Meet the Columbus lawmaker likely to cast electoral college vote for ‘battleground’ GA
State Rep. Calvin Smyre, the longest-serving member of the Georgia legislature, will cast one of the state’s 16 electoral votes for Democrat Joe Biden if the president-elect’s growing lead stands.
Smyre, 73, served through the shift of Georgia from blue to red. The Columbus lawmaker was a presidential elector when Bill Clinton won the state in 1992 — the last time a Democrat was victorious.
Georgia’s two U.S. Senate races could push the balance of power towards the Democrats, but down-ticket races in the state house weren’t as successful. Still, Biden’s likely victory in Georgia represents a political recasting, he said.
“I don’t think we’re a blue state yet,” he said. “But it’s a battleground state.”
What’s changing in Georgia?
As of 11 a.m. Tuesday, Biden leads Donald Trump by nearly 12,300 votes in Georgia. The secretary of state’s office did not provide an exact number of ballots that need to be counted. However, officials said there were only a “few” left statewide. A recount has been requested by the Trump campaign.
Smyre, an early Biden supporter, would cast an electoral ballot for the President-elect alongside former Gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, state party chair and U.S. Rep.-elect Nikema Williams, as well as Savannah Mayor Van Johnson and other key Democratic figures on Dec. 14, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
“It’s an honor to be involved in the electoral process,” Smyre said. “Everything is predicated on the recount.”
When Smyre served as an elector in 1992, Georgia’s political landscape was much different. The state’s governor and its two U.S. senators were Democrats. Things began to change soon after, and the party hasn’t won a statewide, federal race since Zell Miller’s special election Senate victory in 2000.
But Georgia’s population and its voters are becoming younger and more diverse. A study by researchers at Tufts University shows voters ages 18 to 29 contributed 21% of all votes in Georgia, the highest share of any state in the country.
Biden won that group, 57%-39%. Black voters in that age range supported Biden, 90%-8%. However, young white voters split in favor of Trump, 62%-34%.
Many Democrats have credited Abrams and others for leading voter registration efforts. Roughly 800,000 new voters have been added to the state’s rolls since November 2018.
“That has made a difference,” Smyre said of younger, more diverse voters. “This was a referendum on which direction the country was going in.”
Claims of GA voter fraud ‘unfounded’
Georgia’s two U.S. Senate runoffs could determine the body’s balance of power, and top state Republicans are fighting over the legitimacy of the November vote count.
The key for Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to unseat Republican U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler will be to get voters back out, Smyre said.
“All the political roads now lead to Georgia,” he said. “You gotta get people back to the polls.”
With a Trump Georgia victory looking unlikely, Perdue and Loeffler on Monday called for the resignation of Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, saying his handling of the election was an “embarrassment.”
The sitting U.S. Senators allege Raffensperger failed to deliver an “honest and transparent” election. Perdue and Loeffler did not provide specific examples or cite any evidence to demonstrate their claims.
Raffensperger said he will not resign and denied the allegations. Georgia election officials have debunked claims of widespread fraud and said it’s unlikely that illegal voting took place on a large enough scale to throw the state’s vote towards Trump.
Yet, Georgia’s entire Republican congressional delegation and the state Republican Party sent a letter to the Secretary of State’s Office on Tuesday alleging election irregularities that included ineligible or dead people casting ballots. However, specific examples or evidence to back their claims were not provided.
Smyre said the statement from Perdue and Loeffler “surprised” him.
“I just don’t see the pattern,” Smyre said. “If that we’re the case … the results would show across the line and down ballots as well if there were irregularities.
“I think that criticism is unfounded unless we see hard evidence of it,” he added. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to politicize the operation of the (Secretary of State’s Office.)
How did Democrats do in other races?
Success for Biden and U.S. Senate candidates did not help Democrats accomplish goals on down-ticket races, especially in the Georgia House of Representatives.
Democrats had ambitiously hoped to flip 16 seats to take control of the chamber for the first time in 15 years. It didn’t happen.
Secretary of State vote tallies currently show Democratic candidates beat Republican incumbents in three races, but Minority Leader Bob Trammell lost his re-election bid.
‘It’s a disappointment,” Smyre said. “From the get-go, I knew we could win some seats. My first estimate was that we could pick up five to eight.”
Still, Georgia, Smyre said, has not gotten this much national political attention “in many, many years” and now people are looking at the state’s political scene differently.
“I welcome that back,” he said.
This story was originally published November 11, 2020 at 5:50 AM.