The Dalton shift? Georgia Democrats see early signs of a Latino rebound.
A few weeks before the special election in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, a folding table went up outside a Latino nightclub in Dalton where Democrat Shawn Harris’ supporters offered a simple deal to register to vote and get in free.
The first night, about 20 people signed up. The next time, it was 45. Now, the campaign is planning more voter registration drives ahead of the primary next month that could setup a rematch with Republican Clay Fuller in November.
The numbers are modest. But Latino leaders say the turnout is a sign of something bigger: a political shift taking hold in one of Georgia’s fastest-growing voting blocs, driven by hard-line immigration crackdowns that have rattled Whitfield County’s Hispanic community.
If 2024 was the story of Latino voters moving toward President Donald Trump on the economy, Whitfield County may be an early test of whether immigration enforcement — and the fallout from violent raids in Minneapolis — are pulling some of them back. Early returns suggest Democrats may be gaining traction.
“What happened in Minneapolis woke us up,” said Alex Vital, who owns one of the Dalton clubs that has hosted registration drives. “First it was anger. Then it was a realization that to change things you have to vote for Democrats.”
While Shawn Harris outperformed former Vice President Kamala Harris across the district in last week’s special election runoff, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis showed the gains were even more striking in the district’s most heavily Hispanic precincts.
In each of the six Whitfield County precincts with the largest Latino populations, Shawn Harris improved on the Democratic presidential margin by double digits.
It wasn’t enough to win, as those precincts still make up only small slices of a deeply Republican district. But the movement stands out because it runs against one of the defining political trends of 2024.
Latino voters nationwide shifted sharply toward Trump, helping fuel one of the GOP’s biggest demographic gains of the cycle. While Kamala Harris still won a majority of Latino voters, Trump captured a record Republican share — roughly in the mid-40s nationally, up more than 10 points from 2020.
That’s why Democrats see Whitfield County’s numbers as an indicator that Latino voters who drifted toward Trump in 2024 may be moving back.
Monica Caro, a Dalton financial adviser who only recently became politically active, said the fear of federal immigration raids at carpet mills feels like a “constant threat” shadowing the community.
“But it’s also a wake-up call,” she said. “A lot of Hispanics don’t want to vote because they think it doesn’t make a difference. But it does.”
‘Plants the seed’
The organizing effort is led by Andrea Nicole, a local real estate agent who acts as an informal liaison to the Hispanic community for Shawn Harris’ campaign.
“Some of these kids’ parents didn’t vote, but now they can. They see what’s happening with the raids, and they’re not OK with it,” said Nicole, who is already planning more voter registration events.
“It plants the seed. If you don’t grow up voting, you don’t have that tradition.”
Republicans are watching the trend with concern. State Rep. Kasey Carpenter, a Dalton restaurateur and one of the few Georgia Republicans who opposes his party’s hard-line immigration crackdowns, said the trend is unmistakable.
“That shift is definitely happening. And I’ve been screaming from the wilderness about this,” he said. “There’s going to be problems statewide if we don’t do a better job reaching out to Hispanic voters. We could lose every statewide race.”
That warning carries particular weight in Georgia. A recent Harvard University analysis found the state’s Hispanic population now tops 1 million, with roughly 485,000 eligible Latino voters — about 6% of the statewide electorate in 2024.
In a divided state where Trump’s victory margin was roughly 115,000 votes, even modest shifts in Latino turnout could prove decisive.
“We don’t have the luxury not to pay attention to what’s happening,” said Jerry Gonzalez of GALEO, a leading advocacy group for Georgia Latinos. “Whether it is the sagging economy and high prices for gas, food, housing and health care or the attacks against our communities through the indiscriminate use of force on immigrant communities — all of it impacts our families.”
Latino voters in Georgia still favored Democrats in 2024, with Kamala Harris winning the bloc 59% to 41%. But that margin narrowed from Joe Biden’s 62%-37% edge in 2020.
In other words, Democrats still maintain an advantage with Latino voters in Georgia. But Republicans made measurable gains last cycle, mirroring the national shift toward Trump.
Republicans argue those gains were rooted in economic concerns and a message that resonated beyond immigration politics.
Camille Solberg, a Latina advocate with the Georgia Republican Trust, said many Hispanic voters embraced what she described as the “opportunity created by conservative leadership and the strong business climate it brings.”
“Voters think Washington is broken, but they know Georgia is on the right track,” Solberg said. “We’re not taking any voter for granted. We’ll fight for every vote in the Latino community with a credible message on good jobs, safe communities, options in education and family values.”
For Carpenter, though, the tilt is particularly vexing because he once helped persuade many conservative Latino voters in Dalton to back Trump, drawn by the president’s promise to target the “worst of the worst” immigrants in the country illegally while sparing others.
“And then I had to eat crow,” he said. “Now, I just hope the shift we’re about to see isn’t forever.”
In his view, Republican gains with Latino voters on taxes, the economy and cultural issues could quickly erode if hard-edged immigration enforcement strategies get personal.
“They may agree with you on 90% of issues,” Carpenter said of Latino voters. “But if you haul their aunt off, they just aren’t going to vote for you.”
A ‘snowball effect?’
Now Whitfield County may be an early sign that the pendulum is moving again.
Maria Salaices still remembers being pulled out of elementary school in Whitfield County in the 1980s to translate for Spanish-speaking parents as the region’s carpet mills began attracting a growing Latino workforce.
Now, Whitfield is 38% Latino — with Spanish-language classes, social services and community infrastructure that barely existed when she was a child. And Salaices, now a paralegal, says the political mood in the community is shifting.
“We Latino voters tend to be more conservative. We aligned with older Republican ideas,” she said. “But now people are more independent and less likely to attach themselves to a party label.”
She said recent immigration arrests and deportations have changed the conversation in Dalton-area neighborhoods.
“I’ve seen people arrested who are nonviolent, being detained and deported. Families are being separated,” she said. “And we can’t ignore what we’re seeing.”
The community response has been unmistakable. Vital wasn’t politically active himself until a few years ago, writing off Trump’s first term threats as mere “crazy” words. But fears of heavy-handed tactics from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have galvanized the community.
“We used to just mind our own business. Now the Hispanic community in Dalton has really come together,” Vital, whose Dejavu Social Club has become one of those gathering spots, said. “It’s a snowball effect. It’s no longer enough just to post on social media. Finally, the Hispanic community is taking action.”
Data editor Charles Minshew contributed to this report.
About the Author
Greg Bluestein is the Atlanta Journal Constitution's chief political reporter. He is also an author, TV analyst and co-host of the Politically Georgia podcast.
