Former President Donald Trump won the Peach State on Tuesday night, Decision Desk projected, clinching Georgia’s 16 electoral votes after Joe Biden won the state by a hair in 2020.
Trump, the Republican nominee, prevailed after benefiting from high turnout in rural areas, running on issues that resonate with voters, and courting racial minorities more effectively than in previous races.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, underperforms with black voters, said Mark Rountree, president at the Altanta-based firm Landmark Communications.
“What’s causing problems for Kamala Harris is that she is losing some steam with black male voters,” Rountree told The Daily Signal.
According to Fox News exit polls, 25% of black men surveyed said they supported Trump. Harris had 73% of their support, 14 points behind Biden’s 2020 showing in exit polls.
“The overriding issue is the economy,” Rountree said. “The fact that neither Biden nor Harris acknowledge that it’s a problem … is a real problem.”
Will Wade, a Republican in the Georgia House of Representatives who represents a rural district in the north of the state, told The Daily Signal that turnout in Dawson County is breaking records.
“We’re at 80% turnout,” Wade said in a phone call Tuesday. “We’ve exceeded our total 2020 vote in our county before today.”
The state lawmaker described a surge of energy for Trump.
“Somewhere between 18 and 20% of the folks voting in my district did not vote at all in 2020,” Wade said. “First-time voters 18 to 29 who are engaged in the process.”
He described speaking with two firefighters in their 20s, and one said he was working a third job to pay for groceries for his family.
“They see the gas prices, they see the grocery prices, and they see an unrest that has not gotten any better overseas,” Wade noted. “People are not sitting this out.”
“Going in today I think that Republicans on the federal and state level are very poised to have big victories and decisive wins,” Wade added. “I feel good and I’m very excited.”
“I had a gentleman say, ‘I’m in the military, but I don’t want to be overseas with the Harris-Walz team in charge in response to our allies,’” he recalled. “That speaks volumes.”
Wade said the issue of illegal immigration also is “resonating” with Georgia voters in his district.
He recalled attending a town hall event on education where residents said that teaching illegal aliens is increasing costs in public schools.
“We know it’s the ethical thing to teach all children, but we know for a fact that it’s stretching our local tax base because we’re seeing a lot more of it,” he recalled attendees saying. “We want those children to be educated, but at some point enough is enough and we have to get back to a rule of law education process.”
“We’re a very Christian area of the state, we love our neighbor, we don’t judge people based on their ethnicity, background, or the color of their skin. But at the end of the day, the cost is just becoming enormous,” Wade said.
Jason Anavitarte, a Republican state senator who is Hispanic and represents a district west of Atlanta, has been reaching out to the Hispanic community with Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.
Many conservative issues resonate with Hispanics, Anavitarte said.
Asked what issues those are, he said, “economy, jobs, less government, and protection of the family.”
This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
