Steve Kornacki outlines the Georgia County results to watch

A small Georgia county could serve as a clue to where the state will go in the presidential election NBC News Correspondent Steve Kornacki.

The state, which Joe Biden won by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020, is worth 16 Electoral College votes and is considered a key battleground after Pennsylvania, along with North Carolina. Georgia will be one of the first to close its polls on Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET, and according to several polls, including those from FiveThirtyEight and The hillFormer President Donald Trump has a slim lead over Kamala Harris in the Peach State.

Kornacki said a new state law in the state means 80 percent of total votes will be counted and reported within the first hour after polls close.

“If things go according to plan, we’re going to get a lot of votes in Georgia very quickly,” he said.

But Kornacki said the results could depend on what he called “the bruise” — counties in the Atlanta metro area that Biden won in 2020. He said those areas account for “more than 40 percent” of the state's total vote. They are growing “very quickly, they are diversifying and they are becoming more and more Democratic.”

“The question — one of the questions for me tonight — will be: Will the bruise get bigger,” Kornacki said, adding that one county in particular, Fayette County, would be a litmus test for that change.

Fayette County, with about 122,000 residents, is on the edge of the Atlanta metropolitan area and was won by Trump in 2020 by a margin of 52.7 percent to Biden's 45.9 percent.

However, Kornacki said the county has “grown closer to the Democrats” as Republican victories in Fayette have shrunk in every cycle since Mitt Romney secured victory over Barack Obama by 65.0 percent to 33.7 percent in 2012.

Kornacki said the shift from nearly 2-1 splits to mere single-digit percentages “is typical of what we're talking about in the suburbs, with highly educated voters across the country moving away from Trump's Republican Party.”

According to Data USA, citing Census Bureau data, educational attainment in Fayette County has increased, with the percentage of those earning a bachelor's degree or higher increasing from 19.8 in 2014 to 24.25 in 2022 is.

“If Kamala Harris and the Democrats get what they want from Georgia tonight, if they have a good night, (Fayette) will turn blue tonight,” Kornacki said. “If it doesn’t turn blue, that’s an achievement for Trump.”

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