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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we continue the Monday series we've been doing on the swing states one by one, today, Georgia, where early voting has been underway for a little more than a week. This is a big national election story right now. In itself, it's not another poll result. Actual voting by people in Georgia is off the charts, setting turnout records. What does it mean? With the election so close, both candidates have made important campaign stops in Georgia just in the last few days. Joining me now is Maya King, a politics reporter covering the Southeast for The New York Times. Hi, Maya. Thanks for some time on what I know is a busy day for you. Welcome to WNYC.

Maya King: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we have time for a few Georgia callers. Anybody in Georgia, from Georgia, or with ties to Georgia want to call in and help us report the story of what's going on in this vital swing state with a lot going on. There's stuff in court that we're going to talk about, and there's certainly this early voting surge that we're going to talk about and how the candidates are trying to speak to the late-deciding voters in the state of Georgia. 212-433-WNYC. What can you help add to the reporting? 212-433-9692. As I say, Maya, early voting began in Georgia last week, and pretty much right away the state was breaking some of its own early voting records. What's happening?

Maya King: Yes. It's hard to overstate just how incredible the turnout in Georgia has been, absolutely blowing through records that were placed in 2020 when there were even more access points to the ballot. Now what we're seeing really across the state is this overwhelming response to the early voting period. Well over a million Georgians now have cast ballots, and usually in past cycles, this would be something that we would be able to say is either a plus for Democrats who do tend to vote early, but Republicans have also made a very concerted effort to get their voters out to the polls early or to mail in their ballots.

This is just a sign of pure enthusiasm and I think underlines the fact that this is very much anyone's race to win, and it just is going to come down to which of the two candidates can get more of their voters to the polls between now and November 5th.

Brian Lehrer: I think early voting generally in recent elections has favored the Democrat. Is there an indication that that is or isn't the case in this surge of early voting in Georgia this week?

Maya King: You know, it's really hard to tell. It's not exactly as easy as it was in past years to be able to say whether this favors Democrats or not. I think in the coming days, we'll have a better sense if we can see that some of these early votes are, for example, concentrated in the metro Atlanta area. That may be a very good sign for Democrats because that is where much of their votes are, or even in the coastal region like Savannah. At this stage, it's just too hard to tell. I wouldn't want to make any sweeping conjectures just yet.

Brian Lehrer: Your colleagues at The Times reported on Friday that a judge struck down some election rules in Georgia that were coordinated by Trump-aligned actors. The article says they included, "Mandates to count election ballots by hand, expand the monitoring of ballot dropboxes, require new identification for delivering absentee ballots, and provide expanded access for poll watchers, along with new requirements and procedures that could disrupt the election certification process." Wow. How has the recent court ruling on Georgia's election rules been received by various political factions in the state?

Maya King: It's certainly fallen pretty clearly along partisan lines. The state party chairman, the Republican Party chairman in Georgia, vehemently in a statement said that he disagreed with these rules, that he sees what the state election board's proposed rules were. He saw them as essentially underlining support or making sure that voters can feel like they can trust the outcome of the election if there's more rules in place, where many Democrats and, too, some Republicans have said that this is just too close to make these sweeping changes to the law, and that it would only sow further confusion, possibly introduce the human error effect into this by mandating the hand counting of the number of ballots, and that it just may cost more issues for an already very stressed and overworked group of people, election workers.

Again, the response did fall somewhat under partisan lines, but by and large, I think most folks who want to see this election take place in Georgia as smoothly as possible without any real issues, largely agreed with the judge's ruling on this. Essentially, it was just too close to make so many changes.

Brian Lehrer: When they originally imposed these new rules, we did a segment on them, and one of the big things that our guest at that time was saying was that the mandate to count election ballots by hand was intended to delay a result, even a preliminary result coming out of Georgia by a matter of days, at least, after election day November 5th, which would give Trump the opportunity to start sowing doubt about the national result if he lost. Was that one of the things that the judge cited as pro-Trump gamesmanship in this law as opposed to anything to really protect the integrity of the vote?

Maya King: Yes, I think it was both. I think the judge was also looking at just the power that the state elections board was trying to grab for in the creation of these rules, and essentially, I think, put the elections board back in its place by saying, "Look, you are not able to unilaterally make all these decisions because, indeed, they will introduce, open up a window for the former president or any of his allies who may distrust the election results to have days to just sow further doubt." That would largely be, if they were able to do that, because of their allies on the state election board.

Yes, I don't think that the judge explicitly said that, but absolutely, it was certainly implied that this would disrupt the normal democratic process that most Georgia voters have gotten used to. I'll add just one more point to that, which is that the SB 202, the sweeping changes to election laws that were placed, or, excuse me, passed by the state house in 2021, have not been tested in a presidential election in Georgia before. There's already a little bit of an element of the unknown in how these election rules will play out.

So far, it seems like things have gone quite because, again, well over a million Georgians have cast ballots. I think just the inclusion of these new laws and then on top of that, a last-minute effort to totally change how the ballots are counted would just really throw things into flux in a way that would not be helpful for either party.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. You talk about being last minute, and you talked about the judge actually citing that as one of the reasons that he struck them down, that this was all happening too close to the actual voting to impose all these new rules on absentee ballots and dropboxes and how the votes would be counted on election day itself and beyond. Does your reporting indicate that that was part of the strategy to wait until just before the election in order to try to change all these rules? Was that part of the strategy to sow chaos?

Maya King: That's not what I have found in my reporting, but I will say that the Republican members of the state elections board have certainly been empowered by former President Trump. He even shouted them out by name at one of his rallies in Atlanta a few months ago. It's clear that there is an unspoken mandate from the former president and his allies to essentially make sure that these rules are as favorable to Republicans as possible under the guise of saying this is going to make sure that fewer people distrust the election process, which in practice may not have actually happened if this rule were to go through.

Brian Lehrer: Maya King from The New York Times, who covers the Southeast with us in our Monday swing state series, talking about Georgia today, where the voting is already underway. Voting in droves is what the reporting shows. Record turnout for early voting in that state. Early voting began last Tuesday. 2012-433-WNYC if you want to help us report the Georgia story or ask a question, 212-433-9692. Call or text. Here's a text message.

It says, "My mom, sister, and aunt live in Atlanta. My mom and aunt have already voted. My sister attended a Harris rally this past weekend and said it was massive and had an incredibly diverse audience. My sister was fairly optimistic that Biden would win the state in 2020," which he did, "but isn't as bullish on Harris this time around." Did you cover that Harris rally? Are you familiar with it?

Maya King: I did, yes.

Brian Lehrer: What would your headline from that rally be?

Maya King: When she was in Atlanta the first time she came, it really felt like a total reset. She had reignited so many key factions of the Democratic coalition in Georgia, namely Black voters and young people who really have flocked to the polls in past elections and made the difference. She's also-- Georgia Democrats, I think, are quite lucky to be in Atlanta, which has emerged as the Hollywood of the south. Borrowing from a lot of star power, people like Megan Thee Stallion, Quavo, Usher, even Stevie Wonder have now appeared with Kamala Harris at her election rallies.

The point of these large rallies is not necessarily to increase enthusiasm, though, of course, that's part of it. I think the second part is for the folks who are there to then go into their communities, talk to their friends and family members, and say, "Please go vote. Vote early and vote for Harris." That seems to be the strategy behind a lot of these large rallies, though it is hard to tell at this stage whether that indicates that Harris has a path that is as clear as Biden's was to win by such a thin margin in 2024 as he did in 2020. It certainly does show that there is quite a lot of enthusiasm on the ground here in Atlanta and that the Harris campaign is looking to take advantage of that.

Brian Lehrer: Trump was in the state last week, too. You reported from Cumming, Georgia, where the former president reiterated his claims about Democrats being the "enemy from within". How did that message land with voters? Were you at that rally, too?

Maya King: I was. That event was billed originally to be a conversation with women about women's issues. The former president did go on a number of tangents, though, during that conversation, and when he was played footage of his interview where he does call Democrats and his political enemies the enemy from within. That's also something that Vice President Harris has started showing at her rallies. He doubled down on those claims and said, "Yes, they are the enemy from within."

I think that that might have been presented to him as a chance to distance himself from the same talking points that may have alienated the voters that he was speaking to at that event who are suburban white women. He instead said that he stood by his words and that he absolutely does believe that some of his political enemies, particularly in the Democratic party, are domestic enemies.

Brian Lehrer: What was the point, from the Trump campaign's perspective, of having an all-woman town hall? We've heard a lot of reporting, we were talking about it in our previous segment, that a lot of his strategy is to really ramp up the gender gap and just try to get so many men voting for him based on male grievance or traditional notions of masculinity, those kinds of things. What was the point of that particular event?

Maya King: We're at a stage in most of these battleground states where the parties or where both candidates are trying to appeal to some of the voting blocs that they might see that they have some trouble with or that there may be a little bit of atrophying for former President Trump. College-educated white women in the suburbs are certainly that bloc. His town hall discussion that he had with Fox News last week was really an effort to speak directly to those voters and talk about his own policy proposals that would appeal to suburban white women and talk about issues that are relevant to women.

That was not the full gist of the conversation, as we've said. I mean, the top line that came out of it was him doubling down on his enemy from within line. It is part of the campaign strategy, at least, to say that they're showing up for some of these groups.

Brian Lehrer: Conversely, one of the big stories coming out of this election cycle so far, at least before the voting, is Trump's apparent and possible, if the polls can be believed at all, increasing popularity among Black and Latino American men. Based on your reporting in Georgia, is that rightward shift actually happening?

Maya King: Yes, but in very small increments. I don't want to frame this as a large shift, particularly among Black men, towards the Republican Party. What we are seeing is at the margins, which is where all of this matters. I think Georgia, again, will come down to a very, very slim result. There are some Black male voters who feel that President Biden has not done a great job for them, particularly in their economic mobility, and that they tie Vice President Harris to Biden's record. They've shown some openness to supporting President Trump.

In conversations that I've had with many of these Black men, a lot of what they're saying is that they're frustrated with Democrats coming into their communities, holding them up as the saviors of democracy every four years, but then failing to deliver on some of the policy promises that they've made, and others just have a real frustration with the general political system, meaning they may just stay home altogether and not cast a ballot at all.

I think that's a net negative for Harris and for the Democrats, more so than it would be for Trump and Republicans. It's a complicated story, but I think what it shows is long Democratic constituencies are starting to think about different ways to flex their political muscle, whether that means voting for the opposite party or not voting at all.

Brian Lehrer: Last question, Maya. Now that a judge has struck down this last-minute attempt at changing the voting rules, many of the voting rules, including requiring a hand count of the ballot after November 5th, which would have taken days, do you expect a meaningful result from Georgia on election night?

Maya King: Oh, gosh, it's really hard to tell. I mean, I do hope so. I don't see why not. Again, as I said at the top of the conversation, there's just so much stress on state election workers, and they also now are dealing with outside threats. I imagine that we will see the votes counted more than once, just to be sure of the election result. If turnout is any indicator, that will take quite some time. Now, may not take multiple days, but we may know the result in Georgia either very, very late on Tuesday or a day or two after.

Brian Lehrer: What do you mean, threats?

Maya King: What I've heard from some election board workers is that they are fearful that if the election does not go in the direction that some, particularly on the far right, want it to go, that they may very well face some intimidation. This is what happened in Fulton County in Georgia four years ago, where two election workers received death threats, and had to actually move. They, of course, settled after Rudy Giuliani made many baseless claims about their role in counting the votes. These are just people who are election workers. I think that sent a real chilling effect across the state for many other election workers who just fear that by doing their job, counting the result, that they may be thrown into a bit of a fray or at least open themselves up to being targets of some of this violence.

Brian Lehrer: Maya King, politics reporter covering the Southeast for The New York Times. Thank you so much.

Maya King: Thank you for having me.

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