Georgia

Biden sees worrying signs in Georgia

Published

4 months ago

March 19, 2024

President Biden is facing worrying signs in Georgia — the state he flipped blue for the first time in decades back in 2020 — including low primary turnout and a lack of big down-ballot races to energize his base.

Biden beat former President Trump by fewer than 12,000 votes in the Peach State last cycle, and polls suggest the former president now has the edge as the pair head toward a 2024 rematch.

Democrats acknowledge that Biden has work to do to mobilize voters, with the state poised to once again play a pivotal role in November.

“The bad news [for Democrats in Georgia is] an enthusiasm gap between Democratic voters and Republican voters,” said Atlanta-based Democratic strategist Fred Hicks. “The question for Democrats is not for whom you’re going to vote in November; it’s whether or not you’re going to vote.”

Biden trounced his long-shot challengers in Georgia’s Democratic primary last week, scoring more than 95 percent of the vote — but total turnout for the contest was just below 290,000 voters, according to the latest counts from Decision Desk HQ.

On the Republican side, Trump scored roughly 85 percent of the vote, and the race saw nearly double the opposing party’s turnout, with nearly 590,000 Georgians casting ballots in the GOP contest.

Though strategists note the primary electorate isn’t exactly indicative of how Georgians will vote in the general, turnout will be key in the state that Trump won in 2016 — and where, four years later, Biden narrowly won by one-quarter of 1 percent.

“It is a complete toss-up right now,” said Democratic strategist Abigail Collazo, who has done work in Georgia. “There’s nothing that can be taken for granted in a year like this one, particularly with the Black and minority voters that the Biden campaign will need to win.”

Last cycle saw record turnout in the Peach State, when Biden challenged then-incumbent Trump with the benefit of other major races down ballot that helped energize voters.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Georgia Democrats turned out in big numbers to oust Trump, but also to elect Democrat Jon Ossoff as the state’s first Jewish senator and Rev. Raphael Warnock (D) as the state’s first Black senator.

That year, Georgia notably combined its presidential preference primary and general primary into a June election, while this year, it’s back to separate dates.

“The question is: Can and how can Biden-Harris get the Democratic turnout to match 2020 without the historic nature of other races on the ballot?” Hicks said.

Biden’s reelection bid will have to energize the state’s significant Black population, which makes up roughly a third of the battleground state, while facing polls that show the incumbent struggling nationally with the demographic.

Amid a progressive push in several states to cast protest votes over the administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, roughly 6,000 Georgians left their ballots blank in the Democratic primary, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Biden will also have to handle persistent concerns about immigration after the recent death of Georgia student Laken Riley thrust the state into the center of an already raging partisan debate on the issue. A Venezuelan citizen was arrested and charged with murder in connection to Riley’s death, prompting many on the right to link the tragedy to Biden’s handling of the border.

“Laken Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal. That’s right,” Biden said during his State of the Union address earlier this month, after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) heckled him to mention the Georgia student. “But how many thousands of people being killed by legals? To her parents I say, my heart goes out to you, having lost children myself.”

A survey from Emerson College Polling and The Hill recently found Trump up 8 points over Biden on the issue of immigration in Georgia. And in a general election rematch, polling averages from Decision Desk HQ/The Hill showed Trump leading Biden by 5 points.

Biden would need to get “really aggressive on the border” to come closer to a win in the state, said Georgia-based Republican strategist Jay Williams.

But there are “rays of hope” for both White House hopefuls, said Ben Taylor, a professor of political science at Kennesaw State University in Georgia.

“Today, if I were operating either of these campaigns, I would probably rather be in the Trump campaign’s position, I think. But it’s very tenuous,” Taylor said.

Trump faces his own hurdles in the state, where he’s been criminally indicted over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 results in the state. A judge last week notably dropped some charges related to Trump’s infamous call asking Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s win, but Trump still faces 10 counts in the case.

“This is going to be a high-stakes election where a few votes really matter. And problematically, if Trump does the same old thing and he loses, I mean, I don’t know what’s gonna happen,” said Audrey Haynes, a professor of political science at the University of Georgia.

“Will it be the nail in the coffin? … Or will it be: ‘It’s rigged’ again, and then ‘we’re going to throw the whole country into chaos’ again?” Haynes said.

And though Trump easily extended his string of early wins in the GOP primary, his former opponent Nikki Haley brought in around 13 percent support. That’s notable because some of the roughly 77,000 ballots in her column likely came in after Haley dropped out of the running on March 6, making those votes a possible protest against Trump.

In a state that Biden won last cycle by just 12,000 votes, the tens of thousands of Haley voters present an opportunity for Biden’s reelection bid to persuade disillusioned Republicans to join the Democratic camp.

But even if those voters aren’t drawn across the aisle, they could still pose a problem for Trump by sitting out, said Taylor.

“The closer the Biden folks can keep Georgia, the more competitive Georgia is in the long term, I think the better it is for the Biden campaign, not just for the Electoral College votes, but particularly, from a strategic perspective, of making the Trump campaign spend money that they, by the end, may not have,” Taylor said.

Mark Rountree, a Republican pollster based in Georgia, said that the Haley votes would be “very problematic” for Trump if the general election were held today, but countered that another six months of advertising and messaging could likely pull many of those back into the former president’s column.

With respective wins in Georgia, Washington and Mississippi last week, Biden and Trump have both locked up the delegates they need to win their party nominations, teeing up a rematch in November that observers say could come down to the wire. The pair held dueling campaign events in the Peach State last week.

“This is a competitive place, and Republicans cannot win without Georgia,” said Keron Blair, the chief organizing and field officer of the progressive New Georgia Project Action Fund.

“And Democrats would be remiss if they abandoned the investment in Georgia and abandoned the work of forcing a meaningful competition for the electoral votes that are up for grabs in Georgia,” Blair said.

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Georgia

Georgia woman charged with murder after unsupervised 4-year-old boy climbs into car, dies

Published

6 hours ago

July 26, 2024

Press Room

Georgia woman charged with murder after unsupervised 4-year-old boy climbs into car, dies

A Georgia woman is facing murder charges after a 4-year-old boy died inside of a car, authorities say.

On July 24, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrestedKelsey Monaco, 30, a Fitzgerald resident, about 154 miles west of Savannah. The Fitzgerald Police Department asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to look into the death of the child.

Investigators said the child left his apartment unsupervised and made his way inside of a car.

The 4-year-old was then found unresponsive inside the car. He was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead, authorities said.

Monaco was taken into custody and booked at the Ben Hill County Jail.

USA TODAY reached out to authorities to find out Monaco’s relationship to the child and if the child died because the car was hot, but we have not heard back.

‘This can’t be real’: He left his daughter alone in a hot car for hours. She died.

Georgia woman charged with murder, investigation ongoing

Monaco is currently in custody at the Ben Hill County Jail.

Arrest records show that Monaco is facing the following charges:

1 count, first-degree child cruelty
1 count, felony murder

This investigation into the 4-year-old’s death remains active and ongoing. When the investigation is complete, the case will be transferred to the Cordelle Judicial District Attorney’s Office for prosecution, authorities said.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Fitzgerald Police Department at 229-426-5000 or the GBI Regional Investigative Office in Perry at 478-987-4545. Anonymous tips can be submitted by calling 1-800-597-TIPS (8477), online at https://gbi.georgia.gov/submit-tips-online, or by downloading the See Something, Send Something mobile app.

Ahjané Forbes is a reporter on the National Trending Team at USA TODAY. Ahjané covers breaking news, car recalls, crime, health, lottery and public policy stories. Email her at aforbes@gannett.com. Follow her on Instagram, Threads and X (Twitter) @forbesfineest.

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Georgia

CDC officials warning about rising dengue fever cases in Georgia

Published

13 hours ago

July 26, 2024

Press Room

CDC officials warning about rising dengue fever cases in Georgia

The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are reporting a growing number of cases of dengue fever infections in Georgia.

The agency says the disease is the most common mosquito-borne infection worldwide.

There have been almost 2,900 cases of the viral infection in the United States so far in 2024 – nearly as many as were reported in all of 2023. The CDC says there has also been a record number of cases worldwide.

In Georgia, there have been 20 reported cases – up from 16 earlier in July.

What is dengue?

Spread by mosquitoes, most cases of dengue in the United States are associated with travel to areas like the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, or other areas with high risk for tourists.

The CDC says most people never know if they have dengue because of a lack of symptoms.

For the 1 in 4 people who do feel sick after becoming infected, symptoms include fever, headache, skin itching and rash, vomiting, and muscle and joint pains.

In rare cases, people may get severe dengue, a medical emergency that can quickly get worse. Symptoms of this include belly pain, persistent vomiting, a bleeding nose or gums, and vomiting blood.

If you have any symptoms, talk to your doctor and share your recent travel history.

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Georgia

Man dies at 27 from heat exposure at a Georgia prison, lawsuit says

Published

20 hours ago

July 26, 2024

Press Room

Man dies at 27 from heat exposure at a Georgia prison, lawsuit says

DECATUR, Ga. (AP) — The Georgia sun scorched the slab of concrete beneath Juan Carlos Ramirez Bibiano’s body when nurses found him in a puddle of his own excrement, vomiting, according to a complaint.

Officers left Ramirez in an outdoor cell at Telfair State Prison on July 20, 2023, for five hours without water, shade or ice, even as the outside temperature climbed to 96 degrees by the afternoon, according to a lawsuit brought by his family. That evening, the complaint says, Ramirez died of heart and lung failure caused by heat exposure. He was 27.

Ramirez’s family, including his mother, Norma Bibiano, announced a lawsuit against the Georgia Department of Corrections on Thursday, alleging that officers’ negligent performance of their duties caused his death. The warden directed officers to check on inmates, bring them water and ice and limit their time outside, the complaint says.

The Department of Corrections reported that Ramirez died of natural causes, Jeff Filipovits, one of Norma Bibiano’s attorneys, said at a news conference in Decatur, a suburb of Atlanta.

Georgia’s prisons are under nationwide scrutiny. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation, which is ongoing, into the state’s prisons following concerns about violence, understaffing and sexual abuse.

Outside of Georgia, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has faced complaints of widespread dysfunction. The Associated Press found rampant sexual abuse, criminal misconduct from staff, understaffing, inmate escapes, COVID outbreaks and crumbling infrastructure inside prisons across the country.

The findings led U.S. Sen. John Ossoff of Georgia to introduce bipartisan legislation in 2022 that would overhaul oversight of the agency and improve transparency. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate on July 10.

At an 8 a.m. daily meeting on the day of Ramirez’s death, Telfair State Prison Warden Andrew McFarlane ordered department heads to keep inmates hydrated, bring them ice and avoid leaving them outside for too long in the heat, according to the lawsuit.

A prison staff member brought Ramirez to an outdoor “rec cell” around 10 a.m., after his meeting with a mental health provider, the lawsuit says. The temperature had reached 86 degrees by then.

About 3 p.m., five on-site nurses rushed into the yard in response to an alert from security staff, according to the lawsuit. That is when the nurses found him lying naked on the concrete near his vomit and excrete, the lawsuit says.

Ramirez’s breathing was strained, and his heartbeat was irregular, the lawsuit says. A nurse said that Ramirez was blue and “hot to the touch,” according to the complaint. Nurses pressed cold water bottles onto his groin and under his arms.

Nurses then put an automated external defibrillator on Ramirez’s chest, but it did not deliver a shock. After some time passed, a doctor arrived to help the nurses administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation, the complaint says. He tried to insert tubes into Ramirez, who still had trouble breathing, seemingly because of his yellow stomach bile, according to the complaint.

Later, his internal body temperature was recorded at 107 degrees Fahrenheit (41.7 Celsius), the complaint says.

Around 3:35 p.m., Emergency Medical Services arrived and took Ramirez to a local hospital. He died at 8:25 p.m. from cardiopulmonary arrest brought by heat exposure, according to the complaint.

“The number of deaths that are occurring in custody is galling, and the absolute lawlessness inside of prisons is a humanitarian crisis,” Filipovits said at the news conference of Georgia’s prisons. “I don’t use those words lightly.”

Homicides inside Georgia’s prisons are rising, and the number is higher than in other states, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. But the Journal-Constitution also reported that starting in March, the Department of Corrections stopped immediately reporting the causes of inmate deaths

The attorneys said they have minimal information about the events leading up to Ramirez’s death. For example, they aren’t sure whether officers brought Ramirez to an outdoor cell for routine or punitive purposes. They say they remain in the dark about which officers were directly in charge of taking care of Ramirez.

“A piece of my heart is gone,” Norma Bibiano said in Spanish at the news conference. Ramirez’s brother sat by her side. Ramirez also left behind a son, and he was a father figure to his partner’s son, the family said.

Bibiano recalled her son as loving, kind and intelligent. She said she always hoped her son would return home, and she misses hearing him say, “I love you, mama” over the phone.

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Charlotte Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Kramon on the social platform X: @charlottekramon

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