ATLANTA – The first week of early voting in Georgia’s midterms attracted a steady stream of voters who, in some cases, were willing to wait in line for hours to cast a ballot.

As of Thursday, nearly 400,000 people had already voted either in person or with an absentee ballot. That’s almost 6 percent of the state’s 6.9 million registered voters, and that’s just from four days of voting. 

In Lowndes County, 6,895 voters cast ballots during the first seven days of early voting, which includes Saturday and Sunday, according to the Lowndes County elections board.

Debra Tann, a 59-year-old Democrat who is an educator, voted on the first day of early voting in Valdosta.

“Voting is so significant, and it’s imperative that we make a difference and you make a difference with a vote,” Tann said. “Votes mean power, power is with the people, so says the Constitution, so it was just my utter responsibility to cast my vote.”

Lisa Day, a 44-year-old Valdosta resident, is a financial advisor for a national company and a Republican.

“I usually like to vote on the actual election day,” she said. “I just kind of like the feel of going out on election day, but this time I just decided to go ahead and vote early so that I knew that it was taken care of just in case I couldn’t be here on election day with work or illness or weather like we just saw. It just made me more comfortable to just go ahead and get it done.

“There are a few candidates that I feel very strongly about locally and state-wide, so I just wanted to make sure that my vote counted.”

Mike Fletcher, 73, of Valdosta is a retired vice president of human resources and a Republican. He said he usually gets out to vote early.

“I like to do that. It kind of beats the rush, and I know what I’m going to vote for anyway, so I’m good to go,” he said.

“We had people lined up at 8 a.m. Monday (Oct. 15), and it seems the line hasn’t stopped,” said Mary Hammontree, who is the registrar in Whitfield County. “We’ve been voting 450 to 500 people a day.”

Hammontree said the pace of voting so far has felt more like a presidential election than an off-year midterm, when voter turnout usually drops off.

The number of people heading to the polls on the first day of voting was about three times higher than in 2014, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Early voting is available in every county.

The intensity probably has a lot to do with the race at the top of the ticket, which pits Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp against Democrat Stacey Abrams, a former state House Minority Leader who is vying to become the first black female governor in the country.

It’s one of the most closely watched races in the nation, and recent polls show Kemp and Abrams in a virtual tie.

Both gubernatorial candidates have been trying to drum up interest in early voting, but Abrams launched an entire campaign swing through the state focused on rallying supporters to vote early and pitch in with her campaign.

Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University, said the high level of early voting could be a sign that Abrams’ mobilization efforts are paying off. Gillespie also noted an uptick in black absentee ballot requests.

But the spike in early voting could also just be a reflection of today’s deep partisan divide, she said.

“People vote early because it’s convenient for them and people vote early because they’ve made up their minds,” Gillespie said.

“And in a hyper-polarized, partisan environment, what that tends to lend itself to is less split-ticket voting,” she said. “That means if folks already know that, ‘I’m a Democrat or I’m a Republican, and I’m not voting for the other side because I fundamentally disagree with them,’ you’ve made up your mind already and there isn’t anything else you’re going to learn in the next couple of weeks that’s going to change your mind.”

Summerville resident John Black, who describes himself as a retired handyman, said he voted for Republicans in all the statewide races. The 72-year-old said he thinks state and national Democrats are too liberal.

“I’m a conservative and a gun owner,” he said. “I just don’t think they have the same beliefs I do.”

Some recent examples in Georgia show that Democrats do tend to benefit more from early voting than on Election Day, although not enough to come out ahead. 

Two years ago, about 58 percent of people who cast a ballot in the presidential election did so early, whether in person or through absentee ballots. Those voters gave then-candidate Donald Trump a 100,000-vote edge going into Election Day.

Four years ago, about 37 percent of those who voted in the governor’s race went to the polls early. Those voters gave Republican Gov. Nathan Deal about a 6,000-vote lead.

In both cases, the Republicans come out ahead in early voting, but with far narrower margins than on Election Day when they were pushed to comfortable victories.

“I think we have to be really cautious about inferring an election outcome from early voting, because a vote’s a vote, whether it’s early or absentee by mail or on Election Day,” said Trey Hood, a political science professor at the University of Georgia.

Jill Nolin covers the Georgia Statehouse for The Valdosta Daily Times, CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Charles Oliver in Dalton and Amanda Usher in Valdosta contributed to this report.