As many of you know from following other news, or from reading Murphy’s or my own posts on the subject, early in-person voting in Georgia is through the roof this year, doubling the record set for off-year elections in 2018 and only a few thousand short of the precedent destroying massive 2020 vote, which turned Georgia blue for the first time since Bill Clinton ran his first time in 1992.
From what I’ve read, turn out among African American men leads this surge, but that is likely due to the fact that African American women, and women in General, were so thoroughly mobilized in ‘18 and 2020.
There is one notable and pleasant to contemplate exception to this trend however, and that is Northwest Georgia, which overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump in the last election.
The counties highlighted in the map at the top of this post returned these numbers for the orange colostomy bag in 2020:
County/ Trump Vote
Dale – 81.46%
Walker – 78.89%
Catoosa – 77.14%
Murray – 84.08%
Chattanooga – 80.21%
Gordon – 80.71%
Floyd – 69.88%
Barton – 74.62%
Polk – 78.09%
Paulding – 63.82%
The Chattanooga Times Free Press has this to say about the numbers:
“Georgia election officials this week marked a sizable boost in turnout as early voting started Monday in advance of the Nov. 8 election — an 85% increase.
“We had 131,000 people show up to vote,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in an announcement. “Almost double what we had for the gubernatorial race four years ago.”
But local elections officials in Northwest Georgia reported not nearly so enthusiastic a boost in turnout — a trend that could bode poorly for Republican candidates given the heavy red tilt of the area. Officials in Catoosa and Walker counties told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that turnout on the first day of early voting was about the same as the last midterm election, in 2018.
Tonya Moore, elections director for Catoosa County, said that at this point in early voting four years ago, 812 had voted, while 887 voted Monday, the first day of early voting.“
So, early in person votes are coming in in numbers essentially equal to the historically high turnout of the 2020 Presidential year of 2020 in blue areas of Georgia, which doubled the early vote of the off-year of 2018, while remaining mostly stagnant in the state’s reddest region.
Republicans do tend to vote more than Dems on Election Day, but there is likely not enough of them to counter this strong surge of Democratic voters.
The strong showing is, of course, very good news for Democrats – who need to Hold on to Reverend Warnock’s Senate Seat to remain in control of that chamber, and need to capture the Governor’s Chair for Stacey Abrams to fend off any potential electoral chicanery in 2024’s Presidential contest.
We’re off to a good start, but now is no time to let up on the gas!
Oh shyt, ” orange colostomy bag” 💀…..🤣😂🤣🤣
🤣
I like it. Simpler and more evocative/hard-hitting than my own often used “flaming orange human shaped rectum.”
Whole heap of Democrat early voters in a state wanting to nix as many voting rights as possible: am I the only one seeing a problem here? GA is going to be under a microscope and I’m hoping that limits the opportunities for shenanigans but I guess we’ll have to see. I just see problems in all the red states. The unsavory characters can do their unsavory things and given Biden’s approval numbers, nobody will think voting irregularities with regard to ‘pubes making big gains in Congress. Never mind the ‘pubes blew their whole damned legs off Dobbs, thomas and birth control, etc.
From your keyboard to Goddess’ eyes.
Make it so.
The only reason white Georgians won’t back.Abrams is that she is Black. Racism and misogyny, pure and simple.