POWDER SPRINGS, Ga. — When you look past the campaigning, the polls and the promises - it's the people who are at the heart of every election.
Georgia voters will have a big decision to make in November and despite what some national polls might suggest, no two voters are alike. One voter shares what he's taking into consideration for the November election.
Meet Doug Farrell, co-owner of brewing company
Skint Chestnut Brewing Company is known as west Cobb County's first brewery - an idea between two buds.
Doug Farrell is one them.
After nearly 30 years of patient care and executive management in the physical therapy business, he decided to pour into his brother-in-law's dream. His brother-in-law is the brewer, Farrell is the operational manager of the Powder Springs brewery.
"It's extraordinarily complicated," he said. "We like to say it's about 50% science and 50% art."
Farrell joked he keeps a good relationship with his brother-in-law to run a family business by not talking about politics.
When asked how the brewery manages to stick to that goal in a setting -- a bar -- where many people come to discuss things, Farrell said his top goal is making sure everyone feels comfortable.
"Everybody's welcome here," he said. "We don't care what race you are. What sexual orientation you are. Just come out and have a good time."
Issues he cares about
Inflation, the economy
"Probably the biggest issue that we have is inflation," he said. "Our cost of goods keeps going up. Our cost of power keeps going up."
He said families he's feeling the pinch when shopping for essentials like groceries too.
"Somehow or another it's got to get reined in so we can catch up because right now I think it's going faster and higher than most Americans can deal with," he said.
Georgia's distribution laws
Farrell added that Georgia's laws regulating breweries limit how he can sell his product.
"It does allow for small breweries to open up to sell beer on premises but if I want to sell my beer at a local restaurant or I want to put it into a local store I can't do that unless I go through a wholesaler," he explained.
According to Farrell, his brewery is too small to make the economics work under those constraints.
"I'm too small," he said. "I'm not going to make them money and they're certainly not going to be able to make me money, so doing some self-distribution makes sense in the State of Georgia - which is not allowed," he said.
Farrell's take on this 2024 election season:
When asked about what worries him the most - he shared one word: detachment.
"I'm not sure that there's any excitement for much of anything right now," he said, "and I think a lot of that's warranted."
He expressed that he thinks Americans feel disappointed with the state of the country.
"I think that a lot of the American folks are pretty disappointed with how things have gone and I don't care what side you're on," he said.
"It doesn't seem like anything is really focused on improving what we have," he added.
Despite concerns about national politics, Farrell said he's optimistic about his local leadership.
"The City of Powder Springs has done a very good job at trying to have a reasoned growth model going forward" he shared.
In Farrell's view, those local politicians are doing a better job than their national counterparts at serving their constituents.
"It kind of goes back to that old adage that all politics is local, right?" he said.
Watch our Voice of the Voter segment during The Georgia Vote Sundays at 11 a.m. on WXIA.