Down Ballot: In presidential election years local elections continue to be ignored

The 60th Mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, spoke at a Black Voters for Biden-Harris event on Saturday, June 1, 2024 in Decatur, Georgia. Photo by Itoro N. Umontuen/The Atlanta Voice The Biden-Harris Administration recently kicked off a multi-city tour for its Black Voters for Biden-Harris voter outreach program. Standing in a parking lot outside of Twain’s Brewpub & Billiards in Decatur on a cool Saturday afternoon in early June, Georgia Congresswoman Nikema Williams, Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms took to a podium to speak to just under two dozen supporters about voting in November.& “This campaign isn’t taking a single Georgian for granted,” said Williams of the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to reach Black voters, a crucial demographic to the campaign’s 2020 victory over then President Donald J. Trump. Williams called the Black Democratic block in Georgia, “the backbone of the Biden-Harris Administration.”& Voting down ballot doesn’t always get the same level of political support that a presidential campaign does. So it is not a surprise that midterm elections do not draw the voter turnout and overall general interest that a presidential election does. That said, the numbers in three of metro Atlanta’s most...