‘Turnout has sort of drained’: Democrats battle to mobilise Georgia’s black voters

Big Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, grey-stoned and imposing, has been a fixture on Sweet Auburn Avenue since the 1880s, and its historical range of speakers has encompassed everyone from president William Taft, in 1911, to Nelson Mandela.

On Sunday morning, the congregation listened to a sermon from Rev Al Sharpton, who took an early flight to the city as part of a concerted effort to encourage early voters in the city’s Fourth Ward. Sharpton stuck around for the day, attending a lunchtime class on AI education held in Bishop Hall before participating in a leg of the Souls to the Polls initiative that ferried people from the necklace of African Methodist Episcopal (AME) churches around Auburn to the polling sites and home again.

“The entire purpose of the early voting period here in Georgia is to make sure people have an opportunity to exercise their franchise,” pastor Jay Augustine explains before accompanying Sharpton on a walk through Auburn.

“There have been challenges, and threats of challenges and threats of more challenges, so we have to encourage people to not wait until election day but to take advantage of the early voting period. We knew enthusiasm would be high because of economic conditions across the country. People vote with their pocket so we knew there would be good turnout. But predictably turnout has sort of drained in the past couple of days. You have to finish strong.”

Atlanta sits in Fulton County, the potent symbol of Donald Trump’s persistent and debunked allegation that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. It was to Fulton County Jail that Trump voluntarily presented himself in August 2024 when he was indicted, by grand jury, on racketeering charges, emanating from his notorious call to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, on January 2nd, 2021, when he told the official of his need to “find 11,780 votes” that would flip the state into a Republican victory. His mug shot was quickly repackaged and branded on Trump merchandise during his election campaign.

The case was dropped following Trump’s return to the White House.

In January 2026, the FBI conducted an early morning raid on a Fulton County election hub, seizing 2020 election records for examination.

“We are very cognisant here in Fulton County of the price that has been paid in the past for the exercise of the franchise,” Augustine says.

“And we are also very cognisant of the fact that there was a seizure of ballot boxes here. It doesn’t make sense that years and years later we still are litigating and talking about and contemplating fraud-no-fraud from that number of years ago.

“There’s been investigation after investigation and allegation and there has been no credible evidence found that there was any fraud whatsoever with respect to the 2020 election here in Fulton County. But we continue to talk about that because of one person’s ego.”

That recent history has formed the backdrop to the persistent message by Jon Ossoff, the incumbent in the Georgia senatorial race against Mike Collins. In his message to mark the Souls to the Polls initiative, which has roots in the city’s civil rights tradition, Ossoff said that the Georgia Democratic vote will represent a “mobilisation so massive and with a defence of voting rights so fierce that no plot against the franchise can foil the will of the people”.

A year ago, Republicans eyed Ossoff as a potential vulnerability in the midterms. But his formidable campaign fundraising and withering repudiations of Trump’s administration during his televised debates with Mike Collins have belied all expectation. Now, Ossoff is regarded as a strong fancy to retain his seat, with an eight-point lead in the latest polls, and his performances have elicited speculation about a presidential candidacy.

“Would I be surprised?” says Diane McCoy, who stopped to speak after voting.

“I hadn’t given him much thought as a presidential candidate. But I wouldn’t be surprised. I do like senator Ossoff. I feel like he has the interests of Georgia in his heart and mind. He wants to see housing, groceries lower and he wants the things that as a Democrat I feel that I am interested in.”

A native Atlantan, McCoy says she hasn’t noticed the impacts of the Trump administration on her city so much as a general pessimism among her friends when it comes to the political landscape.

“I think African-American people are discouraged – when Obama was president it felt more hopeful and more like the country was going in the right direction. So especially among my friends we are starting to feel discouraged by things we see and hear. I mean some of the dialogue and the language coming out of the White House ... if I had said, my parents would have slapped me! It’s gone really horrific. The language and the things that are acceptable. I do have conservative values when it comes to how grown-ups and our elected officials should conduct themselves. And I’m appalled.”

McCoy decided to vote on Sunday on the assumption that the voting centre would be quiet only to arrive upon the Souls to the Polls jamboree taking place outside. But footfall on what is a gorgeous Sunday afternoon is slow.

Sharon Trasher, who worships at Bethel AME, had come along to participate, although she has already cast her vote.

“I was there at noon on the first day,” she says during the bus trip across the city before explaining why she believes these midterms will be so consequential.

“I almost broke the machine, actually. I think if you value your freedom across the world – not just in Atlanta, Georgia – but in Ireland, in Sweden, everywhere ... if you value your freedom and your children’s freedom, wildlife, the oceans, nature ... then you will vote against what they are calling the right-wing takeover.”

But Trasher worried about what her ears and eyes have suggested at a lack of engagement among young people.

“From what I’m hearing, listening to news and talk radio – APR, BBC World Service – the younger voters are not engaging as they should be. Did you notice that too? It’s really sad because they are the ones who stand to lose the most.”

We talk for a while about the relative obscurity of the midterm elections on the street in comparison to the incessant media coverage. Apart from the Souls to the Polls mobilisation, the streets around Auburn are Sunday-sleepy. The city’s parks, like Piedmont and Grant, are a different story.

Next week will be a crowded week for the city, whose women’s basketball team, Atlanta Dream, is locked in a riveting WNBA finals series against Golden State Valkyries.

Former president Barack Obama will be here on Wednesday to hold a rally with Ossoff and Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Democratic candidate for governor and a former mayor of Atlanta. Her race, against Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare executive of the company he founded, is a near-dead heat in the polls.

When Sharon Trasher thinks back to when she cast her first vote at 18, she wonders if today’s first-time-voter generation has become blase about that right.

“I don’t know ... I sometimes think when you are too privileged, you forget about what others have suffered for you to get where you are today.”

I suggest that maybe younger people don’t have enough time to go through the series of down-ballot elections in every state. It’s an idea to which she gives short shrift.

“Well, you better make time – because social media can’t pay your bills.”

Her point echoes that of Al Sharpton’s when he spoke to the Big Bethel congregation on Sunday morning, warning of an epidemic of “amnesia” among the generation of black Americans who do not have living recall of the struggles of the civil rights generation.

Meanwhile, the president continues to pummel voters with warnings about the Democratic threats, and sweeteners. He visited Georgia as recently as Saturday, announcing during his rally that German car manufacturer Audi has plans to build a $4 billion factory in Georgia, creating 4,500 jobs. The agreement, Trump said, was a direct consequence of the tariffs policy. During his speech, he also denounced Ossoff as a “far-left extremist that votes to destroy everything Georgia values”.

All indicators point to a successful night for Ossoff and the Democrats, but on the streets, the late push to reach voters continued.

“I was literally with him last night and that was one of the points he was making,” pastor Augustine said.

“This cannot be a small distinguishable margin of victory. We need to send a resounding message to make sure that this administration understands its policies are unpopular. It’s got to be a landslide margin of victory to shut down doubters.”