Georgia shatters midterm early voting record as Election Day nears

Georgia voters shattered the state’s midterm record for in-person early voting Thursday, another sign of intense interest in an election that will set the battleground state’s political trajectory.

More than 2.29 million Georgians have cast ballots in person, according to state data, passing the previous midterm record set in 2022. And there is another full day of early voting still to go.

The surge is still short of the roughly 3.76 million Georgians who voted early in person during the 2024 presidential election.

Plus, the pool of eligible voters is about 5% larger this year than it was in 2022. Georgia had 7.8 million registered voters in 2022, compared with 8.2 million registered voters this year.

Still, the turnout marks a milestone in a cycle with nationally watched races for governor, U.S. Senate and other statewide offices. The three-week early voting period ends Friday.

Energized Democrats are crowing about strong participation in left-leaning parts of the state, including double-digit increases from this stage in 2022 across much of metro Atlanta.

Republicans, meanwhile, are sounding alarms about sluggish voting in deep-red rural Georgia.

At Wednesday night’s rally with former President Barack Obama in Morrow, Democratic nominee for governor Keisha Lance Bottoms pointed to the swelling numbers as evidence of growing momentum.

“We are well on our way to shattering records for any midterm in this state’s history,” she told thousands of supporters.

But Republicans have bright spots of their own, particularly in fast-growing Cherokee County and parts of northwest Georgia where President Donald Trump recently campaigned.

The data paint a portrait of a different sort of electorate.

Black voters account for about 32% of early ballots, a larger share than at the same stage of the 2022 midterms. Women make up more than 56% of early voters, also slightly ahead of four years ago.

And more than 460,000 Georgians who have already voted didn’t cast a ballot in the 2022 midterms, according to the GeorgiaVotes tracking website.

That’s roughly 1 in 5 early voters, including younger Georgians who weren’t eligible to vote four years ago, newcomers to the state and others who simply sat out that election.