Georgia closes record early-voting stretch days before pivotal Senate, governor's races

Georgia's in-person early voting period closed Friday after seventeen days that state election officials and independent trackers describe as the heaviest early turnout the state has recorded for a midterm election, four days before Tuesday's general election decides the state's open governor's race and one of the nation's most closely watched U.S. Senate contests.

More than two million Georgians had already voted in person as of Tuesday evening, with tens of thousands more absentee ballots accepted, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office. The pace has run well ahead of the 2022 midterm, when 1,640,652 Georgians voted early in person over the same fifteen-day comparison window. As of Monday, Oct. 26, the state's own tally put total accepted ballots, in-person and absentee combined, at 1,781,209, or 23.7 percent of Georgia's 7,530,073 active registered voters, a figure that had climbed further by midweek.

A pace without precedent

The numbers built steadily from the opening day. Georgia set a first-day record on Oct. 13, when 188,667 people voted in person, more than 53,000 above the equivalent 2022 figure, an increase of roughly 40 percent. By noon on Oct. 20, in-person turnout had passed one million. By late afternoon on Oct. 27, it had passed two million, with the Secretary of State's office reporting 2,016,077 in-person votes and 97,382 absentee ballots accepted, and overall turnout, including absentee ballots, running at 28 percent of active voters with a week remaining before Election Day — roughly matching the pace recorded at the same point in 2022.

• Oct. 13: 188,667 in-person votes cast, a first-day record
• Oct. 20: in-person turnout passes 1,007,015 at noon
• Oct. 26: 1,781,209 total ballots accepted, 23.7% of active voters
• Oct. 27: in-person turnout passes 2,016,077; combined turnout at 28%

Absentee requests have lagged well behind 2022, when more than 285,000 Georgians requested mail ballots; this cycle's requests have numbered in the low six figures, suggesting voters have shifted back toward in-person early voting rather than mail balloting.

The elevated turnout is not confined to the two headline races. The same ballot carries other statewide offices and Georgia's U.S. House delegation, all decided within the same early-voting window that closed Friday.

Two races with national stakes

The turnout surge is unfolding around two contests that have drawn heavy spending and national attention. Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, first elected in a 2021 runoff, is seeking a second term against Republican Rep. Mike Collins, in a race both parties consider central to the fight for Senate control. Federal Election Commission disclosures show Ossoff's campaign has raised nearly $116 million for the cycle and reported about $15.1 million in cash on hand in its most recent filing, while Collins's own FEC filings show his committee has raised just under $9.7 million over the same period, leaving him roughly $1.1 million on hand.

Georgia's governor's race is also on the ballot, with term-limited Republican Gov. Brian Kemp stepping aside. Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor, faces Republican businessman Rick Jackson, who has put more than $100 million of his own fortune into the race after winning a primary runoff over Lt. Gov. Burt Jones. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll of likely voters conducted Oct. 7-15 found the governor's race effectively deadlocked, while Ossoff held a lead over Collins.

Georgia has been a closely divided battleground in every recent statewide election cycle, from the 2020 presidential contest decided by roughly 12,000 votes to the 2021 runoffs that handed Democrats Senate control and the narrower 2022 midterm that reelected both a Democratic senator and a Republican governor on the same ballot. Both parties are treating this year's Senate race as one of a small number of contests likely to decide which party holds the majority in the chamber for the remainder of the current Congress, which is one reason spending and candidate travel through the state have been unusually heavy in the campaign's final weeks.

Closing arguments

Both Democratic nominees spent the final stretch campaigning together. Former President Barack Obama appeared alongside Ossoff and Bottoms at a rally in Atlanta on Oct. 28, according to Ossoff's campaign, one of several joint appearances in the race's closing days. On his campaign's website Friday, Ossoff described the closing turnout as the kind of surge that "comes once a generation."

Election officials, for their part, framed the numbers as a validation of the state's voting system rather than a partisan signal. In a statement released as the two-million mark was crossed, Raffensperger said Georgia voters "deserve the highest praise" for the turnout.

"Georgians are shattering in-person turnout records because they trust our election process," Raffensperger said.

Both campaigns have used the final days to direct supporters to in-person locations before Friday's close; Bottoms's campaign posted early-voting dates and polling-site links on its website, while Jackson's campaign used its final push to urge supporters toward Election Day turnout.

What happens next

With early voting now closed, attention shifts to Tuesday, when polls open across Georgia's 159 counties for the general election. County election officials will begin processing the roughly two million-plus early ballots already cast alongside Election Day votes once polls close Tuesday night, a count that in close statewide races has sometimes taken days to finalize under state audit procedures. Georgia's Senate race is one of a handful nationally seen as likely to help determine which party controls the chamber, while the governor's race will decide who succeeds Kemp after eight years in office. Both margins are expected to be narrow enough that final results may not be clear on election night itself.

Georgia law gives counties until the days immediately following the election to finish counting and report results to the Secretary of State's office, with statewide certification to follow later in November. If either the Senate or governor's race is decided by a narrow margin, state law allows the trailing candidate to request a recount, a step taken in multiple recent Georgia statewide races decided by less than half a percentage point. Whatever the outcome, Friday's closing turnout figures mean a larger share of Georgia's electorate will have voted before Election Day than in any previous midterm in the state's history.