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The Peach State that was thrown into election chaos by Trump

When the votes are cast on 5 November for the US presidential election, Georgia will once again find itself in sharp focus as one of the swing states that could decide who wins.

The Peach State was ground zero for Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the result in 2020, after he lost to Joe Biden.

Four years later, Trump loyalists have stacked local election boards and could tip the result in his favour, or cause chaos by delaying the recount.

That is especially an issue given how tight the race is.

According to an analysis of polls on Monday by FiveThirtyEight.com, Trump leads his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, by 48.3 per cent to 47.2 per cent.

That 1.1 per cent lead is well within the margin of error, and given all the unpredictable elements in the election, including the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which tore through Georgia earlier this month, the vote is too close to call.

Some 7.8 million voters are registered in Georgia and one third of them are black, which should give Democrats more of an edge than some other swing states.

A supporter of Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH), walks, on the day of a campaign event, in Lindale, Georgia, U.S., October 4, 2024. REUTERS/Megan Varner
A Trump supporter at a campaign event in Lindale, Georgia (Photo: Megan Varner/Reuters)

But 12 per cent of black voters say they are undecided, meaning that Harris still has some work to do.

Georgia’s change to being a competitive state comes after 150 years of swinging strongly to one side or the other. It voted Democratic in every election from 1868 to 1960, when many white voters switched to Republicans amid anxiety over the Civil Rights Act – which secured greater equality in law for African-Americans – which the party successfully exploited using its ‘Southern Strategy’.

That lasted until 2018, when Democrat Stacey Abrams won 48.8 percent of the vote in her campaign to become governor. While she lost to Republican Brian Kemp – who got 50.2 per cent of the vote – it gave Democrats momentum that helped them turn the state blue in 2020 when Biden won the presidential election.

The margin of victory was the closest in the nation -he beat Trump by 0.2 per cent, just 11,780 votes.

Suburban counties such as Gwinnett, just outside Atlanta, are the reason that Biden was able to squeak out a victory: a more educated and diverse electorate who are turned off by Trump.

In 2000, the county had a population of 588,000 residents, of which 67 per cent were white and 34 per cent had an undergraduate degree or higher. In that year’s presidential election, former president George W Bush, a Republican, cleaned up and won Gwinnett by 64 per cent.

But now, in 2024, the county’s population has swollen to nearly one million, just 32 per cent are white, and 39 per cent have a college degree. In 2020 such numbers helped Biden beat Trump in Gwinnett with a comfortable 58 per cent of the vote.

FILE PHOTO: Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., September 20, 2024. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage/File Photo
Democratic presidential nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event in Atlanta (Photo: Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters)

Charlie Hayslett, a journalist who has covered Georgia politics for decades, told i that the suburbs north of Atlanta are “really the battleground this time around and for the foreseeable future”.

He said: “That’s where you’ve got a growing number of fairly centre-right Republicans, a lot of college-educated couples and women. Reproductive rights are going to be a huge issue up there.

“As that educational attainment number has grown, in Forsyth and Cherokee County you have seen the Republican numbers have been cut. That happened fairly big time against Trump.

“Governor Kemp regained some of that ground in the last governor’s race: the question is whether Trump will be able to hold it or lose it.”

The most important issue for voters is the economy and cost of living, said Zachary Peskowitz, a professor of political science at Emory University in Atlanta. Harris will have to defend the Biden administration’s policies but reproductive rights are “important” as well.

While abortion is not on the ballot in November, the state brought in a bar on the procedure after six weeks following the US Supreme Court’s ruling in 2022 which overturned a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.

Immigration is also another major issue, although it is not so high up the agenda as border states such as Arizona and Nevada, Professor Peskowitz said.

Even if the polls are close, Harris is destroying Trump when it comes to her ground game. Her campaign says it has 35,000 volunteers, 35 field officers and more than 170 paid staff in Georgia.

New voters have signed up in droves after Harris entered the campaign, especially those who are young, black and hispanic.

Trump by contrast has essentially outsourced his on the ground operations to America Pac, the political action committee supported by Elon Musk, the Tesla founder who appeared at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania with the former president last weekend.

The unconventional approach has been branded “political malpractice” by seasoned Republicans in the state.

Professor Peskowitz said that by this point there is little chance for either candidate to change anyone’s mind.

“Now it’s really about the ground game and getting out the vote,” he said. “Harris is the underdog and she’s playing offence. Trump is more defensive and if he loses Georgia it’s going to be very hard for him to win.

“One thing is that we know the result will be extraordinarily close and we may not know the winner for a few days.”

Another wild card is Hurricane Helene. Mr Hayslett said that the devastation was worst in rural counties in south-eastern Georgia. “That stretch of the state, you’re in 75, 85 per cent Republican country,” he said.

“One question I’m asking is what would the vote four years ago have looked like if you lifted out those counties in the worst-hit areas?

“It matters because they are very Republican, they are Trump country.”

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