Early voting in Georgia's primary is breaking records, with a 236% increase in ballots cast from the same period four years ago, when the last primary with major state offices in play took place, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
There have been 180,620 ballots cast for the May 24 primary as of last week, compared with 53,701 during the same period of 2018, according to Georgia Votes, which tracks turnout.
Republicans made up a significant part of the surge, with 57% of last week's early voters, compared to 42% for Democrats.
The top candidates for the Democrats — gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock are running unchallenged, although the party has multiple candidates competing for other offices, including secretary of state, Bloomberg reported.
However, the Republican primary is much more heated, with former President Donald Trump endorsing candidates in 10 of the state's primary races.
Trump's endorsements include challengers to three top Republican incumbents — Gov. Brian Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and Attorney General Chris Carr — all three of whom the former president has harshly criticized for their failure to overturn his election loss in 2020 in the state, or defend his claims of massive fraud.
Trump has also endorsed former football star Herschel Walker in the U.S. Senate race.
Despite the former president's opposition to Kemp, the governor holds a sizable-enough lead over former U.S. Sen. David Perdue to avoid a runoff for the GOP nomination, according to an InsiderAdvantage/FOX 5 Atlanta poll released last week.
Kemp is at 54% support in the survey, with Perdue at 38%. In third place is Dr. Kandiss Taylor at 4%, with both Catherine Davis and Tom Williams at 1%. Two percent were either undecided or had no opinion.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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