What Super Tuesday means for Georgia’s presidential primary next week

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - Georgia’s presidential primary vote lags a week behind Super Tuesday, but Peach State voters should be paying close attention to what happens in 15 other states and one American territory on Tuesday.

It’s an unusually uncrowded primary ballot, with incumbent President Joe Biden, the de facto nominee on the Democratic side, and his rival, former President Donald Trump, the same for Republicans.

But former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is putting up a strong fight and could use Georgia’s early voting numbers to determine ending or sticking out her GOP campaign. Save write-ins, it would be the only choice Georgia voters have once our primary rolls around.

“Last time I checked, this was still a democracy, and I don’t really understand why we are so set on having everything decided within the first couple of states,” said Emily Matthews with the group Primary Pivot, which supports Haley for the GOP nomination over Trump. “I think her staying in the race is important for democracy.”

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Haley will undoubtedly use states with early voting as a bellwether on continuing her campaign or not. In each state that’s held an early primary, Haley has been scooping up significant portions of the Republican voting bloc, indicating there are Republican voters out there hungry for a candidate other than Trump.

“Today’s results and how many early voters turn out in Georgia today is going to be a good indicator to her campaign. A good signal as to whether they should continue to fight,” said Matthews.

Voting rights groups in Georgia were operating normally on Tuesday, with some sending canvassing teams around local neighborhoods to encourage voters to have a plan to get to the polls next week, if not earlier.

Georgia’s primary is on March 12, with early in-person voting ending on Friday.

“It’s important to make sure that people decide who is really in charge of their community, in charge of their state and in charge of their country,” said Royce Wilkey, a canvasser with New Georgia Project. “Even though there may only be two people on the ballot basically by the time we’re voting, we’re making sure that people make sure their choices are known and if they want to vote for somebody else, they also have that right too.”