ATLANTA — Donald Trump, now president-elect for a second time, won Georgia in the 2024 election not necessarily by turning a slate of counties that had previously been blue, but by generating a surge of turnout in solidly red counties that ultimately pushed him ahead where many blue counties in Georgia were more static relative to 2020.
Nonetheless, there were three counties that did indeed flip. And in hindsight, they in part offered an early bellwether into which way Georgia was going to go on Tuesday night.
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The three counties to go from blue for Joe Biden in 2020 to red for Donald Trump in 2024 were:
- Baldwin County
- Washington County
- Jefferson County
All three are in roughly the same area between Macon and Augusta, Washington situated in the middle with Baldwin to the east and Jefferson to the west.
What makes Baldwin -- home to Milledgeville -- and Washington counties particularly interesting is that they closely mirrored Georgia's statewide result both in 2020 and 2024.
In 2020, when Biden won the Peach state by 0.3%, 49.5% to 49.2%, Washington was the closest county in the state -- also leaning toward Biden, 50.0% to 49.2%. Baldwin was a close second, with a return for Biden of 50.0% to 48.8%.
That trend held four years later as the two counties went in the opposite direction.
Trump, according to the unofficial fully reported results on Wednesday morning, won Georgia 50.7% to Vice President Kamala Harris' 48.4%.
Baldwin hit that same margin and came close to hitting the exact same numbers, going for Trump 50.9% to 48.6%.
And Washington County wound up close to identical -- 50.7% for Trump to 48.8% for Harris.
Jefferson County, which was nearly +7% for Biden in 2020, had one of the closest margins in the state as it went for Trump 50.4% to 49.2%.