Author

Charlie Hayslett

Charlie is the scholar in residence at the Center for Middle Georgia Studies at Middle Georgia State University. Based in Watkinsville, the former political journalist and public relations professional now studies major economic, political and health issues affecting rural Georgia. He shares his research through statewide speaking engagements, regular columns appearing in publications across the Georgia Trust for Local News and his blog, Trouble in God’s Country.

Charlie's Latest Articles

Time for a Democratic autopsy?

In the wake of Mitt Romney’s loss to Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential race, a dumbstruck Republican National Committee commissioned a post-mortem aimed at figuring out what had gone wrong and how to fix it.

Sorting through Georgia’s early voting data with political algebra and fuzzy math

Sifting through the three million early votes Georgians have cast so far in the 2024 presidential race is an exercise in political algebra and some really fuzzy math.

My insanely premature analysis of Georgia’s first week of early voting

In my most recent post, I scratched my head about whether Hurricane Helene would depress the vote in the counties she hit the hardest – and, more specifically, whether the fact that she ravaged much more Republican than Democratic territory might impact the outcome of the presidential race in Georgia.

Is Mother Nature voting in this year’s presidential election?

Could the weather gods be messing with our politics?  Maybe even engaging in election interference?

Keeping the Hurricane Helene story alive is Job One for Kemp – and the Georgia media

I spent the first decade of my working life as a newspaper reporter and then migrated into public relations and communications management. 

Trouble in God’s Country Tidbits

This week, an update on a few data points I track in my Trouble in God’s Country research.

New State Election Board rule may bring on Madison’s worst nightmare

In the wake of the 2020 presidential election, the Republican-controlled Georgia General Assembly passed a 98-page monster of a bill called the “Election Integrity Act of 2021.”

Are guns and abortion coming home to haunt Gov. Kemp?

On Monday, one of Georgia’s two U.S. senators, Democrat Jon Ossoff, conducted a hearing in Decatur on the impact of Georgia’s current anti-abortion law.  The hearing produced gut-wrenching testimony from two women who suffered gruesome miscarriages after being denied abortions.

A crop of things sown

Last week’s shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County put me in mind of Ralph McGill.  

The battle for South Georgia begins

Well, every once in a while you get one wrong.

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