What to expect in Georgia on Election Day

WASHINGTON (AP) — Georgia voters are once again expected to play a pivotal role in the presidential election on Nov. 5, even as many are focusing on recovering and rebuilding from the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene.

Both Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump have visited Georgia in recent weeks to survey the damage and meet with affected residents and local officials. The exact magnitude of Helene’s impact on the election, including on the state’s voting infrastructure, is difficult to assess and won’t likely be fully understood until after Election Day.

Georgia nonetheless remains one of the top prizes in the presidential election. The state played a key role in 2020, when Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since Bill Clinton in 1992. Biden defeated Trump in Georgia by less than a quarter of a percentage point, a margin of 11,779 votes.

Trump’s efforts to overturn those results are at the heart of an ongoing criminal case in Fulton County, although it’s currently on hold while the former president’s legal team pursues a pre-trial appeal to have District Attorney Fani Willis removed from the case and the indictment tossed. The Georgia Court of Appeals will hear those arguments after the election. Willis is seeking another term as Fulton County’s top prosecutor and will appear on the November ballot, facing Republican attorney Courtney Kramer.

Georgia’s governor and U.S. senators are not up for election this year, while all 14 U.S. House seats are not considered competitive. In the state Legislature, where Republicans control both chambers, all 56 state Senate and 180 state House seats are up for election. Democrats hope to chip away at the Republican majorities but have not listed the Georgia Legislature as a top target in November, as they have in a handful of other states.

Here’s a look at what to expect in the 2024 election in Georgia:

Nov. 5.

7 p.m. ET.

16 awarded to statewide winner.

President: Harris (D) vs. Trump (R) vs. Chase Oliver (Libertarian) vs. Jill Stein (Green).

U.S. House, Atlanta Judicial Circuit District Attorney, state Senate, state House and ballot measures.

Georgia state law allows county elections officials to begin tabulating mail ballots at 7 a.m. on Election Day. As a result, the first votes reported on election night will include much of these mail ballots as well as early in-person votes. Overall, these ballots have tended to favor Democrats, ever since the issue of early and mail voting became highly politicized during the 2020 election. This suggests that the Democratic candidate in a competitive contest could take an early lead in the vote count in the initial vote reports after polls close, even though the race may tighten considerably as more votes are tabulated.

In the 2022 U.S. Senate race, for example, Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock took a lead of about 40 percentage points over Republican Herschel Walker after the first batches of votes were released after polls closed, but the vote margin dipped to below 1 percentage point after about two hours and remained there for the rest of the count and through certification. Mail and early in-person votes accounted for about 64% of all ballots in that election.

In September, Georgia’s State Election Board adopted a new rule requiring poll workers to hand count the number of paper ballots cast at their polling site. Critics worried the last-minute rule change could create chaos in local elections offices and significantly delay the vote-counting process. A Fulton County Superior Court judge blocked the rule in October.

In statewide elections, Republicans tend to perform best in the smaller, more rural counties in the northern, central and southeastern regions of the state, while Democrats post their best numbers in the population centers of Atlanta, Augusta, Columbus, Macon, Savannah and Athens.

In particular, the counties in the Atlanta area typically are vital to a statewide victory but for different reasons. Fulton and DeKalb are overwhelmingly Democratic, giving Biden 73% and 83% of the vote in 2020. Hillary Clinton also carried both counties overwhelmingly in 2016 but with 69% and 81% of the vote, respectively. She lost Georgia to Trump.

Cobb and Gwinnett counties are more competitive but have both swung Democratic in recent elections. Barack Obama lost both counties in both of his campaigns, while Clinton narrowly carried the two with 49% and 51% of the vote, respectively. Biden did considerably better in 2020, winning 56% and 59% of the vote in the two counties. Trump doesn’t need to win the counties to win the state, as long as he can hold Harris to Clinton 2016 levels rather than to Biden 2020 levels.

The Associated Press doesn’t make projections and will declare a winner only when it has determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap. If a race hasn’t been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, like candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear it hasn’t declared a winner and explain why.

There is no automatic recount provision in Georgia, but a losing candidate may request a recount if the margin is less than or equal to 0.5% of the total vote. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is eligible for a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

2020: Biden (D) 49.5%, Trump (R) 49.3%, AP race call: Thursday, Nov. 19, 2020, 7:58 p.m. ET.

Registered voters: 8,243,104 (as of Oct. 17, 2024).

Voter turnout in 2020 presidential election: 65% of registered voters.

Votes cast before Election Day 2020: about 80% of the total vote.

Votes cast before Election Day 2022: about 64% of the total vote.

Votes cast before Election Day 2024: See AP Advance Vote tracker.

First votes reported, Nov. 3, 2020: 7:20 p.m. ET.

By midnight ET: about 77% of total votes cast were reported.

Associated Press writers Rebecca Reynolds, Adam Yeomans and Maya Sweedler contributed to this report.

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Read more about how U.S. elections work at Explaining Election 2024, a series from The Associated Press aimed at helping make sense of the American democracy. The AP receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.