By WILL WEISSERT and BILL BARROW, Associated Press
ATLANTA (AP) — Just over every week ago, Georgia seemed out of Democrats' reach: President Joe Biden's campaign team promised to focus more on controlling the Midwest. “Blue Wall” is what it known as and indicated that they is likely to be willing to offer up Sun Belt Battlefields.
But now that Biden has withdrawn from the race and Vice President Kamala Harris the likely candidate, Democrats say they’ve latest hope for the state. They bet that a brand new burst of energy and a surge in fundraising have helped Georgia – the state that gave Biden his narrowest victory in 2020 – is again a neck-and-neck race.
Harris plans to stage a political show of force with a rally in Atlanta on Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET, the most recent example of how much the race against Republican Donald Trump has shifted since Biden abandoned his re-election bid. She will appear in the identical city where Biden's miserable performance in a debate against Trump on June 27 sparked a revolt amongst Democrats that ultimately ended his campaign.
Harris hopes a big rally that can even feature hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion will bolster her campaign's momentum. The campaign argues that Harris' appeal to young people, working-age women and nonwhite voters has thrown off the dynamic in Georgia and other demographically similar states, from North Carolina to Nevada and Arizona.
“The energy is contagious,” said Nikema Williams, Georgia Democratic leader and congresswoman from Atlanta. “My phone has been blowing up. People want to be part of this movement.”
In a method memo released after the president dropped out of the race, Harris' campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon, who served in the identical capability for Biden, reiterated the importance of winning Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, a trio of industrialized states which have formed the Democrats' traditional blue wall.
However, she also argued that the vice chairman's position at the highest of the ballot box “opens up additional layers of voters who can be persuaded,” describing them as “disproportionately black, Latino and under-30s” in areas like Georgia.
Republicans, who still hold a majority in Georgia, counter that Biden's declining popularity and his concerns about higher consumer prices and immigration within the historically conservative state would rub off on Harris.
However, they admit that the situation suddenly looks much closer to 2020 – when Biden won by about 0.25 percentage points – than to the time when Trump was Republican National Convention and survived a attack.
“Trump could have won Georgia. It was over,” said Republican consultant Brian Robinson. “The Democrats have a chance to start over here.”
Robinson said Harris still has many weaknesses, including the progressive positions she took in her failed 2020 primary campaign and her various rhetorical slip-ups. But he said Harris has been “in charge” up to now on this campaign, and if that continues, “we'll have a new game and she'll be competitive in Georgia.”
Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt didn’t reply to similar arguments, dismissing Harris as “just as weak, failed and incompetent as Joe Biden” and saying the vice chairman must explain her support for Biden administration policies which have “harmed working families in Georgia for the past four years.”
The former president's campaign announced Tuesday, hours before Harris' rally, that he would travel to Atlanta on Saturday to attend a rally at the identical location on the Georgia State University campus where Harris will appear.
The Harris campaign and Georgia Democratic officials maintain 24 offices across the state, including two that opened last weekend in metro Atlanta. Trump and the Republican National Committee only recently opened their first offices in Georgia.
Democrats are betting that a mixture of high turnout in traditional Democratic core constituencies, a robust showing within the suburbs and small gains elsewhere may be enough for Harris to win in Georgia. That approach was evident on the weekend's inaugurations.
On Saturday, the scene was East Point, a majority-black community and Democratic stronghold south of Atlanta. The guest of honor was Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington), who told a crowd of mostly black women that they were the important thing to victory – “the people who are really going to save the country.”
A day later, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, one in all several candidates Harris is considering as his running mate, campaigned in Forsyth County. The area is historically very conservative, although Democrats have narrowed the Republican majority in recent election cycles.
“Every county counts,” Beshear said, citing his ability to win two gubernatorial elections in Kentucky despite Trump’s dominance of the state within the presidential election.
Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp said in a recent interview that one of the best Republican campaigns in Georgia can win comfortably, but poor efforts – combined with strong Democratic campaigns – lose. Kemp, for instance: Re-election won by 7.5 percentage points in 2022 over national Democratic star Stacey Abrams. But in the identical election cycle, Georgians re-elected Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock about his Republican challenger Herschel Walker, who was supported by Trump.
In the last election, Democrats had big benefits in downtown Atlanta, where Jayapal spoke. The party also did well in Columbus and Savannah, in addition to in some rural, majority-black counties. But in other rural areas and small towns – where Trump has held several rallies in recent times – Republicans dominated.
It is in Atlanta's rapidly growing and increasingly diverse suburbs and exurbs, like those where Beshear campaigned on Sunday, that the best opportunity for change lies, especially amongst Republican-leaning moderates disillusioned with Trump.
For Harris, which means counting on voters as diverse as Michael Sleister, a white suburbanite, and Allen Smith, a black man who lives not removed from downtown Atlanta.
Sleister, who considers himself an independent, has lived in Forsyth County for 35 years. “I've voted Republican many times in my life,” he said, but not since Republicans shifted to the fitting during President Barack Obama's administration.
“Now I see the Republican Party as a direct threat to my grandchildren,” he said, adding that he sees Trump as “just a terrible human being.”
Smith is a 41-year-old Atlanta native who’s volunteering on the campaign trail for the primary time since Harris was considered a possible candidate.
“I was driving when I heard the news that President Biden was endorsing her and I started banging my fist on the table – I decided then and there to do whatever I could to help her get elected,” Smith said.
Weissert reported from Washington.
Originally published:
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