Politics
Georgia Latino Voter Turnout Surges 78% as Support for Ossoff Hits 72%
Latino turnout in Georgia's midterms jumped 78% from 2022 to 198,000 voters, with 72% backing Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff â an 18-point swing from 2024. Organizers warn the shift is a 'misalignment,' not a realignment, driven by immigration enforcement fears and affordability concerns.
DALTON, Ga. â Latino voter participation in Georgia surged to 198,000 in this year's midterm elections, a 78% increase over 2022, according to figures GALEO compiled from the secretary of state's office. The same data shows those voters swung sharply toward Democrats, with 72% supporting U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff â an 18-percentage-point jump from the 54% who backed Kamala Harris in 2024, according to New York Times/Siena polling.
GALEO CEO Jerry Gonzalez cautioned against reading the results as a permanent shift. "Folks that have been studying this for a while in decades of study of the Latino electorate, they're not calling it a realignment," he said. "They are calling it a misalignment, meaning Latinos are up for grabs, and really it is going to be up to the parties to make sure that they are addressing the issues that are important to Latinos."
Gonzalez attributed the swing to a combination of first-time voters and former Republican voters experiencing buyer's remorse. He also noted that precincts with high concentrations of Latino voters outpaced the statewide average for turnout. "Latinos turned out to vote in stronger numbers in Georgia than the other demographics," he said.
The Latino share of Georgia's electorate has grown rapidly. Of the state's roughly 8 million registered voters, about 5% are Latino, a figure that has climbed by 267,614 â or 210% â over the past decade, according to the secretary of state's office.
For first-time voter Fredy Lara, a semiprofessional soccer player with the Chattanooga Red Wolves who lives in northwest Georgia, immigration enforcement was the deciding factor. He recalled watching agents pull his father, a green-card holder, aside at a park while the family looked on. His father was not detained, but the encounter stayed with him. "It's just not right," Lara said. "He had an interaction with ICE and he was just an innocent man."
Whitfield County, where Lara lives and where many Latino voters are concentrated, posted the largest leftward swing of any county â 31 percentage points, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis. President Donald Trump carried Whitfield by 44 points in 2024; this year, Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, who challenged Ossoff, won the county by just 13 points.
Affordability ranked alongside immigration as a top concern. Denise Calvillo, another Dalton resident who voted for Democrats up and down the ballot, said the cost of living weighed heavily on her decision. "I'm tired of surviving. I just feel like I want to live," she said. Nationwide polling by The Associated Press found voters of all backgrounds most concerned about the economy, and Gonzalez said Democrats bear a responsibility to deliver on the issue at every level of government.
The election also produced down-ballot gains for Hispanic candidates around Atlanta: Laura Murvartian won a state Senate seat, Juan Estrada won a state House seat, Michael Garza was elected to the Cobb County school board, and Mo Ivory won the Fulton County Commission chair. Gonzalez said GALEO is working to recruit more Latino candidates for the next election cycle.