This story was updated on Wednesday, March 13 at 8:26 a.m.
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump won the Georgia primaries on Tuesday and secured their party’s nomination for the presidency, finalizing a Biden-Trump matchup this fall when Georgia will be a key battleground.
You can view the latest Georgia presidential primary results here.
Georgia’s delegates allowed Biden to clinch the nomination. Trump reached enough delegates later in the evening after he also won the Republican primaries in Mississippi and Washington.
“The road to the White House runs directly through the Peach State. Georgians made our voices heard at the ballot box – we delivered tonight for President Biden, and we’ll deliver again in November,” Democratic Rep. Nikema Williams, chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia, wrote in a statement.
“The Georgia Republican Party is ready to go to work to elect President Trump and Republicans up and down the ballot on November 5,” Georgia GOP chair Josh McKoon wrote on X.
With the November race all but set going into Tuesday, turnout was low across Georgia.
About 875,000 people voted for a candidate in Tuesday’s primary – a turnout rate of about 11 percent. The number of people who cast ballots is higher than that, as organizers called on Democratic voters to submit blank ballots to protest Biden’s stance on the war in Gaza. It’s currently unclear how many people cast blank ballots.
Republican votes cast were more than double Democratic votes, but Georgia has an open primary meaning any voter can pull any ballot. Republicans had a contested race for most of Georgia’s early voting period until former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley ended her campaign. Nearly half of voters cast their ballots during early voting.
Still, Haley managed to pick up nearly 78,000 votes, concentrated in Atlanta’s suburbs. That could suggest trouble for Trump this fall in a state where he lost in 2020 by just under 12,000 votes.
“People are out there, they’re voting, they’re having a good time,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said during a news conference Tuesday afternoon. “If we’re keeping it real here, I think it was kind of baked in who the victor would probably be on this side of the aisle and who the victor would be on the other side of the aisle, but our job is to make sure things go smooth and that’s what we’ve seen so far.”
Raffensperger said any issues at the polls had been isolated. For example, a few precincts in South Georgia opened late after poll workers forgot the keys, so they stayed open late. He also said this primary election was the first statewide test of a new voter registration database and said he is telling his staff to prepare for massive turnout in November.
“Exercising my right and wearing the sticker is just my way of being a human billboard to make sure that everybody else exercises their right to vote, especially here in the state of Georgia this year,” voter Nancy Gorod said outside a polling station at Metro Community Church in DeKalb County.
DeKalb County voter Jay Johnson said he’s unhappy with both the presumptive nominees.
“Kind of disgusted with the choices, so even though it doesn’t matter at this point, I just wanted to vote for someone other than Biden or Trump,” Johnson said.
Among the voters who have signaled a preference for an alternative choice: Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. But during a Tuesday news conference, Kemp said he would ultimately support Trump this fall. Kemp declined to say who he voted for in the GOP primary.
“Well, I said I’m going to support the nominee,” Kemp said. “You know, I voted Friday in the Republican presidential primary and I’ve said for a long time now, I’m going to support the nominee.”
The two men’s relationship fell apart in 2020, after Trump unsuccessfully pressured Kemp to help him overturn Georgia’s election result. Trump is facing 13 felony counts in Georgia and continues to say the 2020 election was rigged.
“Well, I think he’d be better than Joe Biden,” Kemp said Tuesday. “It’s as simple as that.”
Kemp declined to say whether he would campaign, formally endorse or otherwise spend political capital to help elect Trump this fall.
“My goal is to make sure we’re keeping our legislative majorities here in this building,” Kemp said, referring to the state legislature. “That is paramount.”
Georgia voters will head to the polls again in May for primaries in local and state races.
WABE’s Julien Virgin contributed reporting.
