Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Thursday released the final results from Georgia’s primary, setting up a slate of candidates who will advance to runoffs and November’s general election.
The election broke state turnout records for a primary, with more than 2.3 million ballots cast despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Nearly half of voters, over 1.1 million, submitted absentee ballots, allowing them to avoid human contact at precincts. The previous high turnout for a primary was over 2 million in 2016.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden received 83.4% of votes among 12 of his party’s presidential candidates listed on primary ballots. He will face Republican President Donald Trump, who had no opponent on GOP ballots. The results include votes from the June 9 primary and from the March presidential primary before it was postponed.
In the Democratic primary race for the U.S. Senate, Jon Ossoff received 52.8% of votes and will face Republican U.S. Sen. David Purdue in November. Perdue didn’t draw a Republican primary challenger.
There was no primary in Georgia’s other U.S. Senate race. Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler will face 20 other candidates in a November special election.
Some Georgia races are heading to runoffs Aug. 11, including several contests for the U.S. House and local offices.
Overall, more voters used Democratic than Republican ballots in the primary. In the presidential race, for example, Democrats cast 1,283,836 votes, compared with 1,033,308 Republican ballots. Georgia is an open primary state, meaning voters can choose to vote in either party’s primary.
More people voted absentee than ever before after Raffensperger mailed absentee ballot request forms to 6.9 million active Georgia voters in April. The 1.1 million absentee voters in the primary far exceeded the 219,731 absentee voters in advance of the 2018 general election.
Turnout is expected to be much higher in this year’s presidential election. Raffensperger has said he expects 5 million voters.
