During a presidential election, it’s common for us at the newspaper to wait late into the night to get results.

Depending on turnout, we would probably get our county’s results around 10 p.m., maybe a little earlier, maybe a little later — maybe even a lot later back in the old days. While those were unofficial numbers, they were solid numbers. Except for a few provisional ballots and some military ballots that could come in after Election Day and still be counted, the numbers we posted to our websites that night and printed in the next available newspaper were the number of votes cast here.

Meanwhile, though, the Associated Press was looking at returns from all across the state, and when they had the information they felt they needed, they’d project a winner. The official count is what would matter, of course, but AP usually called it right. And once they called it, we felt like we could go home and let the details sort themselves out the next morning.

For a presidential election, of course, we’d have to wait for AP to call enough states for one candidate or the other that we could be sure who would win. In 2016 it was 4 a.m. before the agency called Arizona for Donald Trump, making it the last state he needed to defeat Hillary Clinton.

That was a long night, but it was nothing compared to 2020, where it literally took days before AP was certain Joe Biden was going to win Georgia and thereby the presidency of the United States.

That’s a long introduction, but it emphasizes how important Georgia was to the 2020 election. Political experts are expecting that situation to replay itself as Trump faces Vice President Kamala Harris in November.

And South Georgia is getting some of the candidates’ attention.

Vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance was in Valdosta Thursday.

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have a South Georgia tour planned. We’ve reached out to see if any of their rallies will be close, but we haven’t heard back. The only one that’s been publicized is in Savannah.

Meanwhile, South Georgians participated in both of the national conventions. Dennis Futch of Moultrie was at the Republican Convention in July, and Blake Robinson of Valdosta was at the Democratic Convention last week.

Whether this attention reflects a long-term growth in political clout will remain to be seen, but for the moment, we’re being seen by people all the way at the top. It gives us an opportunity to advance the region’s needs to people who can help meet them.