Donald Trump wins Georgia, flipping pivotal swing state where he faces criminal charges
Former President Donald Trump has won the state of Georgia – according to NBC News and CBS News – flipping it back for Republicans after it went blue in 2020.
Trump is awarded 16 electoral votes. He carried Georgia in 2016, when the Peach State had backed Republicans since 1996. However, President Joe Biden during the 2020 election narrowly won the state by a margin of roughly 12,000 votes.
It wasn't immediately clear which slice of Georgia's voters helped propel the former president to victory over Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Trump in recent months has focused on rural voters in the state in hopes of offsetting Democrats’ gains in Atlanta and its suburbs.
Trump also cut into Democrats’ hold with some Black voters, who are about one-third of Georgia’s population. The former president especially made gains with some Black men.
Following Biden’s win in 2020, Trump pressured Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to reverse the results. Raffensperger resisted. Trump has pleaded not guilty in Georgia to criminal charges alleging that he and his allies conspired to steal that election.
Georgia saw large levels of early voting in the days leading up to the election. On the first day of early voting on Oct. 15, more than 310,000 voters had cast ballots at designated sites.