Last update:November 05, 2024, 4:33 PM IST

Polls suggest Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are locked in a close race, but demographic shifts could benefit Harris, who has courted minority voters in Georgia.

Donald Trump, who won Georgia in 2016, is hoping to keep Kamala Harris at bay and turn the Peach State back to red this year. (AP)

Georgia, with 16 electoral votes to play for, has become one of the most watched battleground states in the 2024 race for the White House.

In 2020, President Joe Biden flipped the state, marking the first time in history that a Democratic candidate won Georgia since former President Bill Clinton accomplished the feat in 1992. Donald Trump, who won Georgia in 2016, hopes to hold distance on Kamala Harris. and turn the Peach State back to red this year.

The southeastern state was an election flashpoint at the end of Trump’s first term, and the controversy is heating up after Georgia prosecutors charged Trump in an election interference case after he called state officials , asking him to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s narrow victory in 2020. But in a boost for Trump, the case is on hold until after the election.

Let’s take a look at Georgia and how the battle lines are drawn:

• In eight of the last 10 presidential races, Georgia has voted Republican. However, it helped turn the tide for Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, when he flipped the blue state by an extremely narrow margin.

• Nearly five million people voted for president in 2020, with 2,473,633 votes cast for Biden and 2,461,854 votes for Trump. However, things turned ugly as Trump claimed the election was “stolen”. Trump and more than a dozen allies were later indicted in connection with an alleged plot to overturn the election results.

• Polls suggest Harris and Trump are locked in a close race, and both campaigns have devoted significant resources to winning the state. Demographic changes could benefit Harris, who has courted minority voters in Georgia.

• Georgia’s shift from red to purple is widely attributed to diversification in the Atlanta metro area, where the population grew 15 percent between 2010 and 2020, while the white population shrank 2 percent, according to the most recent census data.

• Georgia is expected to count ballots relatively quickly, as officials were allowed to begin processing mail-in ballots on the third Monday before Election Day, although they cannot begin counting them until 7 a.m. on Election Day .

• The most likely path to victory for Harris runs through the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, which have a combined 44 electoral votes. If she wins all three, plus all the other non-swing states that Biden won in 2020, she would reach the 270 electoral vote threshold needed to win the election.

• If Trump wins one of the Rust Belt states (most likely Pennsylvania, according to polls) and also carries Georgia and North Carolina, then he would likely break 270.

• Female early voters in Georgia outnumbered male voters by double digits — which Harris allies see as a positive sign for Democrats.