Trump wins Georgia and has an important swing state ahead of Harris in the 2024 election

Former President Donald Trump has won Georgia, NBC News predicts, eking out a victory in a key battleground state that his campaign viewed as a must-win after narrowly losing it in 2020.

It's a major victory for Republicans, who had sought to restore the state's longstanding status as a Republican stronghold after Joe Biden's victory in 2020 – as well as the runoff victories of Democratic Senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in the months that followed.

And it marks a turnaround since Trump's efforts to overturn his defeat in Georgia four years ago – when he urged Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the 11,782 votes he needed to win the state – became the basis of a Racketeering charges were filed against him in Fulton County last year. This case is ongoing.

Trump's victory in Georgia over Vice President Kamala Harris does not secure a path back to the White House, but it sets him up for a return if he can flip several other swing states that Biden won four years ago. Biden was the first Democrat to win the state since Bill Clinton in 1992. Trump won it in 2016.

Trump's campaign aimed to turn back Democratic victories in the Atlanta area while maximizing turnout in smaller, rural areas. It was supported by an energized and loyal base of Republican county chairs and elected officials who consistently held campaign events long before Trump expanded his activities in the state.

Trump visited Georgia six times this year and held rallies in Rome, Savannah and Atlanta.

The campaign also helped draw black supporters, particularly men, away from the Democratic Party. Trump attended a Black Business Leaders Roundtable in August to broaden his appeal among the group.

While the NBC News exit poll did not show Trump making significant gains among black voters, results early Wednesday showed him making modest gains among Hispanic voters in the state – a much smaller portion of the electorate but which appears to be in The situation has shifted towards Trump in many key states.

Trump also enjoyed the support of popular Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who appeared with him toward the end of the election cycle after distancing himself from Trump over his criticism of the states' voting process. Kemp endorsed Trump in an interview with Fox News in August.

Trump had backed a primary challenger to Kemp in 2022 as part of a revenge tour against Republicans who did not support his efforts to overturn the election, but Kemp won renomination and re-election.

It's part of Trump's tortured history with the state. Some Republicans also blame his falsehoods about the results of the 2020 election for declining Republican voter turnout in subsequent elections, including the 2020 runoffs that flipped the Senate to Democrats and the 2022 Senate midterms in which Warnock won a full term over Trump-backed candidate Herschel Walker.

Unlike four years ago, when polls in Georgia showed Biden with a 53% to 44% lead among independents, Trump appears to be winning over independent voters this time, according to the latest data early Wednesday.