Kamala Harris to highlight Georgia’s hard-fought Sunday voting tradition

The Democratic nominee’s campaign said she’ll be visiting New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest on Sunday morning, the day after she holds a rally in Atlanta.

The 2014 election was the first time state officials opened the polls to voters on Sundays and more than 12,000 ballots were cast. Those numbers steadily grew as Black congregations embraced the practice.

Credit: Seeger Gray / AJC

Credit: Seeger Gray / AJC

In the 2020 election, about 37% of voters on two Sundays in October were Black, higher than their 30% share of Georgia’s registered voters, according to state election data.

Then came a Republican-backed rewrite of voting laws after former President Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat that initially would have banned Sunday voting in Georgia. After much pushback, the final version of the 2021 measure kept Sundays as optional voting days during three weeks of early voting.

County election offices can now decide whether to open voting locations on as many as two Sundays. New Birth church is in DeKalb County, which designated this Sunday as one of its early voting days.

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Credit: TNS

Credit: TNS

GOOD MORNING! We’re 18 days away from the end of political ads, at least for this year. As the AJC’s Phoebe Quinton writes, both presidential campaigns have aired about 145,000 TV ads across Georgia. Of those, more than 64,000 are attacks on the other candidate.

Here are four things to know for today:

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Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC

Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC

BY THE NUMBERS. Georgia set a record for the first day of early voting when more than 300,000 people cast ballots. Things haven’t slowed down since then.

So far, 12.5% of Georgia’s electorate has already voted, or more than 897,000 people (which includes absentee votes by mail).

“Looking to break a million by this weekend,” said Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer of the Georgia Secretary of State’s office.

As the AJC’s Greg Bluestein writes, it’s not a good idea to overthink these numbers. It’s still too early to tell definitively whether the turnout benefits one party or another — although campaigns are trying their hardest to figure that out.

Here’s a breakdown of the numbers so far, thanks to the AJC’s partnership with GeorgiaVotes.com (the totals are a little behind the official tally):

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TO ZOOM OR NOT TO ZOOM. The coronavirus pandemic changed the etiquette of meetings, making virtual attendance more acceptable. But the politics of Zoom are still being worked out. Does a politician get extra credit for showing up in person?

The implications have been playing out in Legislative committee hearings this fall. In the Senate, rules require lawmakers to attend most hearings in person. But there’s an exception for study committees.

In a Senate committee studying safe gun storage, two lawmakers — Republican state Sens. Frank Ginn of Danielsville and Marty Harbin of Tyrone — attended remotely. That irked Aaliyah Strong, who criticized them during a hearing last month for being on Zoom with their cameras off.

“I just feel like when we’re talking about saving lives, it would be better to have people at the forefront and at the table that actually care about what we have to say,” said Strong, CEO of Tyme to Thrive Beyond Grief, a nonprofit that supports victims of gun violence.

For his part, Ginn said he hates virtual meetings. But he said they’re sometimes necessary for a part-time Legislature where most members have other jobs that complicate their schedules.

“We have to work somewhere else to make a living, and that’s difficult,” he said.

The chair of the gun safety committee, Democratic state Sen. Emanuel Jones of Decatur, said it made no difference to him how lawmakers attended his hearing. He defended his Republican colleagues, saying he had asked for them to be on the committee “because I know their heart, I know their commitment.”

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Credit: John Spink/AJC

Credit: John Spink/AJC

HERE WE GO AGAIN. The question of whether to expand public transit in Atlanta’s most populous suburbs seems to have been settled for more than 50 years. Voters simply are not interested.

Yet, when early voting opened this week, voters in Cobb and Gwinnett counties once again found proposals on their ballot to raise sales taxes to pay for more public transportation options.

The proposals will test the engagement level of the counties’ relatively new Democratic majorities on an issue that has divided the party for decades, according to the AJC’s Alia Pharr, Sara Gregory and Phoebe Quinton.

The big difference with these proposals is they would not expand MARTA, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. Instead, the plans aim to add rapid bus routes, increase service hours and frequency and add on-demand rideshares countywide.

Opposition, however, remains intense. Just this week, an opponent of the proposal filed an ethics complaint against Cobb County Commission Chair Lisa Cupid, accusing her of using public funds to advocate for the measure’s passage.

Cupid called the complaint “meritless.” The Cobb Board of Ethics has 60 days to hold a hearing about it. The election is in 18 days.

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LISTEN UP. Today on “Politically Georgia‚” Darius Jones with National Black Empowerment Action talks about Black male voters with the AJC’s Ernie Suggs. Then, WABE’s Rahul Bali discusses ballot initiatives.

Be sure to download the AJC’s Politically Georgia podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are uploaded by noon each day, just in time to have lunch with us. You can also listen live at 10 a.m. EDT on 90.1 FM WABE. Have a question for the show? Give us a call at 770-810-5297.

On Thursday’s show, the hosts discussed recent court rulings with State Election Board member Janelle King, state Rep. Saira Draper, D-Atlanta, and former state Rep. Scot Turner, R-Holly Springs.

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QUICK TURNAROUND. After spending the weekend in Georgia, Vice President Kamala Harris will be back next week for a joint rally with former President Barack Obama.

It will be their first time together on the campaign trail this election season as Democrats race to turn out more Black voters. And the event will be Obama’s first stop in Georgia this campaign cycle, and one of only a handful of appearances he’s scheduled on the trail.

Obama held his first rally in Pittsburgh earlier this month, and will soon hold events in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin.

Campaign officials didn’t immediately disclose the location of the event Thursday, which will come a day after former President Donald Trump headlines a rally of his own in Gwinnett County.

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Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC

Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL. Today’s happenings:

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Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC

Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC

DISASTER DOLLARS. The six U.S. senators representing Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia have written a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to request emergency funding to pay for recovery efforts after back-to-back hurricanes.

The senators want Biden to quickly submit a supplement funding request that “considers the full cost of recovering from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, as well as other devastating natural disasters, so Congress can quickly consider supplemental appropriations this year, and affected communities can begin to heal.”

The bipartisan signers include Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff of Georgia, both Democrats. The two senators from Virginia, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, are also Democrats. The two senators from North Carolina, Thom Tillis and Ted Budd, are both Republicans.

Congress returns from the election season recess on Nov. 12, and government funding is among the many items that is pending when lawmakers return. Federal agencies are funded through Dec. 20, but there may be an effort to pass disaster relief aid much sooner than that.

The Small Business Administration said this week that its disaster loan program is out of money. Although the agency continues to process applications from business owners affected by recent hurricanes, Congress would need to approve more funding in order for new loans to be awarded.

The Georgia Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to members of the state’s congressional delegation outlining steps to help businesses recovering from Helene. Re-upping the SBA program was one of their four requests.

The Chamber letter also mentions expanded aid for the state’s agricultural, shrimping, and forestry industries; reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program; and ensuring that all Georgia counties affected by the storm receive disaster declarations.

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BIDEN OVERSEAS. President Joe Biden is in Berlin today, where he is meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, as well as the leaders of France and the United Kingdom.

This trip was delayed and condensed after Biden decided to remain stateside earlier this month to monitor Hurricane Milton.

Originally, Biden was going to travel from Germany to Angola on the same itinerary. But now the Angola leg has been postponed until December.

Once it happens, Biden will be the first president to visit sub-Saharan Africa since Barack Obama in 2015. Biden is also scheduled to travel to Peru and Brazil in November.

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SHOUTOUTS. Want a birthday shoutout in the Politically Georgia newsletter? There’s a form for that! Click here to submit the shoutouts. It’s not just birthdays. We’re also interested in new jobs, engagements, birth announcements, etc.

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AS ALWAYS, send your best scoops, gossip and insider info to greg.bluestein@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com, patricia.murphy@ajc.com and adam.beam@ajc.com.