Now that early voting is over in Georgia we can compare the in-person early vote with the general election and get a sense of where things stand. So far a record 2,892,114 Georgians have voted. More than in any Georgia runoff ever. But as we learned in the general election, high turnout doesn’t necessarily benefit Democrats.
Comparing the early in-person vote, we can get a sense of who exactly is voting. 2,694,763 Georgians voted early in-person in the general election. The electorate was 58.2% white, 26.4% black, 2.6% Hispanic, and 2% Asian. 1,916,676 voted early in-person in the runoff. That breakdown is 56.3% white, 30.7% black, 2.3% Hispanic, 2.1% Asian.
So White turnout has dropped nearly 2 percentage points, whereas Black turnout is a full 4.3% higher. This would seem to bode well for the Democrats since Biden won a whopping 88% of the Black vote in Georgia.
We can also compare the total mail-in ballots in the general election to the mail ballots accepted so far. This is a less precise way of comparisan, since Georgians still have 5 days to return ballots but it’s worth looking at anyway. In the general election the mail ballot breakdown was 53% White, 30.3% Black, 2.6% Hispanic, 3.7% Asian. So far in the runoff it’s 54% White, 31.9% Black, 2.1% Hispanic, 3.3% Asian. Here again black Voters are outpacing the general election, but then again, so are Whites.
So what does this all tell us? Well not nothing, but also not as much as we’d like to think it does. I’d caution drawing any firm conclusions yet, since Republicans could still have a big showing on election day, but so far Democrats are seeing the kind of turnout they need to win. Combine that with polls that show things neck and neck and I’d say this was a very long winded way of telling you it’s a toss-up. Happy New Year!
