The 2024 United States presidential election in Georgia took place on Tuesday, November 5, 2024, as part of the 2024 United States elections in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Georgia voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote. The state of Georgia has 16 electoral votes in the Electoral College, following reapportionment due to the 2020 United States census in which it neither gained nor lost a seat.
Prior to the election, Georgia was considered to be a crucial swing state; rapid population growth in Georgia, particularly in Metro Atlanta, has led the state to become politically competitive in recent years.
Republican Donald Trump, representing neighboring Florida, flipped Georgia back into the Republican column, winning with a majority and a margin of 2.2% over Democrat Kamala Harris. This was the closest margin of victory for a Republican in Georgia since 1996, with Georgia again voting to the left of the neighboring states of North Carolina and Florida. Georgia also voted just 0.72% to the right of the nation, the closest Georgia has come to voting to the left of the nation since Jimmy Carter won his home state in 1980.
This was the first time a Republican candidate would win a federal statewide race in Georgia since Trump's 5.09% victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Trump also received more than 2.66 million votes, setting a record for most votes cast for any candidate in the history of Georgia and became the second Republican ever to carry the state twice after George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.
Primary elections
Democratic primary
The Georgia Democratic primary was held on March 12, 2024.
Republican primary
The Georgia Republican primary was held on March 12, 2024.
General election
Predictions
Voting rule changes
On July 29, 2024, the state added another way to cancel a voter's registration through an online portal, which has drawn criticism from groups like Fair Fight Action, worried that it would be abused. By August 5, cybersecurity researcher Jason Parker discovered a vulnerability in Georgia's voter cancellation portal that allowed users to bypass the requirement for a driver's license number, enabling the submission of voter registration cancellations with minimal, publicly available information. The discovery drew attention to weaknesses in the system and the importance of continued efforts to secure election infrastructure.
In August 2024, the Georgia State Elections Board enacted two new rules that could deputize local election officials more discretion on whether they certify the election, contrary to state and national precedent. The Democratic party has filed a lawsuit to stop the new rules from taking effect, which a judge agreed with on October 16, blocking the new rule.
Ballot access
Votes for Claudia De la Cruz and Cornel West were not counted even though they appeared on the ballot. After an administrative law judge disqualified Claudia De la Cruz and Cornel West from the ballot due to their electors not registering in their own name, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger overruled the judge on August 29, 2024. Republicans have been working to get West and De la Cruz on the ballot, while Democrats have been working to keep them off. If the ruling were upheld, it would be the first time since 1946 that more than four candidates would be on the ballot. On September 12, 2024, a judge disqualified both West and De la Cruz from running for president in Georgia. On September 25, the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously confirmed the ruling, keeping votes for De la Cruz and West from counting even though Raffensperger kept both on the ballot, saying there was not enough time to reprint the ballots.
Election security
In early 2023, Georgia's state legislature denied the Georgia Secretary of State's $25 million request to implement the 2022 security update for Dominion Voting Systems machines before the 2024 elections. However, QR codes will be eliminated by 2026 in favor of text the voter can read to ensure their ballot was marked correctly. Audits will be used to gauge how the machines are faring in 2024.
As of October 2024, the Georgia State Election Board recommended that specific people serve as election monitors in Fulton County despite having no authority to make this recommendation. Each county decides who monitors each election precinct.
Polling
Kamala Harris vs. Donald Trump
Aggregate polls
Kamala Harris vs. Donald Trump vs. Cornel West vs. Jill Stein vs. Chase Oliver
Aggregate polls
Results
Two additional candidates, Party for Socialism and Liberation nominee Claudia De la Cruz and independent Cornel West, were disqualified by the Georgia Supreme Court after ballots were printed. Their names remained on the ballot, but votes for them did not count.
By county
Source: Savannah Morning News
Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican
- Baldwin (largest city: Milledgeville)
- Jefferson (largest city: Louisville)
- Washington (largest city: Sandersville)
By congressional district
Trump won 9 of 14 congressional districts.
Analysis
Despite being located in the socially conservative Bible Belt and Deep South regions, Georgia has become competitive since the start of the 2020s. Having been a moderately red state in the late 2000s through the 2010s, Georgia is currently a purple to slightly red state, being a crucial battleground at the presidential and U.S. Senate levels while maintaining a Republican lean at the state level. The last Republican presidential candidate to win Georgia by a double-digit margin, and the only one to carry the state in consecutive elections, was George W. Bush. This leftward shift is mainly attributed to the rapid population growth that the progressive and diverse Atlanta metro, which holds the majority of the state's population, has experienced in the 21st century, including an influx of African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, and progressive Whites. In 2020, Joe Biden very narrowly carried the state by 0.23%, making Georgia the closest state in that election and making Biden the first Democrat since Southerner Bill Clinton in 1992 to win the state's electoral votes.
Before Biden dropped out of the presidential race, Trump led virtually every poll in Georgia, with the state being generally considered as leaning Republican; however, after Kamala Harris took over as the Democratic nominee, polls pointed to a much tighter race, rendering Georgia a tossup once again.
Trump narrowly flipped three Georgia counties in the Black Belt: the swing counties of Baldwin and Washington (the latter of which is majority-Black), becoming the first presidential Republican to do so since George W. Bush in 2004, as well as Jefferson County (also majority-Black), which he became the first to win since the elder Bush in 1988. Trump is now the second Republican presidential candidate to prevail in Georgia more than once, following George W. Bush. However, despite Harris losing Georgia and the election, she managed to improve on Biden's margins in a few Atlanta suburban counties, including but not limited to Fayette, where her 3.1% defeat was the closest a presidential Democrat has come to winning the county since favorite son Jimmy Carter comfortably did so in 1976; Henry, where her 29.7% victory was the best performance for a Democrat at said electoral level since the same election; and Cherokee, where she became the first presidential Democrat to break more than 30% of the county vote since Carter in 1980. Of the seven swing states, she made her greatest raw vote gain compared to Biden in Georgia, winning 75,000 more votes.
Exit poll data
See also
- United States presidential elections in Georgia
- 2024 United States presidential election
- 2024 Democratic Party presidential primaries
- 2024 Republican Party presidential primaries
- 2024 Georgia state elections
- 2024 United States elections
Notes
Partisan clients
References
