VALDOSTA, Ga.—Early voting began Tuesday in Georgia, where residents are choosing whether a 23-year streak of Republican governorship will continue and if their representation in the U.S. Senate will remain solely held by Democrats.
For the Senate, voters are deciding between Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), backed by President Donald Trump, and Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff. Meanwhile, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms, a Democrat, is fighting for the governor position against Republican billionaire Rick Jackson.
The Epoch Times spoke with many voters on Tuesday across the state who were mainly split between the two main political parties, holding vastly different opinions on hot-button issues such as the economy, Iran, and immigration.
“Simple stuff like, I always drank Folgers coffee, I watched it go up $5, $6 in the last few months, now I’m drinking instant [coffee],” 60-year-old retiree Samuel Marshall said. “So I do the grocery shopping. … When you buy stuff, the same stuff for so long, a lot of people don’t notice, they just pick up stuff, but when you live on a budget, you see the increase gradually.”
Democrats expressed a frustration with how Republicans have handled control of the White House, Senate, and House, while GOP supporters stood by their candidates, describing their desire for more Republican leadership in Georgia.
“It’ll be OK. I think the president, the administration is doing the right thing,” said Mary Justice, a Venezuelan immigrant who came to the United States about 26 years ago.
In rural towns, one or two voters trickled into various precincts every 30 minutes. In a higher volume area, Valdosta, the flow of residents to cast their ballots at the only early voting location in the county, the Lowndes County Public Safety Training Center, was steady.
Voters honked their horns at one another in the small, cramped parking lot as some left and others arrived, quickly filling the few empty spots.
One of those Peach State residents was Marshall, who has lived in Valdosta since 2006 and worked in the food industry for years.
He told The Epoch Times he voted for Ossoff and Bottoms because he believed they would best address what he described as increasing prices on gas, food, and everyday items.
Republican voters pushed back on the idea of increasing costs, especially on gas, which they said was already elevated from the Biden administration.
Mary and her husband Greg Justice said the Iran war has had some effect on the prices at the pump, but added that it’s a short-term inconvenience for a long-term solution: ensuring the Iranian regime does not obtain a nuclear weapon.
“I think we need to be aggressive, I think we need to finish it,” Greg said. “Imagine Iran with a nuclear weapon, and all of the turmoil they’re causing now and have been.”
Marshall disagreed with U.S. action against Iran, claiming that Trump did not have optimal personnel around him to help plan the initial attack and continued involvement.
“He thought he could just go in and bomb them away, and it didn’t happen,” Marshall said. “He got into this war, and he doesn’t know how to get out. He didn’t properly plan for it.”
One topic that Republicans and Democrats agreed on was a deep concern for the future of the country.
Mary said part of her motivation to vote was “in the biblical way,” and Republicans are more “God-fearing people” that align with her religious beliefs.
While referring to two U.S. citizens who were killed by federal agents amid immigration enforcement operations earlier this year, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Marshall said the government should not “be in the business of killing people.”
Officials have maintained that both Good and Pretti were obstructing operations and endangered federal officers.
Mary and Greg both reasoned that the increased immigration enforcement under Trump is a direct result of the border crisis under the Biden administration.
“What were they thinking?” Greg said. “They weren’t thinking about what was good for the country.”
Greg added that he used to be a Democratic voter and still would be if the party hadn’t “gone off the rails,” recalling the first Republican he voted for: President Ronald Reagan.
For Mary, ongoing immigration operations and a locked down border is personal.
She said she lawfully immigrated to the United States from Venezuela for a better life, and she and Greg now have children and eight grandkids in total.
Many of Mary’s family members lawfully obtained U.S. citizenship as well, waiting years in some cases to do so. Her brother and sister are still in the process.
“Why make it so hard for them, and so easy for some others that shouldn’t be here, like the ones who crossed the border [under Biden],” Mary said.
The Justices addressed the growing socialist movement under the Democratic Party, as Mary and her relatives witnessed firsthand their home country’s descent into socialism.
“I really love this country,” Mary said. “[Socialism] will destroy us.”
Both of Georgia’s Senate seats have been held by Democrats since 2021, when Sen. Raphael Warnock and Ossoff won their elections. Republicans have held onto Georgia’s governor position dating back to 2003.
After receiving a late endorsement from Trump, Collins prevailed in a runoff election earlier this year against another GOP challenger.
Ossoff ran unopposed on the Democratic side of the Senate ticket.
In the governor’s race, Jackson, who has spent nearly $100 million from his own pocket, won a runoff election against a Trump-backed candidate, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones.
Bottoms won the gubernatorial Democrat primary election decisively with 57 percent of the vote. The second-place candidate received 16 percent.
According to the Cook Political Report, Georgia’s governor race is a toss-up, and the Senate seat will likely go to Ossoff.
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