Georgia is one of the most fiercely fought political battlegrounds in the race for the White House. But what are the counties and areas that experts are most closely watching ahead of next week’s election?
From the exurbs of Atlanta to southwest Georgia, some of the state’s top political minds offered a range of views on the local bellwethers they’re tracking in the race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
ATLANTA’S NORTHERN SUBURBS
Many of the split-ticket voters who helped decide Georgia’s last few statewide elections concentrate in Cobb and Gwinnett counties, former Republican-controlled areas that swung Democratic over the past decade.
For veteran strategist Fred Hicks, Cobb County is the key to the election. In 2020, Joe Biden captured the county by 14 points. Two years later, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock expanded on the Democratic edge by winning Cobb by 16 points — even as Stacey Abrams eked out a slimmer five-point edge in the same vote.
Hicks wonders which way split-ticket voters in Cobb will break this time.
“A 3% swing in either direction can be anywhere from 9,000 to 12,000 votes,” he said, adding that he’s optimistic turnout there is headed toward the Warnock total.
Democratic state Rep. Stacey Evans said she’s zeroed in on Gwinnett County, another former GOP stronghold that’s now a cornerstone of her party’s coalition.
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Even though Biden tallied nearly 60% of Gwinnett’s vote in 2020, the county still provided Trump with his biggest source of votes in that contest.
“Turnout there will tell us a lot about momentum in ultimately flipping the House in a few years, along with the seats we can flip there this year,” Evans said. “Plus, if turnout is high there, we can get a sense of whether Harris can carry Georgia.”
Martha Zoller, a conservative commentator and former U.S. House candidate, views both Cobb and Gwinnett as vital to questions about Georgia’s political future.
“Is their shift to the Democratic Party increasing or decreasing since they were such solidly Republican counties for so many years?”
SOUTHWEST GEORGIA
Metro Atlanta has the majority of the state’s electorate, but more rural parts of the state offer important clues about how the campaigns are generating turnout.
Brandon Phillips, who led Trump’s Georgia campaign in 2016, is closely watching Democratic-leaning Dougherty County, where early voting turnout in Albany and other parts of the area is sputtering far behind other parts of the state. He offered a pro-Trump prediction.
“When Kamala comes up short, her failure to motivate a core constituency of the Democrat coalition — Black voters, particularly rural Black voters and young Black men — will have been her fatal flaw.”
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
And several analysts said they’re watching Peach County, a rural county north of Albany that has picked the eventual presidential winner in five of the seven elections since 1992. The exceptions were 2000, when Al Gore captured Peach County by a scant 15 ballots, and 2020, when Trump won the vote there.
ATLANTA’S CORE
The two bluest counties in Georgia are Clayton and DeKalb, which Biden carried with more than 80% of the vote in 2020 en route to his narrow win over Trump.
Harris will depend on giant turnout again from both counties to prevail, but there are early warning signs. Turnout in Clayton, in particular, is lagging behind other left-leaning areas — one reason why former first lady Michelle Obama headlined a star-studded voter drive a few miles from the county this week.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
“These were Biden’s two top performing counties, and high turnout in both will be key to a Harris victory,” said Nicole Leffer, a longtime data analyst.
SOUTH METRO
Stephen Lawson got a crash course in Georgia politics when he moved from Florida to join then-U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s campaign. Four years later, after helping Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper win, he’s become a keen observer of the state’s politics.
To Lawson, Fayette County is an up-and-coming bellwether.
Long a Republican stronghold, Fayette has grown more competitive during Trump’s era. Trump captured 58% of its vote in 2016 but just 53% in 2020. Two years ago, though, Gov. Brian Kemp nabbed 56% of Fayette’s vote.
“For Trump to win next week,” Lawson said, “he needs to be closer to Kemp’s numbers.”
Credit: Alyssa Pointer
Credit: Alyssa Pointer
Likewise, GOP consultant Brian Robinson sees Fayette’s increasingly diverse population, as well as its core of college-educated white voters, as a challenge for the GOP.
“If Trump can hold the same margins there as he did in 2020,” Robinson said, “it will show he’s doing OK with Black voters and not losing more ground with white highly educated voters.”
GOP STRONGHOLDS
The exurbs north of Atlanta have become one of the more surprising battlegrounds in Georgia, but not because Democrats have any chance of flipping those counties. Instead, Harris’ campaign is working to cut GOP margins in that area, home to some of most reliably Republican voters in the state.
In Forsyth County, for instance, Trump’s share of support fell by about five points between 2016 and 2020, as Biden captured about a third of the county’s vote. Democrats hope to improve a few percentage points, partly by appealing to Asian American voters who make up nearly one-quarter of Forsyth’s population.
GOP state Sen. Jason Anavitarte is watching two other Republican-friendly bastions that Trump carried with 70% of the vote in 2020: Floyd and Hall counties.
Floyd is in the heart of U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s district and a focus of intense pro-Trump turnout efforts. Hall County has seen significant population growth, too, driven partly by its booming agriculture industry.
“Both could be new standards for GOP voter turnout,” Anavitarte said.
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