Georgia - Final 2024 Prediction

Topic: 2024 Election Forecast

November 3, 2024

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My fourth final prediction for the eight battleground states of 2024 is for Georgia.

Georgia is a seemingly must-win state for Trump this year, although paths to 270 technically exist without it.  Trump could hold North Carolina, then win Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada (or Wisconsin) for a majority, but I think everyone agrees the ride would be a lot less bumpy if we could simply put away this formerly reliable Republican state that has fallen into the grip of suburbanization, demographic change, and election corruption driven primarily by the introduction of Automatic Voter Registration in 2016.

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Party Registration

Georgia does not register voters by party.  For more on the best comparison I can infer for party registration, please read my analysis of Duval County, Florida, as a mirror of Georgia for the past two decades.

Duval currently has a Republican turnout edge in mail and early voting statistics, with what is almost certain to be a GOP-heavy Election Day turnout waiting in the wings.  The registration shift in Duval County, four points to the right of where it was in 2020, suggests Trump will flip the county back, and in doing so, it seems that Georgia should follow suit and land right of Duval, where it typically goes.

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What Harris Must Do to Win

Georgia’s 2020 election was nothing short of a dumpster fire.  The purpose of this preview isn’t to relitigate the past, but that mass mail-in election put metro Atlanta on steroids, and the state itself had already once drifted to the left when Trump held it by a reduced 5.1% margin in 2016.  Still, no one expected Georgia to be the surprise of 2020, and the fact that it did what it did underscores why Trump isn’t taking North Carolina for granted this year.  My pessimistic forecast of Georgia gives Harris room for a very narrow win of less than half a point.  It will require the same recipe, especially given the rural turnout boom present in early voting – overwhelming turnout from metro Atlanta, particularly Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, and Gwinnett Counties, with a side of malfeasance to get over the hump.

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What Trump Must Do to Win