As the 2024 presidential election heads into its final days, all signs in Georgia continue to point to a tight race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recent history in the Peach State and early voting trends offer encouragement as well as cause for concern to both sides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Republican Trump carried Georgia in 2016 by more than 200,000 votes over Democrat Hillary Clinton on his way to the White House, cementing Georgia\u2019s longstanding reputation as a part of Red State America. But since then, Democrat Joe Biden won Georgia\u2019s 16 electoral votes over Trump in 2020 by a razor-thin margin of fewer than 12,000 votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Georgia also has two Democratic U.S. senators, with the elections of Jon Ossoff in a January 2021 runoff and Raphael Warnock both in the 2021 runoff and again in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those statewide victories by Democrats were made possible by demographic changes, said Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia. The state\u2019s growing ethnic diversity has helped Democrats, since minority groups including Blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans tend to vote mostly for Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s also been increasing geographic diversity, with new residents moving in from other parts of the country with large concentrations of Democratic voters, Bullock said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey\u2019re coming from New England, California, Chicago,\u201d he said. \u201cThe people moving to Georgia are less likely to be Republican than the people who are here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite those trends, Georgia remains a Republican state, said Kerwin Swint, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University. He pointed to GOP Gov. Brian Kemp\u2019s solid reelection victory over Democrat Stacey Abrams two years ago, wins by every other statewide Republican elected official on the same 2022 ballot, and the comfortable majorities Republicans hold in the Georgia House and Senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re competitive,\u201d Swint said. \u201cA Democrat can win statewide, but the trending still benefits Republicans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The record early voting turnout in Georgia shows unprecedented enthusiasm for voting this year. More than half of the state\u2019s active voters already had cast their ballots through Thursday, the next-to-last day of the early voting period, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Such a large turnout isn\u2019t surprising considering Georgia\u2019s status as one of seven swing states in the presidential race means voters have been bombarded relentlessly by Trump and Harris campaign ads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The constant ads and frequent rallies headlining the two candidates have combined to gin up emotion in this year\u2019s contest, as has the feeling voters have expressed that the stakes in the 2024 race are particularly high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA lot of people feel strongly about their candidate or dislike the other,\u201d said state Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, who chairs the Senate\u2019s Democratic Caucus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n