A tale of two counties: Contrasting voter views just 20 miles apart in polarising contest

It’s 7.30am in Dunwoody, a well-heeled suburb of Atlanta, Georgia.
Street lights flicker as dawn becomes day and the birdsong from the autumnal oaks is interrupted by the growing hum of those quintessentially American yellow schoolbuses and other traffic as this portion of DeKalb County comes to life.
People are arriving at the local library at a steady pace, parking and heading inside with voting papers, and the odd book, in hand. Early voting in the presidential election opened in Georgia last week, with a record 310,000 ballots cast on day one, more than twice 2020′s total. It was still going strong on Monday as Jacqueline Ghali came to do her democratic duty.
“For me it’s really about doing the right thing for our country and getting the right president,” she says. “I voted for [Kamala] Harris. I hate that we have someone running on a position of trying to make this country great again when I think it’s great anyway.”
A hairdresser, Ghali says she hears people “chatter, chatter” in the salon and while US politics has become more polarised, she has “only one time had to referee the two different sides”.
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“To me, ultimately, people have just decided to be hateful,” she adds. “It seems like a conscious decision… but what are you going to gain from it?”
Thalia and Kris, a couple in their 30s, have brought their four-month-old daughter, Soleil, along with them to vote. Kris, a diamond broker, also notes the growing political “divide” and is keen to do his part given “all the things that are at stake”.
In terms of issues, Thalia, who works in cybersecurity, says inflation has made life more difficult with the cost of groceries and rent rising sharply.
“The average income you need to live comfortably now is drastically different to what it used to be,” adds Kris.
So, does this mean they voted for a change?
“We voted for Harris,” Thalia says.
“I think she and the other [Democrat] representatives are much more able and competent,” adds Kris, who says some of the “closest people to us” will vote for Donald Trump but nobody is letting politics “get in the way of how we feel about each other”.
Their choices are in keeping with how DeKalb County voted in 2020, returning a whopping 308,000 votes (83.1 per cent) for Joe Biden as he took Georgia by a margin of fewer than 12,000 votes (0.2 per cent of the total).
This narrow victory sparked a protracted saga based around accusations of election fraud from the Republicans, with Trump appearing to put pressure on officials, including secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, to “find” votes to help him overturn the result. This led to a grand jury investigation, a still ongoing racketeering prosecution against the former president and 18 others, and outcry among a cohort who believe the wrong man ended up in the White House.
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In spite of it all, polling for Georgia, the second most valuable swing state with a prize of 16 electoral college votes, puts Trump ahead by a narrow 1½ points, according to the FiveThirtyEight website.
If the Democrats are to retain it, Kamala Harris will need places like DeKalb to push as strongly, if not more, behind her given Trump’s strength in the more conservative areas, of which there are many in a state comprising 159 counties.
In one of them, Forsyth County, about 20 miles (32km) north of Dunwoody, voters are coming quick and fast to the Cumming election office. The sentiment here appears to be the opposite of that in Dunwoody, with Trump seemingly on course to repeat, or even better, the two-thirds vote share he won in 2020.
John Herd, a state water services employee, doesn’t need to be asked twice for his view. “Definitely Donald Trump for me. Anyone Republican who is running, that’s who I vote for.”
For Herd, securing the borders and lowering the price of food and goods are important. He says grants distributed by the Biden administration after the pandemic added to inflation, sending interest rates “through the roof” and leaving him questioning if his kids will ever be able to buy a home.
“The economy was strong. You throw a lot of fuel on it and that’s what you get,” he says.
Herd also believes Trump would be “way better” on the diplomatic front by seeking to find solutions to conflicts rather than throwing “millions and billions of dollars” into them. “The world would be more fearful of him than the group we have now.”
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Len and Debra, who live in Cumming and work in local government and transport respectively, also want to see Trump back in the White House.
“If you look at the economy four or five years ago…” Len says.
“Gas prices were way down,” Debra interjects. “Interest rates were down.”
Robert Howard, professor of politics at Georgia State University, says “the key” to winning Georgia will be turnout and which party best manages to get their supporters moving. Harris, he believes, needs to enthuse large numbers of African Americans and women, while Trump will need to see if supporters of Georgia governor Brian Kemp show for him.
“Kemp is on the out with some of the more, to use Biden’s term, ‘Maga-leaning Republicans’,” he says. “Kemp is very conservative but not crazy and at least believes in the rule of law.”
Howard says a focus on undecided voters and their policy positions is misguided in a contest between two such highly polarised candidates. “If you’re undecided in this election… Well, you know.”