So our Secretary of State of Georgia, Raffensperger, has announced prior that on election night we will start getting voting dumps by county starting at 8:00 EST. Additionally, early vote, both in person and mail in will be the first to hit. While I disagree with Raffensperger politically, I respect his integrity and have no reason to doubt any of this as intended. However, I'm not sold each county will keep the schedule very rigidly and still expect rural, smaller counties to report more quickly than the big ones. In short, I still expect a degree of red mirage, something we are accustomed to.
With that in mind, on Tuesday, I am focused on early on data returns from 3 counties, all Northern Metro Atlanta, however, small by comparison of the major Atlanta counties. All three of these counties are heavy lean Republican, and will not be flipping. However, the reason I think these are bellwether worthy is because in order for Trump to have any chance in Georgia, these three counties will need to at a minimum maintain their 2020 percentages, if not exceed them. They are as follows:
1. Cherokee County (coincidentally where I live) 2020 - almost dead on the nose 100k R votes, with a 68.75%
2. Forsyth County 2020 - 85k with 65.79%
3. Hall County 2020 - 64k with 70.84%
As each of these counties are in Metro Atlanta, they are subject to metro level population migration, something that happened to both Cobb and Gwinnett counties over time and changed the demographics. In any event, between the 3 counties, the average is about 68.6% Republican. If those 3 remain about the same, to me it's going to be a long night waiting on the big Atlanta returns. If they are off those margins by 5 points, to 63%, to me it portends well. As early voting and mail in dominate preferred voting methods in each of these counties, I expect that these will report at high percentages (say 80% of complete turnout) at around 8 EST.
Anyway, for those looking for early indicators in Georgia, that's my two cents.