WASHINGTON – Emerging from their near-clean sweeps of Super Tuesday contests, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump head to Georgia, where they’ll campaign for votes in Tuesday’s presidential primary in a state that will play a pivotal role in deciding their fates in November.
For Trump, the day will likely have additional significance, as voters in Georgia and three other states may award him enough delegates to clinch the Republican nomination for president. Biden’s first possible date to clinch has also moved up to March 12.
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Aside from that, Georgia’s presidential primary will be largely anti-climactic. Trump’s main rival for the GOP nomination, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, suspended her campaign this week after a rout on Super Tuesday, when she won the Vermont primary but lost 14 other contests. Biden also will face fewer challengers in the primary after U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota ended his campaign, although neither Phillips nor self-help author Marianne Williamson has had much of an impact on primary and caucus vote totals so far this campaign.
Georgia is likely again to play a key role in the general election as it did in 2020, when Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since Bill Clinton in 1992. Biden narrowly defeated Trump in Georgia by less than a quarter of a percentage point, a margin of 11,779 votes. Trump’s efforts to overturn those results are at the heart of an ongoing criminal case in Fulton County, although the judge is considering a motion to have District Attorney Fani Willis removed from the case. Trump’s actions in Georgia and other swing states also play a role in a federal prosecution of his attempt to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, but that case is on hold as the Supreme Court prepares to consider the Trump defense team’s argument that the former president is immune from prosecution.
Georgia is the biggest delegate prize and the only swing state among the contests taking place on Tuesday. Super Tuesday put both Biden and Trump on the brink of having enough delegates to clinch their parties’ presidential nominations. Tuesday is the earliest either could reach that milestone.
MORE: Tuesday’s other presidential primary results, delegate tracker
Beyond the presidential races, voters in two southeast Georgia counties also faced a local race on their ballot.
In Camden County, voters faced a question of whether to add an “e-commerce” exception to its current Freeport exemptions. In Georgia, Freeport exemptions are tax exemptions that apply to various types of inventory for businesses. This proposed exemption would cover inventory temporarily stored at e-commerce distribution centers in the county. According to the Camden County Chamber of Commerce, a new logistics center is being planned near I-95′s Exit 7 in the county. However, the chamber says Camden County is at a disadvantage when trying to recruit companies to the logistics center, because the Freeport exemption is already available for distribution centers in Jacksonville and near Savannah. The exception was approved with a 58 percent to 42 percent vote.
Voters in Homerville, in Clinch County, also saw an additional race on their ballot. In the special election for mayor of Homerville, Thomas Kennedy defeated Brooks Blitch IV, earning 232 votes to Blitch’s 69 votes.