One poll has Vice President Kamala Harris ahead in Georgia by four points, and another has former President Donald J. Trump leading by six. A couple more have the candidates effectively tied.
Cassandra Smallwood has no idea what to make of this blur of digits. She gave up on the polls a while ago, anyway, and is trying to trust her gut and be hopeful.
It doesn’t always work.
“I can feel my heart racing now,” she said the other day as her focus shifted, despite her best efforts, to the corner of her brain where all of her election-related fears are stored, a file cabinet of scenarios that would crush Ms. Smallwood, a Harris supporter who lives in Albany, in the southwest part of the state.
Georgia’s relatively new status as a swing state has brought plenty of changes to election season. Traffic jams caused by frequent motorcades. Ads that fill just about every commercial break. The text messages. The door knocking.
And the stress.
In the final dash to Election Day, with the race so close, the campaigns have poured time and money into Georgia, relentlessly chasing the voters who have not made up their minds or might change them at the last minute.
But flanking those sought-after voters are people who have been certain about their choice for months now. To many of them, the stakes of the election feel like sandbags slung over their shoulders. And the inescapable noise has only added to the pressure they felt.
Social media, like television, has been a gusher of commentary with varying levels of accuracy and hysteria. “I can’t even watch an S.E.C. football game without there being commercials on both sides,” said Pastor Frank Bennett, who leads Lake Point Church in Emerson, northwest of Atlanta, and is voting for Mr. Trump.
“That’s in our face every day,” he said, “and it carries over into our lives. It carries over into our workplaces. It carries over into our families. And it puts everyone on edge.”
For voters like him, the last few months have been a lesson in coping. Some have done so by canvassing and calling other voters. Others have tried to unplug as much as reasonably possible.
Pastor Bennett relies on prayer. Yoga has been helpful for some. Nature walks. Baking frenzies. A nightly ritual of meditation and “Everybody Loves Raymond.”
Georgians are by no means alone in their anxiety. The American Psychological Association released a poll last week that found nearly 70 percent of Americans considered the election a significant source of stress in their lives. Crisis Text Line, the national nonprofit providing mental health support, has created a hotline specifically for election anxiety.
But in Georgia, more than in most states, the trepidation is informed by the 2020 election and its aftermath. President Biden’s win there was thrilling for Democrats, confirming that their national candidates could be viable in the state, and maddening for Republicans. It quickly devolved into turmoil after Mr. Trump attempted to overturn his loss, with a torrent of false claims that the election had been stolen.
Democrats fear a rerun of that experience, or worse, their state helping pave the way for a second Trump administration.
For Republicans, the worries include Ms. Harris’s ambitions for securing federal abortion rights and the crunch of rising costs. The assassination attempt against Mr. Trump in July — seeing him injured and another man killed — crystallized the enduring threat of political violence.
“I’ve never had more grown men call me crying than after that,” said Benjamin C. Garcia, a finance student at Columbus State University, who voted for Mr. Trump.
“It’s like Trump said — they want to get to you but they have to go through me,” he added. “You see the guy get shot, and maybe he wasn’t lying.”
No matter the reason, the roots of all the apprehension are the same. Our brains crave certainty, and the election has many people swimming in an ocean of unknowns, said Dr. Keisha Pou-Buchanan, the president of the Licensed Professional Counselors Association of Georgia.
It’s not just a matter of who wins, she said, but of what information people can trust, how long it will take before they know the winner and how the policies of a new administration will affect them.
“We try to gravitate to some answer,” Dr. Pou-Buchanan said. “It gives us some sense of control.”
To help his congregation, Pastor Bennett compiled a seven-day guide for fasting before voting. In this case, he said, fasting means abstaining from food, social media or other desires for spiritual purposes.
The guide is meant to help those following it navigate their choice with the help of passages from the Bible and prayers that home in on attributes to seek in a president. “We ask for leaders of strong character,” the prayer from Day 4 petitions, “who are willing to listen to others and most importantly listen to the Lord.”
Many of his congregants, Pastor Bennett said, could use the spiritual boost. “They need to be encouraged to do their duty to vote,” he said. “I hear from a lot of Christ followers — ‘None of them are good, none of them are righteous, so I’m not going to vote for either of them.’”
His response: “We’re not trying to vote for a pastor. We’re trying to vote for a president.”
LaTosha Brown, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said she has a well-honed gauge for divining who will win an election, whether she likes the result or not. This time, as the election has drawn nearer, she has no clue. Or more specifically, her instinct keeps flip-flopping.
“I feel really good, but should I be feeling good?” she said, describing her thinking. “I’m in this purgatory.”
For committed voters like her — she supports Ms. Harris — the undecided ones have been mystifying.
“What are you confused about?” Ms. Brown said.
Mr. Garcia, 23, agreed that the outcome felt unpredictable — a landslide win or narrow loss for Mr. Trump seem equally possible. That, he said, is more than a little stressful. So are the assumptions that he knows strangers sometimes make about him as a Trump supporter with a sticker on his truck.
He follows the example set by his father, who died this year. “I spread love and kindness to all the folks I encounter,” he said.
And it works: “That energy gets reciprocated back tenfold.”
One more cause of angst: No one knows when they can actually consider the election over. Some said they do not think it will be over until Jan. 20, when the new president is sworn in.
“America is prepared for the foolishness,” said Nadine Oliver, a 67-year-old in Albany who is voting for Mr. Harris.
Still, Ms. Oliver is not stressed. She had been.
But then she started volunteering with the Democratic Party in Dougherty County, which has sent her out talking to people.
“I promise you, the stress is not even there anymore,” she said. Instead, she feels energized. As polarized as things are, she said, there is more unity in her community than she expected.
Also, she can be certain of one thing. “I’m doing everything I possibly can,” she said.
The post How to Survive Swing State Stress: Prayer, Canvassing and Knowing When to Let Go appeared first on New York Times.
