For much of the last decade, it was Republicans who questioned the integrity of Georgia’s elections. Now a growing share of Democrats are voicing doubts of their own.

In the latest Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll, more than one-third of Democratic primary voters say they’re either “not so confident” or “not at all confident” that the 2026 primary will be conducted fairly and accurately.

That’s more than double the share from October 2024, when just 16% of Democrats said they lacked faith in the election system.

Meanwhile, 80% of likely GOP primary voters say they have faith in the integrity of next year’s vote, and only 6% say they’re not confident at all. It’s almost the inverse of where the parties stood last year, when as many as two-thirds of GOP voters expressed doubts about Georgia’s elections.

Interviews with Democratic poll respondents pointed to a range of worries including President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential results, ongoing GOP efforts to revamp the state’s election rules and, on the national level, battles to redraw congressional district lines to favor Republicans.

The finding raises new questions about how both parties navigate an electorate skeptical of Georgia’s elections.

It could also force Democrats to rethink how they message to their own voters. Stephanie Hobbs pointed to last year’s efforts by pro-Trump officials to tighten absentee ballot rules and other steps that critics warned could sow doubt about the 2024 vote’s outcome.

“I’m not one of those people who think the vote is rigged. But there are a lot of things going on that concern me,” said Hobbs, a north DeKalb educator.

“I don’t think there’s a huge conspiracy, but I am worried about ballot access. I know stuff is going on because politicians just can’t play fair. It makes me want to throw up.”

Other voters planning to cast ballots in next year’s Democratic primary cited ongoing redistricting fights that have tilted maps to favor Republicans.

While both parties gerrymander political boundaries when they hold power, Trump has been urging GOP-led states to redraw districts before next year’s midterm to secure a partisan edge. Democrats in California and other left-leaning states are responding with their own cartographic overhauls.

“My issues with the confidence in our voting system have nothing to do with the integrity of poll workers. It has everything to do with the constant barrage of efforts to manipulate voting based on districting,” said Booker Daniels of Gwinnett County.

“I’m astonished to see the breadth and depth we’ve seen in other states.”

A familiar divide

The partisan split over election confidence is far from the only example of asymmetry in the AJC poll.

It also revealed sharp split-screen contrasts on Trump’s approval ratings, the direction of the country and the state, key parts of the president’s agenda and the outlook for the economy.

It’s almost as if Republicans and Democrats are living in entirely different political realities — with GOP voters now far more optimistic about the year ahead and Democrats far more pessimistic. That’s a notable reversal from just a year ago, when President Joe Biden was in office and Democrats held a rosier view while Republicans overwhelmingly believed the nation was hurtling toward a cliff.

But voting rights battles carry particular weight in Georgia, which has spent the better part of the last decade at the center of national fights over ballot access.

As secretary of state, Brian Kemp clashed with Democrat Stacey Abrams — who was then building a reputation as a national voting rights advocate — over election laws during the 2018 race for governor. After Kemp’s narrow victory, Abrams refused to formally concede, though she acknowledged the Republican had won.

Georgia’s elections were back under the national microscope in 2020, when Trump falsely claimed the vote was “rigged” and pressured Kemp and other GOP officials to overturn the result. He and his allies never proved widespread fraud. Multiple vote counts, investigations and court cases reaffirmed Biden’s narrow victory.

When the governor and other top Republican officials rejected Trump’s demands, he tried to replace them with loyalists who echoed his false claims of fraud. The challenges to Kemp and other GOP incumbents floundered, though pro-Trump figures won down-ticket posts and gained influence inside the state party.

The fallout continues to define Georgia politics. Many of the leading contenders for the state’s top offices were forged by that clash, either because they resisted Trump’s pressure or because they backed his push to undo Biden’s win.

That memory still lingers with voters like Anita Byrd, a military veteran. She once expressed full confidence in Georgia’s elections, and the fight over the 2020 results even inspired her to start brushing up on government civics and political history. But she hasn’t forgotten Trump’s pressure campaign.

“In 2020, Trump kept trying to find extra votes. And if it wasn’t for the fact that all eyes were on Georgia, I bet something would have happened,” she said.