One week before the final U.S. Senate election concludes, Georgians have broken the state's early in-person voting record.
On Monday, more than a quarter million voters participated in the Georgia runoff election, amounting to the largest in-person early voting day in the state's history as Republican Herschel Walker seeks to unseat Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock.
“Just…WOW! GA voters, facilitated through the hard work of county election & poll workers, have shattered the old Early Vote turnout, with 300,438 Georgians casting their votes today,” Georgia Deputy Secretary of State Gabriel Sterling tweeted on Monday. “They blew up the old record of 233k votes in a day. Way to go voters & election workers.”
Initial early-voting data indicates a higher turnout among Democrat-leaning voters, which is not entirely surprising based on previous voting patterns in the Peach State.
Paul Wescott, Executive Vice President at L2, says that Democrats' current edge over early voting and absentee voting is to be expected:
At L2, we do a great deal of analysis of early return data from the 41 states that make those data available at the individual level. We match the early returns to the voter file from each state, and you can see rich demographic, consumer, donor and other information on those individuals. When we are trying to predict turnout in any given election, the assumption in every state is that Democrats are going to outpace Republicans in early and mail-in voting. Any kind of estimate and analysis we do will bear that in mind. While many states were slowly moving toward early and mail-in voting prior to COVID, the pandemic created a situation in which officials felt tremendous pressure to provide a mail-in option.
Wescott also noted that Democrats have successfully managed to capitalize on early and absentee voting in past elections – a strategy Republicans should seriously consider embracing again.
At this point, you can't unring that bell, and while many people returned to the polls in person in 2022, records were being shattered with early and absentee voting nationwide. In 2020 there seemed to be a sense of urgency with both parties; in 2022, there seemed to be less urgency, particularly from Republicans, especially in the initial days of early voting.
Not focusing on early voting at this point and starting your get-out-the-vote program in time for early voting is similar to being a retailer and waiting to launch ads until the week before Christmas.
Republicans' relatively new standoffish approach to early and absentee voting is considered one of the many factors that ultimately led to this year's disappointing midterms results, as well as both of Georgia's U.S. Senate seats in 2021.
Experts have chimed in on the issue, conceding that many Republicans' aversion to vote-by-mail and absentee voting came from Donald Trump's baseless crusade against the practice. (RELATED: Georgia Senate Race Heads to Runoff – Conservatives Want Trump to Stay Away)
“We have to reevaluate both the strategy and the tactics. We had so many close races, but we didn't do a good job at early voting, we didn't do a lot of mail-in voting,” said Saul Anuzis, a Republican strategist and former Michigan GOP chair. “We don't like that stuff so we don't really participate in it.”
“I think there's a lot of tactical things that we have to take a look at,” he added.
Experts say it's time for the GOP to find a way to “play the game” or risk losing future elections to Democrats.
“You can bitch about the game as much as you want, but you gotta find a way to play the game, because the game's not going to change right now,” said Ford O'Connell, a Republican strategist and former congressional candidate.
In three states with competitive statewide races — Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania — Democrats accounted for a higher share of the pre-Election Day vote than they did in both 2018 and 2020. That early turnout ultimately helped Democratic candidates clinch key victories in three of the marquee Senate races.
Comparing Election Day 2020 to the January 5, 2021 runoffs, there was a massive dip in Republican voter turnout. Some 700,000 Georgia voters decided to stay home with Republican districts seeing bigger declines in turnout, according to data published by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The AJC's analysis found that the drop in turnout was most severe in northwest and South Georgia, areas where Trump held rallies, in Dalton and Valdosta, to bolster support for the state's Republican senators.
At those events, Trump both reinforced his criticism of Georgia's elections, with unsubstantiated allegations of fraud, and urged voters to support the state's Republican senators.
Polls show Warnock and Walker are again neck-and-neck heading into the runoff.
The latest FiveThirtyEight polling averages put Walker up 1 percentage point over Warnock, 47.8 percent to 46.8 percent.
However, a poll released last week by AARP put Warnock ahead by 4 percentage points, though Walker was leading among voters older than 50.
Early in-person voting continues through Friday. The general election will be held next Tuesday, Dec. 6th.
Need help casting your ballot for Walker in the Dec. 6th runoff? Click HERE!