Georgia
Black men in Georgia were crucial to Biden’s 2020 victory. Can he keep the momentum in 2024?
James Butler, a Black, 42-year-old Atlanta-based Democrat, is planning on casting his ballot for President BIden in November — but he isn’t so enthusiastic this time around.
“I guess it’s the best we got,” he said about the 2024 election.
Butler’s not alone among Black voters in Georgia in his lack of enthusiasm in voting for Mr. Biden for a second time.
A CBS News poll in late February showed 76% of likely Black voters said they backed his reelection bid, down from 87% who voted for him in 2020. In 2020, Georgia was one of Mr. Biden’s closest victories, with fewer than 12,000 voters making the difference — and Black voters were a key part of Mr. Biden’s winning coalition there.
The Biden-Harris campaign appears to have taken notice. Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday kicked off a multistate tour in Atlanta, to talk about investments in Black communities and opportunities for minority families to build wealth under the Biden administration.
“We’re going to keep talking about the record and the work that is being done to advance the economic opportunity for young Black men across this country,” said Michael Tyler, a campaign spokesperson.
Organizers with the New Georgia Project, a Black voter advocacy group based in Atlanta, believe younger males have been particularly slow to return to Mr. Biden’s fold.
“Young Black men are more likely to say that they will vote for Trump,” said Ranada Robinson, a researcher for the New Georgia Project. “But, what I am most concerned about this year is that about 30% was undecided at the time of our poll.”
Robinson says misinformation is playing a large role in the waning interest of some Black men in Mr. Biden.
“Particularly online, there are some narratives that misplace the credit for some of the wins that we’ve seen in America,” she said. “There’s also some misplacement of blame. When you see certain Supreme Court decisions or some of the things that have long term impacts of past administrations, this administration is suffering the consequences of it.”
But other supporters of the president say they just aren’t excited about a 2020 rematch.
“I think my vote’s the same, but I’m less enthusiastic,” said Phillip Dunwood, 21, a student at Georgia State University. “It’s more like, ‘alright, let’s get it over with’.”
Meanwhile, Republicans are looking to peel Black men off Mr. Biden’s base, but they don’t have the resources they had in previous cycles. The RNC’s Black American Community Center in College Park, Georgia was one of many minority outreach centers that opened ahead of the 2022 midterms that are now shuttered.
“We can do a better job [at outreach],” said Azad Ahmadi, a member of the Georgia Black Republican Council (GABRC).
In lieu of national infrastructure, the party is relying on local ancillary groups like the GABRC to make inroads with the Black community. Darryl Wilson, another member, says the group is using mentorship as a way to court Black men into considering voting for Republicans in November.
“We’ve done Black conservative summits. We’ve done ‘barbershop-political forums.’ We bring government to the people in the local communities, wherever they can ask direct questions and get direct answers,” Wilson said.
The Black Conservative Federation (BCF), a network of African American GOP activists, rolled out its 2024 get out the vote policy plan in April titled “Black Men Matter.” The plan will see the group’s outreach organizers targeting Black men in six battleground states – Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida and Pennsylvania – through grassroots outreach and programming.
But Democrats say Republicans are still far away from proving their investment in Black communities.
“To come around in an election period and suggest that they’re courting Black voters, except to say ‘Democrats aren’t doing enough’ or to say ‘you should stay out of this because this election isn’t worth getting involved in and Trump was a little bit better for you are the National Party was a little bit better for you,’ I just don’t buy it,” said Anre Washington, a Georgia voter. “It’s not ever been in my voting lifetime, a good faith effort on the part of the Republican Party.”
People cheer for President Trump en route to his speaking engagement at the Coosa Steel Corporation on Feb. 19 in Rome, Ga. Trump delivered remarks on the economy and affordability as the state started voting to replace the seat vacated by former Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
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ATLANTA — Voters in Northwest Georgia are choosing who should replace former Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Voting closes in the district’s special election on Tuesday night.
The election will test the weight of President Trump’s endorsement of one of the candidates in a crowded race. Some voters say the president’s choice is not who they think would best support the conservative MAGA movement championed by both Trump and Greene.
Greene resigned at the beginning of this year, leaving Georgia’s 14th Congressional District without representation in Congress — and slimming the GOP’s majority in the House — following a bitter split with Trump.
Greene rose to prominence over five years in office as a strong ally of Trump, bombastically attacking critics and pushing the MAGA movement’s “America First” policy. Yet the two had a very public clash after she pushed for the release of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Greene has also been sharply critical of Trump’s actions abroad, saying he has strayed from his promises to focus domestically.
With Trump now in the second year of his second term, other high-profile spats with key parts of his MAGA coalition have erupted over his administration’s handling of other issues, including sweeping tariffs, immigration policy and more. More recently, rifts have emerged over the war with Iran.
Some, like Greene, argue that though Trump helped create the “America First” worldview, he is not the sole arbiter of what it looks like.
Most of the GOP candidates in the special election have said they want to focus on Trump’s priorities and the concerns of their district, rather than become headlines themselves — an approach they say Greene embraced in her public disputes with Democrats and even with members of her own party.
“The difference between Marjorie and I is I will not use the press to become a celebrity,” Republican Star Black said during a candidate forum on Feb. 16. “I will use the press to actually show what I have done — the accomplishments,”
Trump has endorsed Clay Fuller, a district attorney in northwest Georgia for the state’s Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit. He emphasized his support last month during a visit to Rome, part of the state’s 14th District, where he held a rally to tout his administration’s economic policy.
Fuller called himself a “MAGA warrior” at the event.
Republican congressional candidate Clay Fuller (left) shakes hands with President Trump as he arrives on Air Force One at Russell Regional Airport on Feb. 19 in Rome, Ga.
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“I really like him,” said rally attendee Jill Fisher. “I think he’s a strong candidate, seems like a very nice family man with some great values. And I think he’ll add a lot to Congress.”
Highlighting Fuller’s military service as an Air Force veteran, an ad for his campaign says, ” ‘America First’ is the story of his life.”
Fuller faces several other GOP candidates in the primary, including former state Sen. Colton Moore. Moore won elections for the state Legislature in the district before and is considered one of the most right-leaning lawmakers at the state level.
“I’m 100% pro-Trump,” Moore declared in his campaign announcement video.
He’s made a few headlines of his own. Last year, Moore was arrested for attempting to enter the House chambers in Atlanta to attend the State of the State address by GOP Gov. Brian Kemp. Moore argued he had a constitutional right to enter the chamber. Moore had been banned from entering the chambers by the state’s Republican House Speaker Jon Burns for disparaging comments he made about a late Georgia lawmaker at his portrait unveiling.
Moore’s record matters for some GOP voters even more than Trump’s endorsement. Less Dunaway, 14th district voter, says he’s a strong supporter of Trump, but thinks Moore will do a better job carrying out the president’s agenda than Trump’s own pick.
“He actually knows what he’s doing,” Dunaway said of Moore. “He was a state representative, a state senator. He was the first one to fight the people over the 2020 election in Georgia.”
Moore was one of a group of GOP state lawmakers who called on lawmakers to investigate or impeach Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis after she charged Trump and others with trying to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, when Trump and his allies pushed baseless claims of widespread election fraud.
Fuller insists Trump made the right choice in supporting his bid.
“I think they’re looking for someone to carry President Trump’s banner, support his agenda, and fight for him on Capitol Hill,” Fuller told Georgia Public Broadcasting last month.
Still some Republicans who attended the February rally left undecided.
“I don’t just blindly follow what [Trump] says,” said Clay Cooper of Rome.
Still, Cooper said that Trump’s endorsement means he will give Fuller more thought. “[Fuller is] someone that [Trump] thinks aligns very much with his messaging, with his actions, so that certainly weighs in,” Cooper said.
Unlike a partisan primary, all the candidates — Republicans, Democrats and third party candidates — will be on the same ballot for voters in the special election. If no one gets over 50% of the vote, the two top vote-getters regardless of party will advance to a runoff on April 7.
Follow the results below as polls close on Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET.
NPR’s Padmananda Rama contributed to this report.
Mableton, one of Georgia’s youngest cities, is heralded as an example to follow for its artificial intelligence policies.
(Illustration: Marcie LaCerte for the AJC)
When you think about the American cities on the cutting edge of technology, which ones come to mind?
Maybe tech hubs like Austin, Texas; Boston; or San Jose, California? Maybe New York City or Los Angeles?
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Mableton Mayor Michael Owens embraces artificial intelligence, calling it an equalizer. (Courtesy)
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‘Allergic to file cabinets’
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Mableton is home to Six Flags Over Georgia. (Courtesy of Six Flags Over Georgia)
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Creating boundaries
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Mableton officials cut the ribbon for the city’s first permanent office in May 2025 (Courtesy)
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Zachary Hansen, a Georgia native, covers economic development and commercial real estate for the AJC. He’s been with the newspaper since 2018 and enjoys diving into complex stories that affect people’s lives.
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