Georgia year in review: Trump dominated headlines in 2024 nationally and in the Peach State

Politics dominated 2024 in Georgia, a presidential election year that saw former President Donald Trump turn the tables on Democrats in the Peach State.

But Republican Trump’s victory four years after President Joe Biden became the first Democrat to capture Georgia’s 16 electoral votes since 1992 was far from the only political news to reverberate under the Gold Dome.

Two high-profile crimes that occurred this year in Georgia — the murder of nursing student Laken Riley at the University of Georgia and a mass shooting that killed four at a Barrow County high school — drove state lawmakers’ agendas.

Here’s a look at the top Georgia stories of 2024:

▪ Feb. 23: Nursing student Laken Riley is murdered while jogging on the University of Georgia campus in Athens. Jose Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, is convicted in the killing. In the wake of the murder, majority Republicans in the General Assembly pass legislation cracking down on illegal immigration, largely along party lines.

▪ March 20: The legislature’s Republican majorities pass a private-school vouchers bill after years of failed efforts. The measure provides up to $6,500 in annual funding to students who reside in a public school attendance zone that is in the lowest-performing 25% of all public schools in the state and wish to transfer to a private school.

▪ April 29: After years of delays and cost overruns, the nuclear expansion at Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle goes into full commercial operation with the completion of the second of two new nuclear reactors.

▪ June 27: President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump take part in a nationally televised debate in Atlanta. Biden’s halting performance leads Democrats to replace him on the ticket with Vice President Kamala Harris.

▪ July 12: Former Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine is sentenced to three and a half years in prison for conspiracy to commit health-care fraud in connection with unnecessary lab testing. In a guilty plea, Oxendine admits that his insurance consulting business ordered the tests from a lab company in Texas in return for hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks.

▪ Sept. 4: A teenage gunman is arrested and charged with shooting two teachers and two students to death at Apalachee High School in Barrow County. Colt Gray’s father Colin is charged with giving his son access to the murder weapon, prompting Georgia lawmakers to call for legislation incentivizing gun owners to safely store their firearms.

▪ Sept. 27: Hurricane Helene tears a path through South Georgia north through the Augusta area, killing 34 Georgians and causing heavy rainfall and widespread flooding as well as extensive power outages.

▪ Oct. 19: A gangway on Sapelo Island collapses under the weight of passengers waiting to take a state-operated ferry to the mainland following the annual Sapelo Cultural Day celebration, killing seven people.

▪ Nov. 5: Republican Donald Trump carries Georgia by more than 115,000 votes over Democrat Kamala Harris on his way to winning the 2024 presidential election.

▪ Nov. 24: Georgia Commissioner of Labor Bruce Thompson dies at age 59, eight months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

▪ Dec. 19: A Georgia appellate court disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and removed her from prosecuting Trump and co-defendants over over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.