A review of the 2024 election results showed that Chattooga County had the biggest increase in support for the Republican presidential nominee over the past 16 years in Northwest Georgia. Donald Trump garnered 82% of the vote.  In 2020, Trump had 80.24% – making him the first Republican candidate to get over 80% of the county’s votes.  In the past 50 years, the only other candidate to get that large of a majority in Chattooga County was Georgia-born Jimmy Carter in 1976.  Carter carried the county again in 1980 with just over 70% of the votes.

The flip from red to blue for Chattooga County came later than many other rural Northwest Georgia counties that had already began to vote for Republican presidential candidates by wide margins by the mid-1990’s.  Bill Clinton carried Georgia and Chattooga County in 1992 – and while he lost Georgia in 1996, Clinton carried Chattooga County – making him the last Democratic Presidential candidate to garner the majority of votes.

Four years later, Al Gore got a respectable percentage of the vote total in 2000, but George W. Bush – who won a narrow victory – got the majority of votes.  Chattooga County voters continued to vote predominantly Democratic in local elections for more than 15 years after Bush’s win.  All of the county’s constitutional offices were held by Democrats until County Commissioner Jason Winters swapped parties in 2015.

Four years later, in 2019, the county saw a mass defection of local elected Democrats with all but two of the county’s constitutional officers swapping sides.  Only Probate Judge Jon Payne and Coroner Earle Rainwater remained with the Democrats.  Payne passed away in 2020 and was succeeded by Republican Gary Woods.  Coroner Rainwater is retiring at the end of 2024 as is the county’s only other elected official, Chattooga County school board member Eddie Elsberry.

In this year’s election, for the first time since the Civil War, there were no local Democrats on the ballot.