A record number of first-day early votes were cast in Georgia for a midterm election, state officials said Wednesday, as Vice President JD Vance arrives to rally for Senate GOP candidate Mike Collins. Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said more than 188,600 voters went to the polls in person Tuesday, up from more than 53,000 in the 2022 midterms. The state has seen a steady increase in early voting in recent years.
"This record-breaking turnout proves that voters have confidence in the integrity of our elections," Raffensperger said in a press release. "It’s a testament to our strong election system overseen by 159 of the best county election officials in the country." The difficulty in Georgia is that early voting totals have become a poor predictor of which candidate will win. While Democrats once dominated early and absentee voting, Republicans have increasingly embraced these methods since 2022.
The surge follows Tuesday's TV debate between Collins and Democratic incumbent Jon Ossoff, which Ossoff framed as a trial for his opponent, a former U.S. Newsweek reached out to Ossoff and Collins' campaigns for comment Wednesday morning. Currently, both of Georgia's U.S.
Senate seats are held by Democrats, while Republicans continue to hold several other statewide seats, and over the past few election cycles, its election system has been heavily scrutinized by Trump and the wider Republican Party. Vance is visiting the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport Wednesday morning. The event was due to begin at 10:40 a.m. local time, with Vance touching down shortly after.
The vice president arrived to chants of "48!" from supporters ahead of his speech. It wasn't immediately clear what Vance would discuss, but he and President Donald Trump have been touring the U.S. in recent weeks to rally for Republican candidates as Election Day draws closer. On Tuesday, Vance appeared in Tyler, Texas, to rally for state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is hoping to secure a U.S.
The vice president used the rally to hit out at Democratic candidate James Talarico, while also announcing a deal the administration had struck with Delek Refinery in Tyler to expand operations as part of the Defense Production Act. Rafensperger's office said that in 2022, 134,962 people cast their votes on the first day of early voting in Georgia, meaning a 40 percent increase was seen in 2026. The numbers have been steadily rising, with 70,849 people voting on the first day of the 2018 election.
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