Overview
After favoring conservative Democrats in every election from 1868–1960, Georgians began shifting to the Right in the mid 1960s based on discomfort with provisions of the Civil Rights Act. They then voted reliably Republican for the decades between 1972 and 2016 (except when a southern Democrat was on the ticket).
However, with a recent influx of newcomers to the state, Georgia has become less conservative and is now considered a swing state where races for all elected offices are more competitive. Since 2020 it has a net gain of approximately 30,000 new voters, with as many as two-thirds of those likely to be Democrats, according to research by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In 2020 President Biden won the state by 0.2%—the narrowest margin of victory in the U.S. that election. Democrats also narrowly won both of Georgia’s Senate seats in 2020. However, Republicans still outnumber Democrats two to one in its House delegation, and the governorship has been held by Republicans since 2003.
Given a mere 12,000-vote margin between Biden and Trump in 2020, Georgia conducted a hand recount of all ballots before Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) certified the results on November 20, confirming Biden’s win of the state’s 16 electoral college votes. Two days later, Trump requested another recount, though ultimately, that also reaffirmed Biden’s win.
Despite the absence of voting irregularities in Georgia, Trump and his allies continued a pressure campaign against Raffensperger and other state officials for weeks after the election and also demanded additional audits, a process that dragged on for almost two years.
Georgia was among the seven states involved in the fake electors scheme, with 16 Republican officials attempting to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election by submitting fake Electoral College documents to Congress as part of the January 6, 2021, certification process. After the attack on the Capitol that day, six House representatives from Georgia were among the 147 congressional Republicans who voted against certifying President Biden’s win of the 2020 election, and five of those six are running for reelection again in 2024.
In the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol, at least 30 people with ties to Georgia have faced criminal charges for contributing to the violence that day—beyond the handful of Georgians charged in the Fulton County election interference case.
2020 Election Fallout
After President Biden was sworn in, election denialism intensified in Georgia, where the far-right faction of the GOP has kept the misinformation and conspiracy theories alive, and many local officials have helped amplify the mistrust and confusion.
Election Deniers Running for Congress
In Georgia, nine House candidates running in 2024 have spread lies or conspiracies about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election or taken steps to undermine the integrity of that and subsequent elections.
Election Deniers Running for Statewide Office
No candidate in Georgia running for statewide office in 2024 has questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Election Deniers in the State Legislature
Approximately 14% of the 236 members serving in Georgia’s General Assembly are election deniers, including people in leadership positions in the Senate. The States United Democracy Center identifies 33 legislators in the General Assembly—18 representatives and 15 senators—who say they don’t believe that President Biden actually won the 2020 election. Election denialism among elected officials at the state level matters because state legislators across the country have been introducing increasingly more bills in recent years that allow partisan operatives to manipulate elections, restrict access to voting, and potentially skew outcomes.
Election Deniers Administering Elections
Three of the five members of the Georgia State Election Board are election deniers and a number of other election administrators in the state still parrot Trump’s claims of a “rigged” election in 2020 and are continuing to spread disinformation about election integrity in 2024.
Election Deniers in GOP Leadership
As elsewhere in the country, Republicans in Georgia have been at odds with one another in the wake of Trump’s 2020 defeat, with moderates attempting to resist an outright embrace of Trumpism while at least 15 GOP officials continue to parrot his claims that the last presidential election was stolen.