Georgia’s Close Governor’s Race Drives Record Early Voting

Nearly 3 million people had voted in person or by mail in Georgia’s midterms by Sunday, Nov. 1, as campaigns pressed voters to turn out in a close governor’s race. The contest runs on familiar machinery: endorsements, turnout operations and appeals to party loyalty. Voters being mobilized hear the same message: every vote is decisive.

Record turnout, unevenly distributed

Overall, 37.5% of Georgia’s voting population had voted early, including more than 836,000 Black voters and 163,156 voters under age 25, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. By Thursday afternoon, early voting had already passed the 2022 midterm figure, with a day and a half left.

Turnout didn’t reach every part of the state evenly. DeKalb County led the Atlanta metro area, with 47.1% of its population voting early, while rural counties recorded significantly lower turnout. Some of those counties voted for Trump in all three presidential elections. Metro Atlanta counties supplied most of the high turnout, and young and Black voters—groups the article described as tending to lean Democratic—also voted early at higher rates.

The numbers don’t settle the race. In previous elections, Democrats turned out at higher rates early, while Republicans dominated on Election Day. If that pattern repeats, current trends could shift as Republicans vote. Polls since the candidates were selected have shown a close contest: Keisha Lance Bottoms led by 1 or 2% in some months, while Rick Jackson led in others. The race stayed within the margin of error, and Election Day turnout and undecided voters could still sway it.

The campaign asks for obedience to the ballot

Jackson, a healthcare CEO, self-made billionaire and Republican nominee for governor, returned to his hometown of Cumming on Sunday night and urged supporters to keep working for votes. President Trump and Gov. Brian Kemp both endorsed him. He is running against Bottoms, Atlanta’s former Democratic mayor, who served a single term before taking a position in the Joe Biden White House. Bottoms won her primary by a solid margin; Jackson faced Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in a Republican primary runoff.

“None of this happens just because we had a great plan. It happens because we win, and we win because people vote,” Jackson told the crowd. “The race is close, we cannot take a single vote for granted.” He told supporters to carry the crowd’s energy “out those doors.” The appeal was direct: turn campaign enthusiasm into votes for the candidate seeking control of the governor’s office.

Trump had told voters to “pretend (he’s) on the ballot.” Jackson appeared with Trump at three recent visits to Georgia, but references to the president on Jackson’s website had changed in recent weeks, and Jackson hadn’t mentioned him in public remarks. Trump’s approval rating is particularly low in Georgia, so Jackson and other down-ballot Republicans urged supporters not to focus on him.

The next campaign is already in the pitch

Rick McCormick, an incumbent U.S. Representative for Georgia’s 7th district and a candidate for reelection, said Republicans were behind. He urged voters angry with Trump or supportive of Burt Jones in the primary not to “throw the out the baby with the bathwater.” He framed the election as a matter of “their children and their children’s children.”

McCormick also said the midterm would determine how the 2028 presidential election was handled, when positions such as Secretary of State would be on the ballot. During the 2020 election, Trump called then-Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” an additional 11,000 or so votes to swing the election in his favor. McCormick said, “This fight is never going to be over,” and described the next election campaign as the work that would follow this one.

Greg Dolezal, the Republican running for lieutenant governor, warned that Republicans considering staying home to protest the Trump Administration could help send Bottoms to the governor’s mansion. Sonny Perdue called the race the “most consequential election I can remember.” Jackson’s closing instruction was one more conversation, one more phone call, and one more person brought to the polls. The campaigns present a ballot as the immediate lever of power, with another campaign waiting as soon as this one ends.