Jon Ossoff Says 'Record-Breaking' Youth Turnout Will Decide Georgia Senate Race

Georgia Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff says young voters will decide his reelection race against Republican Representative Mike Collins. Asked by a reporter about the early-vote numbers, Ossoff said the state is seeing "record-breaking youth turnout for a midterm election."

Ossoff gave no figures. Georgia's early voting closed Friday with about 2.8 million ballots cast, a midterm record, and voters aged 18 to 29 made up a small part of that total. Election Day is Tuesday.

The reporter asked what the early-vote numbers meant for his campaign and for Democrats, and what he would watch for on election night. Ossoff turned to younger voters.

"What we are seeing that is really encouraging is record-breaking youth turnout for a midterm election in Georgia. Young voters will be decisive in the outcome here," Ossoff said.

He added that "my team and I have put huge effort into reaching and motivating young voters to participate," and said that was "what I've been focused on in particular these last few days."

What Georgia's Early Vote Shows About Young Voters

About 310,000 Georgians aged 18 to 29 voted early this year, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Saturday. That is roughly 11 percent of the 2.8 million early ballots. Voters 50 and older cast nearly 65 percent of early ballots.

The overall total was 13 percent above Georgia's 2022 early vote, and 2.7 million ballots were cast in person.

The growth among the youngest voters has been sharper. Through the first nine days of early voting, in-person turnout among voters under 30 was up 54 percent from the same point in 2022, and up 80 percent among young Black voters, according to an analysis by a Democratic data firm reported by the AJC. That still left voters under 30 at 7 percent of the early electorate at that point, up from 6 percent four years earlier. Ossoff's campaign highlighted the 54 percent figure in a release Monday.

Those gains support part of Ossoff's claim. Whether the total number of young Georgians voting sets a midterm record will not be known until Election Day ballots are counted. Ossoff also did not claim that the early vote as a whole favors Democrats.

How Young Georgians Have Voted Before

Young voters have been central to Democratic wins in Georgia. In the January 2021 runoffs that first sent Ossoff to the Senate, voters aged 18 to 29 backed him 63 percent to 37 percent over former Republican Sen. David Perdue, whose term had expired two days before the vote, and more than 90 percent of young Black voters supported Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, Tufts University's CIRCLE found.

The youth vote has become a talking point for Democrats across the country in the final week of the midterm campaign.

Where the Ossoff-Collins Race Stands

Ossoff leads Collins 52 percent to 42.3 percent in PolitiKool's polling average for the Georgia Senate race, a margin of 9.7 points. A recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll put Ossoff ahead by 8 points.

The race is one of several that could decide control of the Senate, which PolitiKool's Senate forecast rates a toss-up.

The early vote shows who voted, not how they voted. Georgia does not register voters by party, and the AJC noted that Republicans rely more heavily on Election Day turnout, when their voters could narrow the early-vote gap. About 1.9 million registered voters in areas Donald Trump won strongly had not yet voted when early voting closed.

What to Watch on Election Night

Ossoff's case rests on whether young voters who skipped 2022 keep showing up and keep backing Democrats by the margins they have in recent Georgia races. The age breakdown of Tuesday's in-person vote, and the size of the Republican Election Day turnout, will show whether the youth surge is large enough to decide the race.