Polls have closed in Atlanta for Tuesday's runoff elections. Follow AJC.com for complete Georgia election runoff results and live election night updates from the AJC politics team.
Original story:
As voters trickled into a Buckhead polling location Tuesday morning, a woman across the street collected some signs for Casey Cagle and crumpled them into a ball.
The Republican candidate for Georgia governor didn’t have her support, and she wouldn’t be voting in the runoff elections anyway. The woman, who declined to give her full name, said she really just didn’t want those signs on the corner near her home.
Regardless of why she disposed of the signs, Matt Carlucci likely wouldn’t have opposed her actions. The lawyer arrived at Brighton Gardens of Buckhead to cast his vote for Brian Kemp — albeit somewhat begrudgingly.
“Not an ideal choice in my mind for either, but that’s who we got,” he said. “Despite some of the commercials ... out there, I think (Kemp) is the more mainstream, traditional Republican.”
The New Jersey native described Kemp as a well-respected Secretary of State with experience who is “ready to take over.”
Carlucci didn't like that Cagle was the "driving force behind shutting out Delta after the whole NRA thing," referring to how the lieutenant governor promised to "kill" any legislation that would benefit Delta Air Lines after it cut ties with the gun rights group. President Donald Trump's endorsement of Kemp didn't hold weight with Carlucci, who described himself as "not a Trump Republican."
“I was a pretty moderate, middle of the road Republican just hoping that you get someone that’s kind of your traditional Conservative, and then all this Trump stuff started,” he said. “We gotta kind of clean up our party and figure out what’s going on and move forward.”
READ | Understanding Tuesday's GOP runoff for Georgia governor
READ | Here's a look at key contests in Georgia primary runoff
While Republican Party voters will decide their nominees for governor, lieutenant governor and secretary of state, Democratic Party voters will choose candidates for state schools superintendent and the U.S. House of Representatives.
Several primary races in May resulted in no candidate receiving a majority of the vote, and runoffs are required in Georgia when non candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote. The winners of the runoffs advance to the Nov. 6 general election.
Earlier in the morning, Atlanta Municipal Court Judge Calvin Graves stood outside the Peachtree Hills Recreation Center. He was waiting for the doors to open at 7 a.m. so he could vote before going in to work.
Graves said he’d taken a look at the sample ballot and was interested in the judge’s race, being a judge himself. Kevin Farmer and Fani Willis are vying for a seat on Atlanta Superior Court; the winner will replace Judge Tom Campbell.
However, he said, that wasn’t what what got him “up and going alone.”
“I woke up this morning and I wasn’t clicking my heels — I’m not a teenager anymore — but I thought about the people, especially African-Americans, who have suffered so that we have a right to vote,” Graves said. He declined to elaborate on who he’s voting for, citing the ethical responsibility for judges to remain nonpartisan.
See the Fulton County Republican, Democrat and nonpartisan sample ballots.
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