia’s early turnout, more than their 51% share of the state’s registered voters. Black voters were 26% of early participants, lower than their 30% statewide share. But a significant number of the 10% of voters who listed their race as “other” are also likely voters of color.
Senior Republicans acknowledge that the data shows Democratic-leaning voters “came on strong” in the final days of early voting, when turnout was particularly heavy in densely populated metro Atlanta, home to more than half the electorate.
Brandon Phillips, a veteran Republican consultant who was Trump’s top Georgia campaign aide in 2016, said his data modeling suggests a slight GOP edge. But he said more likely Democratic votes will trickle in through the weekend as mail-in ballots are processed.
A veteran operative close to the Harris campaign said there was Democrats were particularly optimistic about the turnout from Black voters, which ended early voting around the same in-person level it hit in 2020.
While turnout lagged the state average in other Democratic-friendly counties, particularly deep-blue Clayton County, the operative said the campaign is likely to put a greater emphasis on get-out-the-vote efforts for Election Day in those areas.
Early and absentee turnout this year was 3% higher than in 2020. By the time all votes were counted after Election Day four years ago, more than 5 million ballots had been cast.
If more than 1 million people show up on Tuesday, Georgia will break its previous turnout record from 2020.
Absentee ballots must be received at election offices by 7 p.m. Tuesday, with the exception of absentee ballots by military personnel, overseas voters and more than 3,000 Cobb County voters who received their absentee ballots late. Those absentee ballots will be counted if they’re postmarked by Election Day and received at election offices by Friday.
Voters won’t have to wait long on election night to find out which candidates these 4 million early voters chose.
All early votes and absentee ballots returned by Monday must be publicly reported within one hour of polls closing on election night, according to a new state law. Election Day vote counts will then pour in over the next few hours.
By the end of election night, almost all ballots will be counted, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the winner will be known. Those overseas, military, provisional and absentee ballots due by Friday could make a difference in a close race.
