Tag: politics

The Great Speckled Bird was born in controversy. The front page of its first issue, in March 1968, featured an illustration of then-publisher of the Atlanta Constitution Ralph McGill, alongside Lyndon B. Johnson and Jesus, emerging from a cracked egg.

Despite a high-profile challenge from Stacey Abrams, Brian Kemp won re-election by seven points, a wider margin than in 2018. The rest of the Republican ticket rode his coattails to victory—everyone but Senate candidate Herschel Walker, who’ll head to a runoff against incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock, in a race that could, once again, decide party control of the Senate.

Tuesday night marked the second time Stacey Abrams had come up short in a bid to claim the state’s top job, after losing to Brian Kemp in 2018, and she lost this year’s election by a wider margin. Speaking to voters at her watch party, Abrams said, “While I may not have crossed the finish line, it does not mean we will ever stop running for a better Georgia.”

One of the first things my mom had me do when I graduated from college was get registered to vote and sign up to work the election polls. I remember always going with her to vote. She made sure all her children—all nine of us—were exposed to the process.

As Georgia's Election Day nears, voters are bombarded with political ads making claims about why any given candidate's opponent is the enemy. We fact-checked some of the biggest claims making the rounds in these ads, including the claim that Raphael Warnock gave money to felons, Brian Kemp's official position on contraception access, and who's getting rich.

There are, at last count, more than 7 million registered voters in Georgia; roughly an eighth of them—more than 800,000—are between the ages of 18 and 24. The state’s youngest voting cohort, all members of Generation Z, is distinct from the rest of the electorate by several measures.

In 2020, the stickers handed out at polling places across Georgia began showing signs of anxiety—relatable, for sure. Previously a cheery illustration of a peach beneath the phrase “I’m a Georgia voter,” the item acquired another sentence, in shoutier lettering: I SECURED MY VOTE! The update was introduced by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger following a period of heightened attention to how Americans vote.

Despite another year of extreme heat, storms, floods, and wildfires, the climate crisis is still a neglected topic in electoral politics. But state leaders, from the governor on down, should be taking action.

Political positions like State School Superintendent and Commissioner of Agriculture may not get the same level of airtime as the big-ticket races, but these offices are vitally important, and the elected officials who win them influence the lives of millions of Georgians. Check out this guide to Georgia’s down-ballot races: the office, what it does and doesn’t do, and why it matters for you and your neighbors.

Abortion has been a cornerstone issue in every contest this election season, but in the race for attorney general, it’s built most of the foundation. Georgia’s new abortion ban—and whether to defend it in court—has dominated the fight between incumbent Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, and Democratic challenger Jen Jordan, an attorney and current state senator for District 6.