Georgia reaches the early voting milestone five days before the election

As the Nov. 5 election approaches, Georgia voters continue to break early voting records.

State officials said Thursday that over half of Georgia's active voters have cast ballots in the 2024 election, including over 3.4 million who voted early in person. An additional 230,608 mail-in ballots were returned, bringing the state's total voter turnout to nearly 3.7 million.

“Georgia voters know we have made it easier to cast their ballot,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement Thursday. “It really is that simple.”

This year's voter turnout in Georgia has exceeded that of previous years. In 2020, with just five days until Election Day, around 2.3 million voters cast their votes in person. At this point in the election, around 1.9 million Georgians had cast their votes in the 2022 midterm elections.

The Peach State is considered one of the turning points in the presidential election campaign between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Most polls show Trump with a slight lead over his Democratic opponent, although the gap is extremely small. Trump lost Georgia to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election by just 0.3 percent of the total vote.

The counties in Georgia that saw the highest voter turnout were those that Trump won by large margins four years ago. According to Raffensperger's office, Towns County leads the state in voter turnout, with 69 percent of active voters having already cast a ballot. In 2020, Trump dominated the rural northeast Georgia county 80 percent to 19.4 percent.

Other Georgia counties with high turnout include Oconee (65.5 percent), Rabun (64.4 percent), Dawson (64.1 percent), Forsyth (63.6 percent), Fayette (63.2 percent), Union (63.1 percent) and Greene (62.3 percent). All seven counties voted for Trump in 2020.

The number of Republican voters in early voting this election is higher than in previous years, in part because Trump's campaign has flipped the script and encouraged his supporters to vote in any way they can.

In general, however, Democrats still achieve higher voter turnout in early voting. According to the University of Florida Election Lab, over 12.2 million voters registered as Democrats cast their ballots early. Some 11.5 million registered Republicans did the same.

In Georgia, female voters have outnumbered their male counterparts at the polls, with 55.6 percent of all early votes cast by women, according to Election Lab. Some of Trump's allies have warned that his chances of winning a second term could be jeopardized if women do better than men at the ballot box by November 5.

According to a poll of 538, the average of all polls in Georgia has Trump leading Harris by 1.7 percentage points. In a poll released Thursday by AtlasIntel, the former president was up by 2 points (50 percent to 48 percent), based on responses from 1,212 likely voters. However, the gap is within the survey's margin of error of 3 percent.

In a CNN-SSRS poll earlier this week, Trump led Harris 48 percent to 47 percent, according to responses from 732 registered voters. This gap is also within the survey's margin of error of 4.7 percent.

Election projections of 538 give Trump a higher chance of securing Georgia and its 16 electoral votes on Tuesday. According to the website's election simulator, Trump wins Georgia 63 times out of 100, while Harris wins the state 37 times out of 100.

Pollster RealClearPolling expects Trump to lead by an average of 2.6 points on Thursday, although its election forecast calls the Georgia race a “battle” between the two candidates.

Republican National Committee spokeswoman Anna Kelly responded for comment Newsweek via email Thursday that Trump “is a candidate for ALL Americans, which is why he wins or ties in every battleground, including Georgia – his message resonates with voters across the country.”

Newsweek also reached out to the Harris campaign via email Thursday seeking comment on the state of the Georgia race.