By Jill Nolin | Editor
“We have to be cautious about inferring what’s going to happen for the election outcome as a whole just from early voting in Georgia, especially because we don’t have party registration figures. People just love to speculate using any kernel of information that may be out there, but it is speculation.” — Trey Hood, director of the survey research center at the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs
Georgia "I voted" stickers line a table at a Fulton County polling place on the first day of early voting. Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder
2026 ELECTION
By Ross Williams
Friday is the last day to vote early in Georgia ahead of Tuesday’s midterm election, and leaders from both parties have been poring over the record early voting numbers to try to figure out where their voters are turning out and where they need to marshal their resources.
Some of Georgia’s top races are expected to be tight. The governor’s race between Republican Rick Jackson and Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms is polling within the margin of error, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball, which rates the competitiveness of contests, recently shifted Georgia’s attorney general and secretary of state races from lean Republican to toss-up.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Jon Ossoff, who is up for reelection, make a campaign stop at Clark Atlanta University on Oct. 29, 2026. Alander Rocha/Georgia Recorder
2026 ELECTION
By Alander Rocha
Former Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff urged young voters at Atlanta’s historically Black colleges and universities to make their way to the polls as early voting wraps up Friday.
About 800 students from Clark Atlanta, Morehouse College and Spelman College gathered to see Harris and Ossoff, who is up for reelection and is fighting off a challenge from Republican Congressman Mike Collins.
Both Democrats framed the 2026 midterms as a necessary check on the Trump administration. Ossoff, who has a lead over Collins in the polls, said that despite “the foolishness, the corruption, the incompetence” from the current administration, young voters “have already shattered every turnout record for young voters in a midterm election in Georgia’s history.”
New U.S. citizens sing the national anthem during an August 2026 naturalization ceremony in Chicago. Naturalizations began dropping late last year as the USCIS started a new, longer process for applicants, including screening social media accounts for “anti-American activities.” (Photo by Maggie Dougherty/Capitol News Illinois)
VOTING
By Tim Henderson
The Trump administration cut naturalization sharply over the past year, leading to accusations it’s holding back hundreds of thousands of people who might have voted in the midterms.
It’s hard to say how those people might have voted had they become U.S. citizens. Naturalized citizens voted Democratic for president by a wide margin in 2020, but in a shift almost half voted for President Donald Trump in 2024, according to a Pew Research Center analysis last year. However, recent elections in immigrant areas in Florida and New Jersey show a return to traditional Democratic voting patterns as anger mounts over mass arrests and deportations of non-criminal immigrants.
The most recent quarterly report from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services shows the agency approved about 55,000 requests for citizenship between April and June, compared with more than 230,000 for the same period last year.
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FROM OUR DC BUREAU
ICYMI FROM THE RECORDER
Obama rallies with Georgia Democratic candidates as early voting winds down | Alander Rocha and Maya Homan
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