Joe Biden Has Georgia on His Mind

In 2020, Joe Biden, possibly with a little help from his friends, did something no Democrat had done for a while - flipped Georgia's Electoral College votes to the Democrat column. Two thousand and twenty-four, though, looks to be a much different beast.

“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.

Eighty-five percent of 590,000 voters is still over half a million Georgians turning out to vote for the former president, while the current president managed only 290,000. That may not be as big a deal as it seems, though; Nikki Haley, for instance, was still on the Georgia primary ballot, and while she didn't draw that much of the vote, it's not impossible that some of the GOP voters were motivated by the fact that there was any challenger at all, whereas Joe Biden was effectively running unopposed. The Georgia GOP shouldn't be resting on their laurels over these numbers. Lots of things may be tipping the Republican's way in the Peach State, but to quote a well-known old movie line, "Don't get cocky, kid!"

Laken Riley's Heartbroken Dad Speaks Out, Killer 'Might Not Have Been Here Had We Had Secure Borders'

There's other good news, though, for the Trump people. The current RealClearPolitics polling average for Georgia has Donald Trump leading Joe Biden by 5.7 points. That's a significant margin, although not as big as one would like to see in a state like Georgia.

This, though, is the elephant (hah) in the room.

Biden will also have to handle persistent concerns about immigration after the recent death of University of Georgia student Laken Riley thrust the state into the center of an already raging partisan debate on the issue. A Venezuelan citizen who entered the U.S. illegally 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.

Whereas someone once famously said about an election in the '90s, "It's the economy, stupid," in the case of 2024 one could plausibly claim, "It's the border, stupid." Laken Riley's murder will certainly drive a fair amount of voters in Georgia; her father is unabashedly pro-Trump, and given the Biden administration's record on the border and immigration in general, one can scarcely blame him. Illegal immigration/the border will undoubtedly be one of the major issues, if not the major issue, on which this election will turn.

While things are looking good in Georgia for the Trump campaign, flipping the state back is essential to garnering enough Electoral College votes to land Donald Trump back in the White House. But Georgia alone won't be enough. Trump will also have to flip back all of the swing states he won in 2016 but lost in 2020 - and he will have to win them by greater than the margin of shenanigans.

At this point in the game, though, anything that makes the Biden campaign sweat a little (or a lot) is a good thing, and there can be no doubt they are worried about Georgia - and they should be.