35% of Georgians have already voted

In 2004, 3,301,875 Georgians voted for President in the general election.

That number is going to be blown away in 2008. Not only is Georgia a battleground in the presidential race. There's the critical Senate race between Jim Martin and the wretched Saxby Chambliss.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that over 2 million voters in Georgia have already cast their ballots:

Thousands of people across metro Atlanta waited in line late Friday night to cast ballots at advance polling places. They were the last wave of a huge statewide early turnout that officials estimated at more than a third of registered voters.

Deputy Secretary of State Rob Simms said he expected that by the end of the night, 2 million of Georgia’s 5.7 million registered voters — about 35 percent —would have cast an advanced ballot.

Michael McDonald's early voting site reports African-Americans make up 35% of early voters. In 2004, African-Americans comprised 25% of turnout. I keep going back to this post about Georgia from Nate Silver, which he wrote on October 6th. Like everything from Nate, it's chock full of very useful information:

I would be surprised if black turnout wasn't at least 27-28 percent, and somewhere in the 29-31 percent range is entirely possible. If those numbers are achieved, Georgia is pretty close to being a toss-up. And if it is a toss-up for Barack Obama, it is probably also a toss-up for Jim Martin, who is attempting to unseat Saxby Chambliss from the Senate.

We're talking about Georgia -- three days before election day. We've seen the numbers surge. It's real. And, Obama is on the air in Georgia now.

It's hard to take the McCain campaign's hyperventilating spin seriously when we're talking about Georgia.