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By Katherine Fung
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The first in-person votes have been cast in the critical swing state of Georgia, and both campaigns are likely looking for encouraging signs from the latest numbers. But who has been voting? And what does that mean for the race for the White House?
On Tuesday, Georgia broke the record set for the first day of early voting, after voters cast 415,688 ballots, according to the secretary of state's election data hub. The previous record, set in 2020, was 136,000 votes on the first day of early voting. The tracker is updated at the end of every day, after polls close at 5 p.m.
Audrey Haynes, an associate political science professor at the University of Georgia, told Newsweek the record-breaking numbers suggest that Republicans have bought into early voting and mobilized GOP voters to vote by mail or by absentee ballots.
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Polls show a dead heat in Georgia. Former President Donald Trump has a 1-point lead over Vice President Kamala Harris, according to FiveThirtyEight's tracker, while RealClearPolitics shows Trump with an even narrower advantage, just half a point ahead of Harris. Still, both predictions are within the margin of error.
Here's what we know from the first day of early voting:
County-by-County Breakdown
Fulton County, the state's most populous county, cast the highest number of votes on Tuesday, with over 43,000 ballots. Cobb County cast more than 29,600 ballots, while DeKalb County had some 27,000 votes and Gwinnett County had nearly 21,800 votes.
Those four counties, which all voted for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election, made up nearly a third of the ballots cast on Day One of early voting. Biden saw the smallest margin of victory in Cobb County, which he carried with 56.3 percent of the vote.
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Although forecasters and pundits are focused on swing states, there are also swing counties that could help a candidate clinch a state's electoral votes. One of these is Cobb County, an Atlanta suburb that has historically leaned Republican but trended Democratic in recent elections. It was a key driver of Biden's win in Georgia, a state he carried by a narrow margin.
"Cobb is a competitive county," Haynes said. "Voting in that county is on par with a competitive race."
The next three counties with the highest early voting turnout, however, are all solidly Trump counties. Located just outside the Atlanta metro, Cherokee County went for Trump with 68.8 percent of the vote in 2020, Forsyth County with 65.8 percent and Hall County with 70.9 percent. The three counties cast a total of 36,960 ballots, just under 9 percent of all votes cast on Georgia's first day of early voting.
Good News for Trump or Harris?
Although the high turnout in blue counties could seem to show Harris may defy the odds in Georgia's polls, experts say there isn't anything to celebrate yet.
"The early vote is encouraging, but Democrats should not be popping the Champagne," Doug Gordon, a Democratic strategist and co-CEO of UpShift Strategies, told Newsweek.
"There are simply too many unknowns this early. And comparison to 2020 numbers, when we held an election in the middle of a once in a lifetime pandemic, may prove to be unwise once the dust settles and we have the full results from this election," he said.
Gordon said Democrats have had a fantastic turnout operation in Georgia but pointed out that Governor Brian Kemp, who has pledged to go all in for Trump, has spearheaded the state's voting infrastructure and access to early voting.
"With polls this tight, it is understandable that everyone wants to dissect every day of early voting, but the truth is we just don't know much about what it means yet. And likely won't for a bit," he said.
Political analyst Steve Schier agreed that even though both campaigns will be looking for encouraging signs in the early numbers, "it's always hard to make sense of early voting totals."
"This is particularly the case in 2024 because comparing them to 2020 results is difficult because of the huge number of mail-in votes in 2020 that are so far not occurring in 2024," Schier told Newsweek. "Comparing 2020 to 2024 early voting is a bit like comparing apples and oranges."
What's Next
Wednesday was another big day of early voting for Georgia. Within the first hour and a half, the state saw another 57,034 ballots cast. Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer for the secretary of state, said that the office was anticipating another 200,000 votes on Day Two.
"Obviously means that we will break past the half a million votes cast today," Sterling wrote on X (formerly Twitter). "That's 10% of the turnout we saw in 2020. Big numbers!"
Haynes said both campaigns will be aiming to outperform their 2020 numbers. That means mobilizing the voters who backed the candidate four years ago and hoping their rival's supporters decide to stay home this year.
In a race this close, this also means finding new votes, even if those voters are less likely to turn out. That's why, Haynes said, the Trump campaign has put so many resources into outreach to young male voters, who are also among the lowest-propensity voters.
"This is just the start," she said. "The next two weeks are going to be all hands on deck for fieldwork. Expect more canvassing, follow-ups and phone calls to people who have not voted."
She added that the real-time assessments of who is voting early could also drive targeted activity from the campaigns. So, observers should pay close attention to where people are going and where they're spending money.
Update: 10/16/24, 3:11 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with more information.
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