Georgia’s early vote smashed records. Here’s what the 2.8M number reveals.
More Georgians voted early in a midterm than ever before, with a younger, more diverse electorate and stronger turnout in left-leaning areas fueling the record-breaking surge ahead of Tuesday’s election.
More than 2.8 million Georgians cast ballots before three weeks of early voting ended Friday, including a midterm record of 2.7 million in person. That represents 34% of Georgia’s 8.2 million registered voters. And, it’s a 13% increase from the 2022 midterm, which set records of its own.
The numbers can’t tell us how those Georgians voted or predict Tuesday’s outcome. But they offer the clearest picture yet of the electorate that’s deciding races for U.S. Senate, governor and a slate of statewide and legislative offices.
The stakes are enormous. U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff is fighting for a second term, Keisha Lance Bottoms is trying to become Georgia’s first Democratic governor in more than two decades, and Republicans are defending control of statewide offices and the Georgia Legislature.
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of the voter turnout data reveals a surge of newcomers and hundreds of thousands of Georgians who sat out the last midterm. It also shows voters who cast Democratic ballots in this year’s primaries turning out early in far greater numbers than their Republican counterparts.
The numbers have energized Democrats, who hope to sustain that momentum through Tuesday, while raising fresh concerns among Republicans counting on a strong Election Day turnout to close the gap.
Here are our takeaways from the final stretch of early voting.
Georgia’s early electorate is more diverse.
Georgia’s early electorate is growing more diverse, with voters of color claiming a larger share of the vote than in the last midterm election.
White voters account for 52.6% of the ballots cast so far, down from 58.2% at this point four years ago. Black voters make up 32.4%, up from 30.2% in 2022 and well above their 26.8% share at the same stage of the 2024 presidential election.
More than 104,000 Hispanic voters have cast early ballots, nearly doubling their share of the electorate from 2% in 2022 to 3.7% this year. Asian American voters account for 2.9%, up from 2%.
That matters politically. Black voters have powered Democratic victories in Georgia, while Latino voters are an increasingly important battleground for both parties.
Democratic-leaning areas are outpacing GOP strongholds.
The early-voting map has shifted toward Democratic strongholds compared with four years ago.
In 2022, precincts that would go on to strongly back Donald Trump in the 2024 election cast about 1,000 more early ballots than those that heavily supported Kamala Harris.
This year, the picture has flipped. Voters in heavily Harris precincts cast roughly 60,000 more early ballots than those in Trump strongholds.
There’s another telling gap. About 31% of registered voters in strong Harris precincts have already voted, compared with 28% in strong Trump precincts.
Democratic primary voters are showing up earlier.
There’s another sign of stronger early participation among Democratic-leaning voters.
Among Georgians who participated in this year’s partisan primaries, more than 883,000 who cast Democratic ballots have already voted in the general election, compared with nearly 644,000 who voted in Republican primaries.
That’s a gap of roughly 239,000 voters. But with split-ticket voting expected to play a major role, there’s no guarantee those voters are sticking with the same party in November.
And there’s another caveat: The figures include only Georgians who voted in this year’s primaries, leaving out hundreds of thousands of early voters who didn’t participate in those contests.
The early electorate has plenty of new faces.
More than 630,000 Georgians who sat out the 2022 midterm have already voted this year. That’s nearly 1 in 4 early voters, and they’re a much more diverse group than the electorate as a whole.
Only about 39% are white, compared with nearly 53% of all early voters. Roughly 36% are Black, while nearly 9% are Hispanic.
The numbers are particularly striking among Hispanic voters. More than half of those who have voted early this year skipped the 2022 midterm. So did 43% of Asian early voters.
There’s a potential partisan divide, too. An AJC analysis found about 37% of voters who skipped the last midterm cast ballots in areas that strongly backed Harris in 2024, compared with 25% in areas that heavily supported Trump.
Of course, these aren’t all first-time voters. Some participated in other elections, others have since moved to Georgia and still others were too young to vote four years ago.
Voting habits are shifting.
More Georgians are voting early in person rather than by mail, a sharp departure from the pandemic-era elections when absentee voting soared.
About 119,000 mail and electronic ballots have been accepted, accounting for just 4.2% of the early vote. That’s down from the 2022 midterm, when they made up nearly 9% of early ballots.
And it’s not just how Georgians are voting that’s changing. It’s when they vote, too.
More than 435,000 Georgians who waited until Election Day to vote in 2022 have already cast ballots this year. It’s a reminder that some of the early voters are simply changing their habits.
Younger voters are showing up, but older Georgians still dominate.
Georgia’s early electorate is a little less gray this year. More than 310,000 Georgians ages 18 to 29 voted early, accounting for 11% of the total. Their participation picked up in the final stretch of early voting.
And roughly two-thirds of those younger voters skipped the 2022 midterm. Some weren’t even old enough to vote four years ago.
But this is hardly a youth takeover. Voters 50 and older still account for nearly 65% of early ballots, underscoring how much Georgia’s elections continue to depend on older voters.
Younger Georgians may be gaining ground, but their parents and grandparents still make up the bulk of the electorate.
Metro Atlanta dominates but Republicans have bright spots.
The early voting landscape shows just how much of Georgia’s electorate is concentrated in Democratic-heavy metro Atlanta.
Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties accounted for nearly 40% of the state’s early vote, with more than 1.12 million ballots cast across the five counties.
Turnout climbed by double digits from 2022 in the racially diverse suburbs, where Democrats have steadily gained ground over the past decade.
It’s a different story across much of rural Georgia, where early turnout fell in many deep-red counties, sometimes sharply.
But Republicans have bright spots of their own. The GOP strongholds of Bartow, Cherokee and Hall counties all posted double-digit gains from 2022. And in Whitfield County, where Trump campaigned, early voting jumped nearly 25%.
Some of the county numbers are surprising, too. Deep-red Towns County leads the state in the share of registered voters who have cast ballots, at 48%. Oconee, Greene and Fayette counties aren’t far behind.
But compare this year’s early vote with the entire turnout from the 2022 midterm, and a different group of counties rises to the top.
In Henry County, voters have already cast the equivalent of 85% of all ballots counted there in 2022. The Democratic stronghold of Clayton County follows at 84%, with Rockdale County at 83%.
The early vote offers clues, not predictions.
For all the revealing numbers, there’s one big thing the data can’t tell us: who’s winning.
For starters, the figures show who voted, not how they voted. Georgia doesn’t register voters by party, and just because someone lives in a Democratic or Republican stronghold doesn’t mean they’ll support that party’s candidates.
And while early voting has shattered records, that doesn’t always mean overall turnout will follow suit. Some Georgians are simply casting ballots earlier rather than waiting until Tuesday.
There’s another reason for caution: Republicans tend to rely more heavily on Election Day turnout, when their supporters could help close the early-voting gap.
And both parties have plenty of voters left to mobilize.
Roughly 1.9 million registered voters in Trump strongholds have yet to cast ballots, along with about 1.8 million in Harris strongholds.
That’s a lot of Georgians who could still change the picture Tuesday.
