Georgia
Georgia voters motivated by Harris-Trump contest flock to polls in record numbers on first day • Georgia Recorder
The first day of early voting in Georgia crushed the previous record for in-person turnout, with more than 300,000 people casting a ballot Tuesday.
The previous record was 136,000 votes on the first day of advanced voting in 2020, according to Georgia Secretary of State officials.
In polling places across vote-rich metro Atlanta, backers of both political parties showed up in droves to back their favorite candidates on a busy first day of the end of the 2024 election.
U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, who is also chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Georgia, said late Monday afternoon that she was heartened by the turnout.
“We have shocked the nation in Georgia before with historic voter turnout in 2020 and now we are even surpassing that,” the Atlanta Democrat said. “I am confident that voters are choosing their freedom when they vote, but I also understand that there’s a lot more days of early voting to go, and so we have to keep this momentum going.”
The first day of early voting coincided with a visit from GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, who did an all-women town hall in Cumming that will air Wednesday on Fox News and a late-night rally in Cobb County.
“I tell you what, I’m hearing very good things now. It hasn’t been going on too long, but we’re seeing numbers. They’re saying, ‘Wow, those are big numbers,’” Trump told rally-goers Tuesday.
Cherokee County
But there were also signs of energy among right-leaning voters.
When the polls at Rose Creek Public Library in Woodstock opened up at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, more than 75 people were already in a line stretching around the building and looping up in a closed-off section of the parking lot.
The library parking lot quickly filled up beyond capacity, and some parked their vehicles along the curb. Still, the crowd grew as people were dropped off out front or walked over from nearby lots.
Some of the voters were bundled up against the chilly weather, but the mood was generally jolly, with some clapping and cheering when poll workers officially opened the doors.
Sharon Krecl of Canton was one of the first to walk out the doors, along with a friend who did not want her name published.
Most of Tuesday’s early risers said they are constant early voters because it is more convenient for them than waiting until Election Day.
“We’ve got other things to do,” Krecl said. “We don’t want to be standing in line. We figure it’s going to be a very busy election year.”
Woodstock retiree James Tanner said he wanted to bank his vote for Donald Trump in case he buys the proverbial farm before Nov. 5.
“Well I wanted to get it over with. I might die before Election Day, I wanted to make sure I get counted,” he said with a laugh.
Tanner stepped out of the library wearing a cap naming him as a Purple Heart recipient.
“I’m like Trump, I took a bullet for this country,” he said.
Tanner was far from the sole Trump voter who lined up early in Woodstock Tuesday. More than two-thirds of the county supported the former president against Democrat Joe Biden in 2020.
The local Democratic Party is hoping to make the district, sandwiched between the more liberal north Atlanta suburbs and conservative rural north Georgia, a little bluer, announcing visits from big names like Sen. Jon Ossoff and former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, but most of Tuesday’s early voters said they want Trump back in office.
“He’s going to save America,” Tanner said. “America’s going down the hole, quick. Democrats, I don’t know what they got on their mind, but it ain’t America. We need somebody to take America back.”
“I just think he’s strong,” said Gail Kane of Woodstock. “I think he’s strong for our country, for somebody to go through what he’s going through and still keep running to be able to take care of our country, I mean, you can’t ask for better than that.”
Most of the voters listed border security, crime and the economy as their top concerns.
“He’s a businessman, so he’s dealt with other countries in his business and everything,” said Woodstock retiree George McCutchen. “So he knows what’s going on. It’s about running the country like a business. That’s the biggest thing.”
Some of the voters also expressed concern that the election might not be completely free or fair.
“We’re hoping, God willing,” Kane said. “I think the last election was a little bit, maybe, off. We’ll never know 100% for sure.”
“I think it’s more fair, too, when Election Day is Election Day,” she added. “Not election week or election couple days. Get it all done like we used to back in the old days. One day, count your votes the next day, whatever.”
Trump continues to allege malfeasance in the 2020 election, but his efforts to overturn the results have failed in multiple courts. In the past, the former president has expressed skepticism with early and absentee voting, implying that those votes are easier to falsify, but he has since moderated that stance and called on supporters to vote any way they can.
In a Tuesday morning press conference at the state Capitol, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger sought to quash worries about election security, touting measures including maintaining accurate voter lists by cooperating with other states, verifying that only U.S. citizens are able to vote and a 100% audit of all races.
“We have the cleanest, most accurate voter list in the entire country,” he said.
Atlanta
Trump and his supporters are hoping places like Cherokee continue to see big crowds at polling places, while Harris voters hope to see strong turnout in Atlanta and some of its more left-leaning suburbs.
Poll workers in Atlanta reported steady crowds Tuesday, including at the Joan P. Garner Library at Ponce De Leon, where Pamela Matthews, a retired government contractor, cast her ballot for Harris.
Matthews said she thinks Harris’ policies would be better for the middle class economically, and that she prefers the vice president’s position on abortion. But she said she worries Harris’ connection with her boss, President Joe Biden, could harm her chances in Georgia.
“It’s hard for her because of the split between her and Biden, and things that she probably would do different from Biden, she’s really not talking a lot about it because she’s still serving underneath him,” she said. “So that’s a disadvantage for her to me. But hopefully, I mean, it’s so close now that she’s going to have to separate herself from him and really talk about the things that she would do differently.”
Matthews said she hopes to see Harris separate herself from Biden on the economy, and especially the war in Gaza.
“So many people are losing their lives, so I hope that she will take a stance against that and speak up because she would probably do, I think, things a little bit different, but she really doesn’t say much because of the position that she’s still in,” she added.
Democrats’ chances at retaining the White House appeared to leap when Biden dropped out and Harris became the nominee, but Leah Foster of DeKalb County said Biden’s forced departure left a bad taste in her mouth.
Foster voted in DeKalb County Tuesday morning after a wait of just under an hour.
While she said she’s not happy about how she feels Biden was treated, she appreciates him setting up his vice president to be the nominee and was pleased to vote for her.
“I’m voting for someone who doesn’t have the baggage,” she said. “And I’m not talking about the 34 convictions. I’m not talking about the alleged rape. I’m not talking about any of that. I’m talking about the inability to put America first, the inability to put the country first.”
Foster said she thinks Trump is too self-centered to serve another term and would harm the nation’s reputation abroad.
“I’m not voting for the lesser of two evils. I hear people say that, but I don’t view her as evil,” she said. “I view her as this is her time. This is America’s time. This is America’s time to say once again on the world stage who we are. Biden has brought back a lot of credibility to America on the world stage, and I just do not think that Trump would continue that. I think that we would fall back with him at the helm in that regard.”
Frankie Brown said he voted for a full Democratic ticket. He said on election night he’ll be watching the House and Senate results as closely as the presidential race.
“Republicans aren’t capable and aren’t ready to do anything but just flex their muscle and stuff, but I think we can get something done with the Democratic party,” he said. “We’ve got plans, we’ve got voting power, all we’ve got to do is make sure we get the Senate, that’s going to be a little worse, but I’m positive.”
Polls suggest a slim Republican majority could be the most likely outcome in the Senate, while control of the House is more difficult to predict. Brown said he hopes a Democratic trifecta will allow the party to take action in his most important issues, abortion and gun control.
Britany Hellyar-Luna, who voted in East Point in south Fulton County, showed up on the first day of early voting to avoid the lines. Also, she said there was no point waiting when she already knew how she planned to vote.
“As a same-sex couple, we want to protect our rights too,” she said as she left East Point First Mallalieu United Methodist Church, which is an early voting location. “That was not a hard thing to vote Kamala versus Trump.”
Octavis Smith voted at the same East Point location on the first day but he said he mostly voted early just to get it over with so people would stop hassling him about the election.
Disillusioned by the negative ads and what he sees as self-serving politicians, the Democrat-leaning voter said he was not particularly enthusiastic about any candidate but ultimately backed Harris because he said he wants to see what she would do with the opportunity to potentially become the country’s first woman president.
“I really do want to see what she is going to do. I mean, I already saw what Trump is going to do,” he said.
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Georgia
With voting over, Georgia’s election to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene could be test of Trump’s influence
Polls have closed in the Georgia 14th Congressional District special election to elect who will replace Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congress.
The seat has been vacant since January, when Greene resigned following a monthslong public fight with President Trump over foreign policy issues and the release of documents involving the Jeffrey Epstein case. A week before she announced her plans to resign, Mr. Trump said he would support a primary challenge against her.
Twenty-two candidates filed to run for the seat, but the number dropped to 17 candidates — 12 Republicans, three Democrats, one Libertarian, and one independent — all of whom appeared on Tuesday’s ballot.
Among the top candidates are former District Attorney Clay Fuller, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump, former Republican state Sen. Colton Moore, and Democrat Shawn Harris, a retired Army brigadier general who lost to Greene in the 2024 race for the seat.
Harris has raised more than $4.3 million for the race, with about $290,000 in the bank.
Greene has declined to endorse anyone in the race.
Georgia voters enthusiastic to choose their representative
Voters in Rome, Georgia, said they expect to return and vote in what is likely to be a runoff election because of the number of candidates.
“Too many people that think they’re politicians — some I know personally that has no experience, that, you know, Washington would just swallow them up like it does most people,” one voter said.
“What I look for in a candidate is tell me your policies. That’s the problem that I have with both sides today,” another voter said. “They attack each other, they hate each other, and they don’t ever get around to telling you what their actual policies are.”
Despite voters saying they planned to return to the ballot box, Floyd County Republican Vice Chair David Guldenschuh said the complicated schedule had party heads worried.
“There’s real fatigue out there, and I sense and feel for them,” he said.
Still, Guldenschuh said he doesn’t feel like the crowded field would hurt the GOP’s chance to hold the seat that Greene once occupied.
“I think that, you know, we have an unusual situation here. We all appreciated and loved Marjorie. And when she and Trump had the falling out, we still supported both here in this district, even though they weren’t getting along very well. And still are, as I understand,” he said. So I do know that this district is very solid conservative, and from Floyd County north, it’s really conservative. So I don’t see a big change going on now.”
Vincent Mendes, the chair of the county’s Democratic Party, expected Harris to get to the runoff, but said it would take effort to flip the seat.
“We will have to work our butts off to make him win if he gets to a runoff, but that’s how we should treat every single election,” Mendes said.
A local race with national implications
CBS News Political Director Fin Gómez said this special election is about more than just one seat in Congress. It’s being watched by politicians across the state and around the nation as an early indicator of where the Republican Party and its voters stand right now.
Gómez said this race could offer one of the first real tests of Mr. Trump’s influence within the party, with the president throwing his support behind Fuller.
The results could show whether the Republican base is still fully aligned with him after his rift with Greene.
The key question, according to Gómez: Does the president still have the influence that he did back in 2024?
“I do think that if Clay Fuller does well, even if he doesn’t clear the threshold that’s needed to avoid a runoff, I think that bodes well for the president, because that means Republican voters are still adhering to what the president says, and it shows the influence that that the president still has on the Republican Party, including in northwest Georgia,” he told CBS News Atlanta.
If another candidate, such as Moore, pulls off a win, it could signal the Republican base isn’t always following the president’s lead.
“If Fuller does not when I think it would surprise a lot of the Trump faithful who really adhere to who he supports in these type of elections, but if, let’s say, if it doesn’t go Fuller’s way and Moore picks off this win, I think what you are seeing is that the base might be a little more unpredictable, similar to what we saw perhaps in 2010.”
Special election marks start of busy campaign stretch
With how crowded the field is, it is very likely that this will be only the first step to choosing Greene’s replacement. Georgia’s special election rules require a candidate to win a majority of votes. If that threshold is not met, the top two candidates will go on to the April 7 runoff.
Whoever eventually wins the seat will serve out the rest of Greene’s term — a relatively short time in office. If they want to remain in the seat, they’ll have to run again in the May 19 party primaries. That race could possibly go to a party runoff, which would take place on June 16. The winners of the primaries will advance to the general election in November.
Last week, 10 Republicans, including Fuller and Moore, qualified to run in November’s election for a full two-year term. Harris also qualified, the sole Democrat who did in what has been rated as the most Republican-leaning district in Georgia by the Cook Political Report.
Mr. Trump carried the 14th Congressional District with 68% of the vote in the 2024 election, with Greene receiving over 64%. Republicans want that rightward trend to continue in the district. Democrats are hoping that the potential GOP infighting and crowded field could help them secure a surprise electoral win, shrinking the already-narrow margins in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Republicans currently control 218 House seats to the Democrats’ 214.
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.
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