Georgia will hold its primary election on Tuesday. Although Joe Biden and Donald Trump are the presumed Democratic and Republican nominees, the election will offer a preview of what’s to come in November in a state that Biden won in 2020 and where Trump is facing multiple indictments.
Mississippi and Washington will also hold primaries on Tuesday, and Hawaii will hold its Republican caucuses. Democrats abroad and in the Northern Mariana Islands territory vote on Tuesday as well.
Biden and Trump visited Georgia over the weekend, holding dueling rallies. Biden met with about 500 supporters at the Pullman Yards hall on Atlanta’s east side in bright blue DeKalb county, while Trump rallied at the Forum River Center, an arena in Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s ruby red district about 60 miles away in Rome.
Georgia will have added about 375,000 residents since the November 2020 election, according to state projections. It’s emblematic of growth in the American south at the expense of the rust belt and California, with US population growth overall close to zero.
Nearly 8 million people are registered to vote today – nearly 10% more than the October total in 2020, though that number is likely to decrease as the Georgia secretary of state’s office eliminates duplicates and the registrations of people who have moved or died.
Voter participation here is the question on the minds of political activists. Though Georgia’s US senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock can be expected to stump heavily for Biden, there are no Senate races on the ballot to drive state-level organizing. The Biden campaign will be relying on its own election apparatus and that of grassroots organizations, some of which are vexed with the Biden administration over its response to the war in Gaza and a contentious police training facility under construction by the city of Atlanta.
Trump and Georgia Republicans are similarly vexed by the effect of the Fulton county criminal case accusing Trump and 18 others of interference in the 2020 elections and other charges.
Biden has already pivoted to the general election campaign, with a $30m ad campaign addressing his age and accomplishments, along with campaign stops later this week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Saginaw, Michigan; two battleground states that will help decide the 2024 election.
Only the presidential race is on the primary ballot in Georgia and Washington Tuesday, while Mississippi voters have primaries for US Senate and House. The long-serving US senator Roger Wicker faces the Mississippi House representative Dan Eubanks and retired marine Ghannon Burton in the Senate primary. The winner will face Ty Pinkins, a retired army veteran and attorney with the Mississippi Center for Justice.
The freshman representative Mike Ezell faces two primary challengers, farmer Carl Boyanton and army veteran Mike McGill. Ezell defeated former representative Steven Palazzo two years ago – a rare success in challenging an incumbent – after Palazzo was accused of misusing campaign funds.
The 270ToWin.com count of Biden’s delegates stands at 1,623. The Associate Press count, which includes superdelegates, stands at 1,866. The Democratic party has 3,934 pledged delegates; a majority (1,968 or more) are necessary to win the Democratic nomination on the first ballot.
Tuesday’s primaries offer 254 Democratic delegates. Dean Phillips of Minnesota ended his long-shot presidential campaign last week. Biden now faces token opposition from the author Marianne Williamson.
Barring extraordinary events, Biden will formally gain enough delegates to secure the nomination on 19 March.
Trump’s count stands at 1,075; he requires 1,215 delegates to secure the Republican nomination. Tuesday’s Republican contests offer 161 delegates, enough to put Trump over the top if he wins at least 140 of them.
Trump no longer faces active opposition after former ambassador Nikki Haley’s withdrawal from the race.
