It’s a toss-up race for Georgia’s 16 electoral votes. Four years after the state narrowly went blue for the first time in decades, the presidential race there remains tight. Donald Trump is currently at 51% in preferences of likely voters, with Kamala Harris just two points behind him.

Financial concerns continue to give Trump an advantage, but not to quite the same degree it did when Joe Biden was his opponent. Meanwhile, widespread concern about democracy keeps Harris competitive. Georgia’s voters are divided over recent actions by the State Election Board, and there are stark partisan divides in confidence in the election system, as well as in what should happen after the votes are counted in November.

Economy and finances

Many feel worse off financially than they were before the COVID pandemic. About half of registered voters in the state say Trump’s second-term policies would make them better off financially — similar to the number when we checked in this spring. Only a third say the same of Harris. While she trails Trump on this measure, it’s noticeably better than President Biden did in the state.

Rising costs are still a top concern across Georgia, with housing prices seen as particularly burdensome. Eight in 10 voters say their income isn’t keeping up with inflation, and seven in 10 say housing in their part of Georgia is unaffordable. On the latter issue, Harris and Trump are seen by roughly equal numbers as likely to help bring housing costs down.  

Democracy and elections

As Georgia continues to deal with the aftermath of the 2020 election, most voters say the state of democracy is a major factor in their vote this year. While economic issues rank higher as a factor, most voters feel “very concerned” about whether the U.S. will have a functioning democracy when they think about the next few years. And this group is leaning toward Harris.

As far as elections in Georgia itself, Democrats are much more confident than Republicans that their votes will be counted correctly this year. Most Republicans continue to give credence to debunked claims of widespread fraud in 2020. Four in 10 Trump voters would prefer Georgia’s 2024 results be challenged and investigated if Harris wins after the votes are counted. Nearly all Republicans don’t view Mr. Biden’s win in 2020 as legitimate.

Democrats are more concerned than Republicans that some of Georgia’s election officials will refuse to certify the election results for political reasons.

The State Election Board recently voted to require election workers to hand count ballots on election night this November, in addition to a machine count. Most voters say this new rule will cause delays in finding out results. They are more split on whether it will ensure accuracy or reduce risk of fraud, with views heavily divided by partisanship.

Majorities of Democrats feel the board did this for political reasons and to deliberately interfere with the election process. Republicans by and large feel it was to ensure elections are secure.

Other issues: guns and abortion

Just a few weeks after the deadliest school shooting in state history, most voters say they are very concerned about the possibility of gun violence in schools. That’s especially true of parents in the state, and majorities across party lines are at least somewhat concerned.

Six in 10 say laws covering gun sales should be made more strict in Georgia. Harris has a bit of an advantage on the issue, but neither candidate gets many voters who say their policies would reduce gun violence in the state.

Most Georgia voters support legal abortion, but their views on the details are more complicated.

Six in 10 want abortion in Georgia to be legal in most or all cases. That majority includes a third of Republicans. However, fewer call Georgia’s current law banning most abortions after around six weeks of pregnancy, “too strict.” Only half of voters statewide say so, with four in 10 saying the law is about right.

And just under half say being pregnant in Georgia is becoming more dangerous since the overturn of Roe v. Wade. They are backing Harris over Trump by 4 to 1, while voters who don’t feel this way about being pregnant are the mirror image in their vote choice.

There’s agreement across party lines that Harris would try to pass national legislation making abortion legal, but voters divide on what Trump would do. Most Democrats say he would try to pass a national ban, while most Republicans say he would leave it to the states to decide.

Abortion and gun policy are more salient on the left than the right these days. In fact, they rate about as highly as the economy as major factors in the vote choice of Harris supporters.

About half of registered voters say Harris is more liberal than they would like her to be, a notch higher than the four in 10 who say Trump is too conservative. However, this flips among self-described moderates, who are more likely to see Trump as too conservative than Harris as too liberal.

Key voter groups

The Atlanta metro area and its diverse suburbs were key to Democrats’ statewide victories in 2020 and 2022. At the moment, Harris isn’t matching Mr. Biden’s 2020 support in these counties.

And while Black voters are backing her in large numbers, they aren’t doing so at quite the same rates they voted for Mr. Biden four years back. Harris does slightly better among Black women than Black men, and even a small increase in Black support for her would make the race dead even.

Nearly nine in 10 Black voters feel Harris is trying to earn the support of Black voters. Only about half say so of Trump — that number is down from this spring, when most felt he was.

Trump leads Georgia’s men by double digits, while Harris leads women more narrowly — that is producing a gender gap on par with what we saw in 2020.

There’s some room for movement in the electorate, but not a lot. About one in 10 likely voters in the state profile as persuadable, using a fairly broad definition of being unsure of one’s choice or willing to consider the other candidate. That means nine in 10 are locked into their choice, and even many of the persuadable will stick with the way they’re leaning now. That all points to the importance of turnout, including new registrations.

With mail balloting underway in Georgia, Democrats are poised to bank a small lead in the coming weeks. Their voters make up a majority of those who plan to vote by mail. In-person early voting, which begins in mid-October, remains the most popular way of casting a ballot in the state. And those who plan to vote this way divide evenly between Trump and Harris. More voters are set to vote on Election Day this year than did so in 2020, and as we saw back then, this group favors Trump by a wide margin.

Jennifer De Pinto and Fred Backus contributed to this report.

This CBS News/YouGov survey was conducted with a statewide representative sample of 1,441 registered voters in Georgia interviewed between September 20-24, 2024. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education and geographic region, based on U.S. Census data and voter files, as well as to past vote. The margin of error for registered voters is ±3.5 points.

Toplines

Kabir Khanna

Kabir Khanna, Ph.D., is Deputy Director, Elections & Data Analytics at CBS News. He conducts surveys, develops statistical models, and projects races at the network Decision Desk. His scholarly research centers on political behavior and methodology. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from Princeton University.

Senators unanimously passed a resolution to hold Ralph de la Torre, the CEO of troubled hospital operator Steward Health Care, in criminal contempt of Congress on Wednesday. 

De la Torre failed to appear at a hearing where he was subpoenaed to testify on Capitol Hill earlier this month, and the Senate resolution refers the matter to the Department of Justice for prosecution. It marks the first time first time since 1971 that the Senate has held someone in criminal contempt.

“Dr. de la Torre is not above the law,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote. “If you defy a congressional subpoena you will be held accountable no matter who you are or how connected you may be.”

“Over the past decade, Steward, led by its founder and CEO Dr. Ralph de la Torre and his corporate enablers looted hospitals across the country for their own profit. And while they got rich, workers, patients and communities suffered,” said Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts.

Before declaring bankruptcy earlier this year, Steward owned more than 30 hospitals across eight states. CBS News previously found the company failed to pay for life-saving supplies at its facilities after de la Torre and private equity investors he partnered with extracted hundreds of millions of dollars out of the company.  

Last month, the Dallas-based company closed two Massachusetts hospitals, leaving about 1,200 workers jobless, according to the state. 

While Steward’s hospitals struggled, CBS News found evidence of lavish spending by de la Torre, including the purchase of a $40 million yacht in 2021, a $7 million Texas horse ranch in 2022, and two corporate jets that senators have valued at $95 million. 

The contempt resolution comes after senators spent months trying to get de la Torre to publicly answer questions about his management of the company. De la Torre had been subpoenaed to testify on Sept. 12 in front of a Senate committee investigating the bankruptcy, but did not show up. 

An attorney for de la Torre previously asked the senators to postpone his client’s testimony until after Steward’s bankruptcy proceedings are resolved. Last week, as the committee was weighing contempt resolutions, de la Torre sought to invoke his Fifth Amendment right to not testify.

In a letter, de la Torre’s attorney wrote that lawmakers “sought to frame Dr. de la Torre as a criminal scapegoat for the systemic failures in Massachusetts’ health care system.” 

In addition to being presented with the criminal contempt referral against de la Torre, the Department of Justice has opened a separate criminal probe into Steward. A federal grand jury in Boston is examining the compensation, spending and travel of the company’s top executives, including de la Torre, a person familiar with the matter told CBS News. 

Through a spokesperson, de la Torre has denied wrongdoing. 

“Dr. de la Torre did everything in his power to help Steward Health Care overcome numerous industry headwinds and challenges, including personally purchasing necessary equipment and supplies in order to address the needs of patients and personally guaranteeing loans for the company with his assets,” the spokesperson said in a statement. 

Former President Donald Trump often blames Vice President Kamala Harris for a California law that he claims permits shoplifting up to $950 in merchandise without consequences, seeking to portray her as a member of the “radical left” by lambasting her positions and record on criminal justice. 

In at least eight recent campaign and press events, Trump and other high-profile Republicans have sought to cast Harris as weak on crime, holding her responsible for California’s Proposition 47, which makes the theft of goods worth $950 or less a misdemeanor, rather than a felony. 

“She came up with a great idea. You can steal as much as you want up to $950, and nothing happens to you,” Trump said earlier this month in remarks to the Fraternal Order of Police in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

Trump’s claim is misleading because it overstates Harris’ role in the bill. As California’s attorney general when the proposal took effect, Harris had a role in writing the initiative’s finalized title and summary, and she verified that the proposition met the number of signatures required to be added to the ballot. However, Harris was not involved in drafting the law or passing it, and she remained neutral on the initiative throughout the process, according to The Mercury News and SFGate. 

The law

Proposition 47 was a ballot initiative created in response to a 2011 Supreme Court ruling that ordered California to reduce its prison population due to overcrowding. California voters passed the measure in 2014.

Previously under state law, shoplifting goods worth up to $950 was often charged as a misdemeanor. In some cases, the crimes were also charged as burglaries, which could be a felony. Under Proposition 47, shoplifters with prior serious or violent convictions would face county jail rather than state prison sentences, with the aim of saving taxpayer dollars. People convicted of misdemeanor shoplifting can still face consequences of up to six months in jail and fines up to $1,000. 

In 2010, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was California’s Republican governor and before Harris’ tenure as state attorney general, California legislators passed Assembly Bill 2372, which set a $950 threshold for grand theft. This raised it from the 1982 threshold of $400 to account for inflation. 

Proposition 47’s threshold is lower than the amount set by other states including Republican-led Arkansas, Nebraska and Texas, which charges a felony for $2,500 worth of stolen goods. More than half of all states have higher thresholds than California, according to World Population Review, an independent organization that analyzes data and demographics. 

However, unlike California, other states allow prosecutors to charge repeat lower-level offenders with felonies.

Trump has repeatedly attacked Harris’ record as a prosecutor as both candidates attempt to appeal to voters who are concerned about crime. 

Recent surveys indicate that the topic is a key issue for voters. CBS News found 63% of registered voters who were polled say crime is a major factor in their vote in the presidential election.