How Georgia's 159 counties moved compared with the statewide shift

On Nov. 3, Hesitation Media published a tied-race mark for each of Georgia’s 159 counties: the margin the county would post if the Senate race ended even and every county moved by the same amount from the 2022 Senate general election, which Raphael Warnock won by about 1 point. In unofficial returns the state posted at 4:19 a.m. on Nov. 4, with all 159 counties reporting, Jon Ossoff (D) led Mike Collins (R) by 18.0 points, a shift of 17.0. This page compares each county’s change since 2022 with that statewide change, which checks whether every county moved by about the same amount, as the marks assumed.

In Georgia the assumption held less well than in Pennsylvania. Forty-five of the 159 counties shifted within 3 points of the statewide change, and 85 within 5. Weighted by votes cast, the average county was 4.7 points from where an even statewide shift would have put it, against 1.8 in Pennsylvania, and 122 of the 159 moved less than the state did.

Where the counties moved more than the state

Whitfield County, with 29,832 votes counted, shifted 33.2 points toward Ossoff, from a 46.4-point Republican margin in 2022 to 13.2 points, the largest shift in Georgia. Its seat is Dalton, one of the places in Hesitation Media’s Nov. 3 piece on Georgia’s swing counties. Barrow shifted 26.9 points and Long, a small county, 26.3. Among the exurbs around Atlanta, Paulding shifted 24.0 and Hall 23.3.

Two of the metro counties in that Nov. 3 piece also moved more than the state. Henry, whose margin moved further toward the Democrat than the state’s did between the 2018 and 2022 governor’s races, by more than any other Georgia county, shifted 23.1 points this time, and Gwinnett 22.2.

Where they moved less

The three counties that gave Warnock his largest margins in 2022 moved least among the 12 counties with the most votes counted: Fulton shifted 10.1 points, DeKalb 7.3 and Clayton 6.8. The 63 counties the American Communities Project classes as African American South shifted 14.0 points toward Ossoff, weighted by votes, 3 points less than the state. Talbot, one of them, shifted 0.9, the smallest move in Georgia.

Votes, 2022 to 2026

In the unofficial returns, 4,174,454 votes were cast in the Senate race, 6 percent more than the 3,935,924 cast in the November 2022 Senate general election. Democratic votes rose 27 percent, from 1,946,117 to 2,463,132, and Republican votes fell 10 percent, from 1,908,442 to 1,711,322. Republican votes fell in 157 of the 159 counties, all but Greene and Jasper. County returns cannot show whether 2022’s Republican voters switched sides or did not vote. The 2022 figures are county returns compiled by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab (MEDSL).

What is still being counted

The state’s feed reported all 159 counties, but late mail and provisional ballots can still change the count. Nine small counties hold a share of the 2026 vote that is less than 85 percent of their share of the 2022 vote, which can mean votes there are still outstanding: Echols, Jeff Davis, Johnson, Schley, Seminole, Telfair, Webster, Wilcox and Worth.