Cobb County Presidential Election: Still Blue 4 Years Later

EAST COBB, GA — As the nation continues to wait on several key states including Georgia to determine which presidential candidate will take control of the White House, President Donald Trump did not fare as well on Tuesday as he did in 2016 when local voters sided with Democrat Hillary Clinton, who narrowly defeated Trump by 2 percentage points.

Like other key states on Wednesday, Georgia remains undecided officially as does Michigan and Pennsylvania. But while it remains undetermined whether Trump performed well enough in the Peach State to keep its run of supporting Republican candidates intact, Cobb County voters stuck true to form much like they did four years ago.

According to local election data, Trump gained more votes than he did four years when he garnered 152,912 votes for 46.8 percent of the vote. The 2016 election marked the first time Cobb County voters had sided with a Democrat for the first time since Jimmy Carter. On Tuesday, Trump collected 160,737 votes – which represented 42.62 percent of the vote as compared to 210,517 votes cast for challenger Joe Biden, who carried 55.2 percent of the county vote.

According to Cobb County elections officials, 379,300 ballots were cast as more than 70 percent of local voters turned out.

Tuesday's vote climaxed a heated battle for control of the White House, unfolding during a pandemic that killed nearly a quarter of a million Americans before Election Day. Despite Trump claiming victory in Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said just before noon on Wednesday that the state still has 200,000 absentee ballots and 43,000 early votes to count, according to WSB-TV.

In a 2:20 a.m. speech in the White House, Trump claimed victory in Georgia and said the election is a fraud that requires U.S. Supreme Court action. Biden, meanwhile, has said he expects to win the race, and none of the national news organizations have called Georgia for either candidate.

Trump had struggled to overcome polling deficits in key states in the campaign’s final days. He ran strong as expected in rural areas, but lost support among other critical voting groups, including suburban women in several battleground states.

CNN reported in October that polling put Biden up by 25 points among women voters. According to the final 2016 pre-election polls, Clinton won women voters by 13 points among likely voters and 14 points among registered voters.