By John A. Tures, Professor of Political Science, LaGrange College
In Georgia’s historic Election Day 2026, I was right in the thick of it. I won’t tell you who I worked for, though it was a big name and respected name in polling. I won’t say where I reported results from, though it’s an area that tends to go for Republicans. And I won’t quote percentages…that’s for the pollster to do on Election Night. But you didn’t need to be a veteran pollster to pick up a few lessons from the voters.
When I asked a voter in a plaid shirt with facial hair if he wanted to take an exit poll, he spat tobacco juice at my feet. “Since there’s not a response for that on my sheet, I’ll take that to be a ‘no,’” I said to some laughs from others nearby. But by and large, it was a peaceful group of voters that I encountered. They were ready for big changes.
First of all, these races did not turn on the final days or moments of the campaign. Instead, the vast majority of respondents checked the box for knowing their choice for a long time before the election. Last minute gimmicks weren’t going to change a lot of minds or flip a lot of switches. Waiting for October for a big election push wasn’t going to get the job done. The only October Surprise was how October Surprises weren’t working.
Second, voters were all over the board on issues, ranging from “the economy” to foreign policy, health care, immigration, and the state of democracy as a reason for the vote. Anyone implying that the entire election came down to just one little thing, like fuel prices, as claimed on some networks, just wasn’t supported by the voters.
Third, voters were angry. That was the case whether the voters were Democrats, independents, or Trump voters. The only voters who thought things were going pretty well were non-MAGA Republicans.
Fourth, there wasn’t as much ticket-splitting as one might guess. There were rumors of a lot of Jon Ossoff-Rick Jackson splits, but I noted very few of those. Instead, Ossoff voters stuck with Keisha Lance Bottoms as the party pushed hard for unity tickets and had joint campaign events. And it turned out to be huge in the Georgia Governor’s race, as history was made by the former Atlanta Mayor.
Fifth, despite the voter anger, there wasn’t a lot of “voting against another candidate.” I’m sure Georgia Republicans will blame Michael Collins and Rick Jackson, but few polls I took showed that the main motivator for Democrats was to vote against those candidates. Democrats liked their nominees, and Republicans were fine with theirs. There were a fair number of responses that critiqued someone who wasn’t on the ballot, as well as some who clearly liked him, even as his supporters found themselves angry with the status quo.
Sixth, voters rejected labels. Some Republicans did not consider themselves to be “MAGA” overall. One voter hilariously asked to a line of voters “What the heck is MAGA anyway?” And I would guess that less than half of Democratic voters that I talked with did not consider themselves to be a Democratic Socialist. “Maybe you can explain what DSA means to me,” a relative said on Election Day.
Finally, there was a sentiment, perhaps not stated in a polling question or answer, but definitely in a sentiment, that it was the quantity of ads, not just the quality of ads, that people were ready to be done with. “Will the mailers be stopping?” one asked. “I can’t standing going to my mailbox.” Others expressed hope that the TV commercials would stop coming on television. It showed that saturating the airwaves, especially with negative ads, was not a winning formula for capturing elections.
John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu or on “X” at @johntures2. His first book “Branded” a thriller novel where corporate greed, media manipulation and academic intrigue collide in a deadly game of product placement, has been published by the Huntsville Independent Press (https://www.huntsvilleindependent.com/product-page/branded). His second novel, “Independent Thought,” about a third-party candidacy that brings America to its knees, is also published by HIP (https://www.huntsvilleindependent.com/product-page/independent-thought).