SAVANNAH — The odd coalition of Georgia voters that split their ticket in 2022 between Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Gov. Brian Kemp helped decide that election. This year, a similar group might be just as decisive.

Call it Georgia’s Nikki Haley bloc. The former South Carolina governor captured 77,000 votes in Georgia’s March primary, most of them after she quit her presidential campaign. That’s more than six times the number of votes that separated Donald Trump and Joe Biden in Georgia in 2020.

Many are devoted Democrats who lodged a protest vote against Trump. But others are fierce independents or mainstream Republicans who are torn over whether to back the GOP nominee or Vice President Kamala Harris — or sit out the November race altogether.

“It seems to me that Trump is trying to energize his base by going after MAGA voters, and he’s doing an effective job at it. But to win, he’s going to have to broaden his base,” said Eric Tanenblatt, a longtime GOP financier who was one of Haley’s top Georgia supporters.

In some ways, the dynamic mirrors Georgia’s 2022 midterm, when Warnock won reelection by nearly 3 percentage points over Republican Herschel Walker, a scandal-plagued candidate who was Trump’s handpicked choice for the seat.

Warnock’s campaign estimated he won roughly 9% of GOP voters even as Kemp and every other statewide Republican contender won. Some in that group of independent-leaning voters, many from Atlanta’s suburbs, are ready to cross party lines again. Haley captured nearly 1 in 4 GOP votes in Cobb County and more than a third of the votes in DeKalb and Fulton counties.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

“I proudly voted for Nikki Haley, but my vote is now going to Kamala Harris,” said Pat Carson, a Cobb County retiree. “The Republican Party floundered a great opportunity to move the party forward for the next generation but instead chose to take a knee to their dysfunctional king. What a disappointment.”

Other Haley backers say they are committed to Trump. JoEllen Artz of rural Morgan County backed Haley in the primary because she brought policy know-how to the race without Trump’s baggage. Then, she “hoped and prayed” in vain that Trump would pick her as his running mate.

Now, she said, she’s “supporting Donald Trump at this point — and I wish Haley would get out and stump for him.”

Former Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan may be the ultimate example of a Haley-Harris supporter. He backed Haley in Georgia’s primary, then endorsed Biden after Trump emerged as the GOP nominee. Now he’s on the campaign trail stumping for Harris, most recently with a tour of Pennsylvania.

“Nikki Haley voters will determine who wins the November election in swing states all across the country,” Duncan said, adding if they stay motivated Harris will win. “Between Trump’s toxic mouth and Harris’ surging momentum, this outcome seems more likely every day.”

Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC

Recent polls show it’s not that clear-cut. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll released last week showed Harris and Trump with overwhelming support within their partisan bases. But independent voters — a group that once reliably backed Republicans in Georgia — were far more torn than most other groups. About one-third of those voters support Trump’s election bid compared with roughly half who favor Harris. Some 12% remain undecided.

Rob Colquett of Cobb County is one of them. He backed Haley in March and has yet to settle on either of the major party candidates.

“I mean, something could turn at the last minute,” Colquett said. “Honestly, I don’t think it will, but if one of them comes out and shows me something and actually has some standards behind what they say, and some follow-through, then I might be interested.”

Dueling strategies

While Republicans long have needed only to energize their party’s base to win statewide races, Democrats have scored upset victories in the past two election cycles by capitalizing on GOP unrest over Trump and siphoning off some more middle-of-the-road voters.

Biden’s fragile coalition of Black Democrats, white liberal voters and disaffected Republicans fueled his narrow 2020 victory, and Warnock and Democrat Jon Ossoff built similar alliances to defeat well-funded Trump loyalists in 2021 and 2022.

Some of those same voters also backed Kemp’s rematch over Democrat Stacey Abrams and powered Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other Republicans opposed by Trump to solid victories.

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Harris’ campaign aims to bring those voters back into the Democratic camp in part by highlighting her support for abortion rights two years after three Trump-appointed U.S. Supreme Court justices helped overturn Roe v. Wade.

“Suburban college-educated women are a major demographic in this state,” University of North Georgia political scientist Nathan Price said, “and this is the same group we see Trump underperforming the Kemp/Raffensperger wing of the party.”

But he warned Harris is vulnerable to GOP attempts to brand her as too liberal. Many swing voters, he said, routinely say they still “want to hear more concrete policy positions from her.”

Indeed, some suburban Atlanta voters with split-ticket voting histories report being inundated with “Comrade Kamala” mailers and text messages from Trump allies. Trump took another step toward appealing to those voters this week by singling out Kemp for praise in Savannah just weeks after he lobbed harsh insults the governor’s way.

Dennis Love, a Marietta retiree, is among the Haley voters who welcomes the kumbaya moment. He said that while Haley is “without a doubt the best Republican to be president,” he will back Trump in November.

“Regardless of his character and lack of integrity, his policies are much closer to traditional Republican values and policies than those of the Democratic Party,” Love said. “Who is president is not nearly as important as the policies his or her administration will support.”

Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com

Haley, for her part, has criticized “tone deaf” GOP efforts to reach suburban voters in a competitive Ohio Senate race. And she’s wanted Trump to change his sharp-edged approach to Harris if he wants to close a persistent gender gap in the polls.

“You’re not going to hear me say glowing things about Donald Trump’s personality,” she said Wednesday on her SiriusXM show. “I have issues with him as well. I have not forgotten what he said about me.”

But she also said she remains in Trump’s corner because “you have to be able to put the personal part aside.”

“And so when I look at the good of the country,” Haley said, “that’s what I’m trying to do.”

The jury is still out for Tanenblatt. The GOP stalwart, who cochaired Haley’s Georgia campaign, said Trump might be able to eke out a win in the state by motivating his base, but for a true mandate he must magnify his reach beyond the MAGA core.

“I’m a lifelong Republican. I’ve only voted for Republican presidents. And the next several weeks will determine what I’ll do,” Tanenblatt said. “To me, that means unifying the party. And there’s still work to be done.”

Staff writer Michelle Baruchman contributed to this article.