Joe Biden Has Taken The Lead In The Historically Red State Of Georgia

Authored by buzzfeednews.com and submitted by slaysia

An election worker hands out ballots to be counted at State Farm Arena on Nov. 5, 2020, in Atlanta.

Joe Biden on Friday pulled ahead of President Donald Trump in Georgia, setting the stage for him to become the first Democrat to win the state since 1992.

Biden leads by only 1,096 votes out of 4.9 million total votes tallied, with at least 8,000 votes left to count. The margin is so narrow that many news organizations, including BuzzFeed News, are not projecting a winner.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said late Friday morning that there will be a recount. “Right now Georgia remains too close to call. Out of approximately 5 million votes cast, we'll have a margin of a few thousand,” said Raffensperger “With a margin that small, there will be a recount in Georgia.”

A recount could potentially flip the state back to Trump.

Still, the fact that Biden pulled ahead in a Republican stronghold in the deep South is a major achievement. And a win in Georgia would bring Biden’s Electoral College tally to 269 — just one vote shy of the 270 needed to win the presidency. In that case, any one of the three swing states still in play — Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania — would catapult Biden into the White House.

In Georgia and throughout the South and Southwest, Democrats have been working for years to translate the states’ diversifying electorates into a new path to 270 votes in the Electoral College.

Early results had Trump far ahead, as votes from rural Georgia poured in. But Biden pulled ahead with strong support in absentee ballots from cities like Atlanta and Savannah and their suburbs.

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Trump won the state by 5 percentage points in 2016, down from Republican Mitt Romney’s 8-point lead in 2012. Democrats were hoping this would finally be the year they closed that gap. In suburban counties around Atlanta, Republicans once generated huge vote totals, but those regions have become majority people of color in recent years and Biden won big there this election.

Biden’s breakthrough also comes despite what voting rights advocates saw as a concerted effort by state Republicans to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning constituents.

Joharis-JYI on November 6th, 2020 at 10:18 UTC »

Stacey Abrams deserves a ton of credit. So does Beto even if Texas didn't turn blue this year. These are the kinds of grassroots movements needed to make Democrats turn out.

kingcobraninja on November 6th, 2020 at 10:03 UTC »

I knew if I woke up and checked my phone in the middle of the night enough times, something like this would finally happen.

alcabazar on November 6th, 2020 at 09:56 UTC »

Be honest, who here thought Georgia would go blue but North Carolina wouldn't? 2020 is a wild ride.