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Closer Look: Where are the most early votes coming from in the Georgia Senate runoff?

UGA political science professor Charles Bullock says turnout isn't as high in red-leaning counties that are usually big Republican vote-getters.

MACON, Ga. — While thousands of Georgians are getting ready to cast their ballot on Election Day, more than 1.8 million people have already voted.

The state set a record of the busiest week of early voting last week. 

So, where are the most early votes coming from? 

Over 317,000 votes are coming from the larger, blue-leaning counties in Metro Atlanta like Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, and Gwinnett. Raphael Warnock had a strong hold of those counties in November. For instance, in DeKalb County, 84 percent voted for him. 

UGA political science professor Charles Bullock says it's more important for Warnock to do well in early voting than Herschel Walker based on historic voting trends.

"Democrats are more likely to take advantage of going in this early, in person voting. While republicans are more likely to hang back and vote on Election Day so if Democrats don't have a sizable majority going into Election Day, they'll likely lose," Bullock said.

As for Republicans, Bullock says typically, the big vote getter counties are Hall, Forsyth, Cherokee, Coweta and Bartow. He says Forsyth and Hall counties had good turnout. In both, over 25 percent of registered voters have cast ballots.

"But two of those Republican counties, Cherokee and Coweta, did not turn out in strong numbers. They turned out in less percentages than statewide which it would be concerning for Republicans," Bullock said. 

Now, the most votes in Central Georgia are from Houston and Bibb counties.

In Houston County, 32,704 people out of their over 119,000 registered voters voted within the five days of early voting. 40,889 turned out in 17 days of early voting leading up to November 8. 

This is good for Republicans because in November nearly 55 percent of the county voted for Walker.

As for Bibb, Raphael Warnock needs big turnout because 61 percent of the county voted for him in November.

So far, they're not seeing that great of turnout. About 16 percent of registered voters voted early. To put that into context, 15,894 showed up in-person to vote early in the runoff, compared to the 26,848 that did in the November general election.

 

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