Georgia Republicans appear to be convinced that the state’s record-breaking early voting turnout will benefit their 2024 presidential choice.
“It’s been record turnout, something unbelievable — voting from all across the state,” Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones told Fox News Digital. “I think the enthusiasm, the momentum, is with President Trump.”
The former commander in chief lost Georgia by less than 1% in 2020, and Republicans have devoted significant effort and resources to reclaiming it on November 5.
A key element of that campaign has been persuading people to vote early, which has generally been more popular among Democrats.
And both parties’ emphasis on early voting has had a significant impact. Between October 15 and November 1, approximately 4 million Georgians cast in-person or absentee ballots, accounting for more than half of the state’s registered voters.
According to Georgia Votes, more than 700,000 persons who voted in 2024 did not vote in 2020.
Meanwhile, the top three counties for voting turnout are rural areas that Trump won in 2020.
Jones contended that both of these criteria were advantageous to the former president.
“Many voters who voted in 2016 did not vote in 2020.” What leads me to believe they are Trump supporters is that the majority of them are from Republican-leaning areas of the state,” he said.
“You start breaking down where they live, where they were historically as far as the Republican cards they pulled in the past, and, like I said, the on-the-ground enthusiasm for [Trump] right now is pretty off the charts.”
When asked why he feels some of Trump’s supporters did not vote in 2020 but are now voting, Jones replied, “I’ll be honest with you. I believe that many people simply assumed that the president had the 2020 election won.
“Sometimes I wonder if that false sense of security might have hurt us back in 2020.”
Nonetheless, it will be difficult to determine how effectively Republicans’ early voting campaign worked until after Election Day.
According to Georgia Votes, Hispanic voters made up the greatest group of individuals who voted early in 2024 but did not vote at all in 2020, accounting for 37.6% of the total.
This is followed by Asian voters (33.7%), Black voters (19.1%), and White voters (17.7%).
Around 2.6 million individuals, or roughly 72% of those who voted early in 2024, did the same in 2020.
About 8.3%, or slightly more than 305,000 people, voted early in 2024 after voting on Election Day in 2020.
