Early voting turnout in Georgia is breaking records. More than 131,000 Georgia residents have cast their ballots since early voting began on Monday. That number is 85 percent higher than the turnout in 2018, the last time Georgia voters had a chance to vote in a midterm election. Georgia’s early voting numbers are nearly as high as the turnout for the 2020 presidential election, 136,739. When you add in the 11,759 absentee ballots cast on Monday, the total number of votes cast in Georgia so far is 143,077, higher than the early vote in 2020.
With three weeks to go until voting day for the midterms, this is a very good sign. Higher turnouts tend to favor Democrats, and there are some very important races at stake in the state. The Georgia Senate race, with Raphael Warnock opposing former football star Herschel Walker, is right at the top of the list. That race has tightened recently, with Walker turning his honorary police badge – which are frequently handed out by small town police forces to celebrities – to his advantage. He hauled it out at a recent debate and waved it around until a moderator had to yell at him to put his “prop” away, which Walker did with a big smile on his face. He had made his point, as Warnock stood at his podium silent while the spectacle transpired.
The other race that’s tight is for governor, with Democrat Stacey Abrams challenging the Republican incumbent, Brian Kemp. Abrams has had trouble breaking through Kemp’s hold on the lead which stands at about 7 points. The Warnock-Walker race is a dead heat, 46 to 46 percent. Abrams has led a state-wide voting rights and registration effort called Fair Fight Action that she hopes will increase voter participation and fight efforts by Republicans to make voting harder in the state.
All of this means that turnout is even more important than it was in 2020, when Warnock squeezed his way into the Senate in a run-off election in January of 2021 after results on election day did not produce a majority winner.
If the Georgia early turnout is an indicator of how early voting will go around the country, this may be a better election year for Democrats than expected.
We can hope, right?
I early voted by absentee ballot, and where I could, voted for a Democrat. In Maine that means Janet Mills and Jarden Golden (although I picked Tiffany Bond as first choice in our ranked-choice voting). The old Republican warhorses, Paul LePage and Bruce Poliquin are running for their old jobs back and I don't think they're going to win-because Mills led Maine through a pandemic without a huge loss of life, with a huge rainy day fund intact, and having given every Mainer a $850.00 check as a way of saying "We've got this!"
Republicans are hoping that women don't vote, but if any woman sees the powerful ad that Eric Swalwell ran on his Twitter account she's gonna vote against any Republican in office or running for it.
You want to watch it? Here's the link. It'll knock one for a loop-it's that powerful. The right wing is upset because it depicts exactly what will happen if the GOP has their way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQT2SJSdwyE
You bet voting is already at a high peak here in Georgia. My local library had run out of parking spaces for two days!!!