By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-10-24 19:29:53 | Updated at 2024-10-24 21:20:51
1 hour ago
Kamala Harris voters in Atlanta are worried that Georgia will flip red again in the 2024 election.
Several residents who just cast their ballots for the vice president told DailyMail.com they are 'nervous' that there isn't as much enthusiasm from Democratic voters in the Peach State as there was in 2020.
'I think it's gonna go for Trump,' said Amy, a 62-year-old bookkeeper in Atlanta.
Asked to express why she feels that way, she said: 'Because people are stupid. No, I don't think it's gonna go well.'
'I just don't know that the enthusiasm is there,' she added when leaving Buckhead Public Library on Wednesday after casting her ballot for VP Harris.
Georgia flipped blue in 2020 by a razor thin margin with Joe Biden earning 49.5 percent of the vote compared to Donald Trump's 49.2 percent – a gap of just 0.3 percentage points. In 2016, Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Georgia by a more demanding 5.1 percent margin.
Cantey Dogan, 35, is an OB-GYN in Atlanta, Georgia who voted for Kamala Harris during early voting on Wednesday at the Buckhead Public Library. She told DailyMail.com that she's 'nervous' that Donald Trump will win Georgia
This year, the polls are showing Trump and Harris in either a dead tie or a statistical dead heat where the gap between the candidates falls within the survey's margin of error.
Most polling released in recent days show Trump pulling slightly ahead of the vice president, which is in line with other states' and national trends that have Harris falling behind in the count down to Election Day.
The Peach State is one of the seven battleground swing states that will determine the outcome of the 2024 election.
Without the voter enthusiasm that there was four years ago to get Trump out of the White House, Harris supporters don't think it'll be enough to pull their preferred candidate over the finish line – at least not in Georgia.
Cantey Dogan, who voted for Harris, told DailyMail.com that the cost of living increases over the last four years is what she thinks will tip the scales in Trump's direction on November 5.
The 35-year-old OB-GYN said: 'I'm more nervous [this time].'
'I was, like, really optimistic that Georgia would flip in the last election,' she added. 'And I think just like, cost of living has gone up, inflation has gone up – you can see it at the grocery store, like the prices.'
'I think that that is making it harder for people to choose to not vote for Trump this time around,' Dogan concluded. 'So I'm a little bit more nervous this time. So we'll see what happens.'
Early voting in Georgia started on October 15 and runs through November 1. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said that the state's ballot count surpassed 2 million after polls closed on Wednesday.
Early voting began October 15 and runs through November 1 in Georgia. Then polling places will reopen on November 5 for Election Day
Jermaine Burrell, a 48-year-old entrepreneur, voted for Harris and said he was casting his ballot for 'anyone but Trump' – a common phrase shared by Democratic voters in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia
Vice President Kamala Harris campaigns at a church in Stonecrest, Georgia on her 60th birthday on October 20, 2024
The vast majority of voters at the Buckhead Library in the wealthy north Atlanta neighborhood on Wednesday told DailyMail.com that they cast their ballots for Harris.
What once was a more affluent, conservative area saw a rise in voter registration in the last election and 60 percent of voters in the Buckhead neighborhood cast their ballots for Biden in 2020. This is a 9 percent rise from the 51 percent who voted blue for Clinton in 2016.
The shifts seen in Buckhead seem to be mirrored in some of Atlanta's suburbs with some northern precincts flipping from red to blue from 2016 to 2020.
A rare Trump voter in the Democratic area said he checked Trump's name purely based on the policy differences between the former president and the vice president.
Lance, 43, said he voted for Trump in 2016 and then opted not to cast a ballot in 2020.
The Atlanta-area lawyer expressed on Wednesday that Democrats did have the chance to earn his vote if they held a primary election after President Joe Biden decided to end his reelection bid on July 21 instead of the party appointing Harris as the 2024 nominee.
Trump held a rally just 30 miles from Atlanta on Wednesday evening in Duluth, Georgia.
The two candidates are barnstorming the seven swing states to make their final arguments for why they should be president.
The seven swing states that remain up in the air this election cycle are: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Kimberly Graham, 52, told DailyMail.com she was voting for 'anyone other than Trump.'
Donald Trump rallied thousands of supporters in Atlanta suburb of Duluth, Georgia on Wednesday evening amid early voting efforts and with less than two weeks until Election Day
'I feel like he just created a lot of chaos within the country, and it's unfortunate just to see people being torn apart,' the Harris voter said.
Jermaine Burrell, a 48-year-old entrepreneur, felt similarly to Graham – but also expressed he became more excited to vote when Harris took over Biden's campaign.
'Anyone but Trump,' Burrell said – a common phrase shared by Democratic voters in Buckhead.
'I wasn't, like, super excited about Biden,' he disclosed.
'But also super excited about Kamala – the opportunity for my first woman president, definitely first African American woman,' he went on. 'That gives me some excitement as well.'
