When (not if) Georgia goes blue, it might not remain blue
That is something relatively tough to hear right now as we are all staring intensely at Georgia right now, waiting for those numbers to come in. Donald Trump leads Joe Biden by 1,902 votes as of 9:55PM according to FiveThirtyEight. There are still 16,100 mail in ballots to be counted, and Biden needs to win them by 56% in order to take the lead. That’s easy. So far the ballots have been coming in well above 56% in Biden’s favor, so once all those ballots have been counted, I have no doubt Biden will be in the lead. Assuming even a 60% margin in Biden’s favor, he would lead by a little more than 7,500 votes. That’s a pretty sizeable lead for a Democrat in Georgia.
Here’s the rub, though: There will be more ballots left to be counted. Provisional ballots will be counted next, as will military and overseas ballots. There are ~9,000 military and overseas ballots that haven’t been returned to the election offices in Georgia. Military and absentee ballots just need to be postmarked as of election day to be counted.
It’s also hard to say how any military ballots will swing. The military is generally pretty in favor of the GOP, but Trump has also been doing great work getting on the bad side of the military on several issues they might care about. If, as I mentioned above, Biden leads by more than 7,500 votes by the end of the night, the military’s vote would have to lean VERY heavily in Trump’s favor in order to decide the election.
But the military vote isn’t Trump’s only out here. Another potential opportunity might be a recount in the state. Recounts don’t often gain too many votes for any side, often only really a couple hundred. When the margins are slim, though, they can be decisive, and if the military ballot chips away at Biden’s lead in a big way, a recount could potentially sway things and give Trump a small lead.
That said, there are some good avenues for Biden here as well. The bigger the lead, the better his chances are of keeping Georgia and its 16 electoral college votes. His best defense is a high margin at this rate, and there are a few things that can be done to increase his margin even further.
One way we can help is to get the word out on a very important piece of information: Georgia voters whose ballots were rejected have until Friday (well… today since I am getting this out after midnight) to correct any issues with their ballots. This is incredibly important for mail-in voters, and could be a big swing for Biden since a majority of his votes have been via the mail which has an increased chance of voter spoilage. The more Democratic voters who fix any issues with their ballots, the bigger Biden’s margin, and the better chance he will keep Georgia.
Share this post and the links in the resources with any friends you have in Georgia or any swing state. Make sure if you live there that you check to make sure your ballot was not rejected, and if it was rejected work to fix it ASAP to ensure your vote has been counted.
One last point to add: All of the above remains true for other states with incredibly thin margins. Those states include Arizona and Nevada. Arizona is especially important to look at because of how close the race is there, and the fact that Biden’s margin has slowly been shrinking as the last votes are counted there. Your votes matter now more than ever.
Resources
