From WNYC Studios. I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Monday, October 21st.

Now we continue the Monday series we've been doing on the swing states, one by one,

today, Georgia, where early voting's been

underway for a little more than a week. And 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. So 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. Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me.

So as I say, my 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? Yes, I mean, 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.

And 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. So 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. 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 the surge of early voting in Georgia this

week? You know, it's really hard to tell.

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