Georgia on their minds
Harris, Trump hold events in Georgia as race tightens
Fresh off her Tuesday rally in Atlanta, Vice President Kamala Harris will return to Georgia next week with her soon-to-be-announced running mate.
The newly unveiled Democratic ticket will stop in Savannah next Friday, August 9, rounding out a weeklong effort by the Harris campaign to barnstorm battleground states.
News of the Savannah stop comes days after the presumptive Democratic nominee headlined a rally in Atlanta with rappers Megan Thee Stallion and Quavo, said to be her biggest event since she launched her impromptu campaign.
It also comes as Harris’ search for a running mate is nearing its end, with Washington blogs suggesting that she could announce her selection as early as this weekend.
“We cannot wait to welcome the Vice President back to the Hostess City,” said State Rep. Anne Allen Westbrook. “And we are especially honored to get to meet her new running mate.”
Meanwhile, Republican nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, plan to rally supporters in Atlanta on Saturday — at the same Downtown venue where Harris was this week.
Georgia Republican Party chairman Josh McKoon anticipates large crowds for this weekend’s rally, despite Atlanta’s overwhelmingly Democratic voting patterns.
“I think the president always inspires a lot of people to come from great distances to support [Trump], and I think there will be a lot of people in metro Atlanta as well,” McKoon told WSB-TV.
The party is hopeful that an unpopular outgoing president and continued worries about the economy and immigration will be enough to return the state to its Republican roots.
But the dueling visits signal that Georgia is clearly on the minds of both candidates as polls point toward a tightening race for the Peach State’s 16 electoral votes. Back in May, when a rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden appeared all but certain, a Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll in Georgia found that Trump was beginning to open a narrow lead.
But the same survey now has Harris and Trump tied at 47 percent apiece, a sign that Biden’s surprise exit from the race has upended the landscape in one of the country’s most important swing states.
“[Harris] knows the strategic importance of Chatham County within Georgia,” Rep. Westbrook, a Savannah Democrat, said of next week’s campaign stop in her hometown. “And in Savannah, we know we can count on Vice President Harris because we’ve seen her and the rest of the Biden-Harris administration constantly over the last 3 1/2 years.”
Election day is in 96 days.