Inside Primary Night as Georgia Goes Into Overtime
ATLANTA, GA — It was finally game night. The Battery, an upscale development in suburban Cobb County adjacent to Truist Park, filled up with cars that had braved Atlanta’s infamous rush hour traffic. But the main event wasn’t the Braves: it was the opening round of matchups to decide the political future of the Peach State.
Now one of the nation’s premier swing states, Georgia is set to host competitive general elections for both Senate and governor in November. On Tuesday night, “The ATL” watched returns come in as primary voters decided nominees in key races that have drawn both national attention and millions of dollars in spending.
The Battery is a fitting location for campaigns to gather to learn about their future. The Metro Atlanta suburbs have upended the political dynamics in the state over the past decade, driving Democrats into contention after years in the wilderness. Mitt Romney carried Cobb County with 55 percent of the vote in the 2012 presidential race. Four years later, Donald Trump became the first Republican presidential nominee to lose the county in four decades (the last Democrat to win it was favorite son Jimmy Carter). Since then, the area has only continued to rocket leftward, thanks to an increasingly diversifying electorate and anti-Trump suburbanites.
Across town, at the ballroom at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Atlanta, the clock showed the 7 p.m. poll closing time quickly approaching. Campaign staffers frantically gave instructions to…
