New Citizen Voters Helped Turn Georgia For Biden

The growing number of immigrant citizens is one reason Georgia’s electorate has diversified faster than that of other Southern states, according to an analysis by New American Economy, an immigration research group.

Chris Ferguson / WABE

One reason Georgians elected Joe Biden for president — by just under 12,000 votes — this year may be due to the number of new citizens in the state, especially those from Asian countries, who showed up to vote in large numbers.

“It was exhilarating,” said Debashri Sengupta, who was born in India and voted for the first time in Georgia this year. “We couldn’t believe we were finally voting in a presidential election.”

She is one of 65,000 new immigrants who became U.S. citizens in Georgia since 2017.