More Than 1M Early Votes Cast in Georgia, Setting Record

Over 1 million voters have cast a ballot in Georgia just days after the critical swing state opened up its early voting polls.

The milestone sets a new turnout record for early voting in the Peach State during a general election, the Georgia Secretary of State (SOS) office confirmed with Newsweek over email Friday. State officials celebrated the record over social media, including Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who posted to his X (formerly Twitter) account, “Great job, Georgia!”

“1 Million voters have cast their ballots early,” Raffensperger wrote. “Election directors across Georgia have been working tirelessly to make this possible.”

The first day of early voting received a record-breaking turnout in Georgia, with over 310,000 votes cast in person on Tuesday. That number significantly surpasses the 136,000 voters that showed up on the first day of early voting in 2020, when President Joe Biden beat former President Donald Trump by just over 11,000 votes.

As of 7:30 p.m. ET Friday, nearly 1.2 million ballots had been cast in Georgia, which makes up 16.7 percent of active voters in the state, according to the SOS. The majority of that number (roughly 1.13 million) were cast in person.

This year, Trump is caught in a dead heat against Vice President Kamala Harris. According to the polling site FiveThirtyEight, the former president is leading his Democratic opponent by 2.2 points on average across state polling. Per tracking by RealClearPolling, the gap is much closer, with Trump ahead by just 1.1 points on average.

According to the SOS’s election dashboard, the counties with the highest turnout so far in early voting are places that Trump won by a landslide last election. Towns County is leading the state as of Friday evening, with over 29 percent of active voters casting a ballot so far. In 2020, Trump won Towns 80 percent to 19.4 percent.

Rabun County, which Trump won 62.8 percent to 36.3 percent in 2020, has seen the second-highest turnout, with over a quarter of active voters casting a ballot so far in the election. Out of the counties that voted for Biden in 2020, the one that has seen the highest early voting turnout is Baldwin, with over 19 percent of active voters casting a ballot as of Friday.

The counties with the highest turnout on the first day of early voting were won by Democrats four years ago, including Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb and Gwinnett. But Democratic strategist Doug Gordon told Newsweek earlier in the week that while the numbers are “encouraging…Democrats should not be popping the Champagne.”

“There are simply too many unknowns this early,” said Gordon, co-CEO of UpShift Strategists. “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.”