Published 8:07 pm Saturday, October 24, 2026 VALDOSTA — Georgia Democrats continued to press for voter turnout in the state’s early voting as several statewide candidates rallied in Valdosta Saturday. Tamika Miller, chairman of the Lowndes County Democratic Party, wore a T-shirt that read “Whole ballot energy.” As she introduced the speakers for the morning at Big Nick’s Juke Joint on Baytree Road, she explained that meant voting for Democrat candidates from the governor’s race at the top, all the way down the ballot. About 120 people showed up to hear from gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, secretary of state candidate Penny Brown Reynolds, commissioner of labor candidate Nikki Porcher and state school superintendent candidate Lydia Powell. Bottoms was the big draw. About half of the attendees left after she finished speaking, but the remainder heard messages from the other candidates as well as Nanette Melton, the rural Georgia ambassador for all the Democratic Party candidates, who spoke for Public Service Commission candidate Sheila Edwards. While each candidate addressed her own race, each of them also reiterated the party’s two messages: get out the vote, and vote the entire Democratic ballot. On multiple occasions, the candidates cited a statistic from eight years ago, when Democrat Stacey Abrams ran against Republican Brian Kemp for the state’s governorship: If Abrams had averaged 21 more votes in every precinct in Georgia, she would have won the election…
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