On Saturday, former president Trump and his running mate JD Vance will visit Georgia, a state that has become more crucial due to the recent Democratic ticket shakeup, to rally supporters.
With President Joe Biden’s withdrawal and endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination, the race took a dramatic turn earlier this week in Atlanta.
Harris gathered 10,000 supporters at the Georgia State University Convocation Center in the city after securing the support of party delegates and announcing that she had raised over $200 million in her first week as a candidate. She told them that Georgia was a stepping stone on her way to the White House.
On Saturday, Trump and Vance will both campaign at the same location, but Trump will not have the financial boost, momentum, or better odds of winning a pivotal state that Vance has.
By defeating Trump by a margin of less than 12,000 votes in 2020, Biden became the first Democrat to capture Georgia in nearly three decades.
Last year, a grand jury in Georgia charged Trump on counts related to his attempts to reverse the election results. One of these accusations was a call he made to Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state of Georgia, asking him to “find” the precise number of votes he needed to win.
It seemed like Georgia, along with North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada, were leaning toward Trump until about two weeks ago. Trump had just returned from a victorious Republican convention with a new running mate. His campaign’s strategy of trying to weaken Biden’s support among Black voters, especially young males, appeared to be paying off, as polls showed him ahead.
But now Harris’s campaign is claiming that she’s reaching out to younger, Black, and Latino voters, which could increase her support outside of the traditional “blue wall” areas like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
A fresh scene
The Trump campaign has been struggling to find a way to talk about Harris while still justifying Vance’s position on the ticket, as the Ohio senator is facing increased criticism, while Democrats have rallied around Harris over the past two weeks.
Following claims by multiple Republican senators that Harris is a “DEI hire” (an acronym for diversity, equality, and inclusion), party officials have cautioned their members to be focused on policy while criticizing her, rather than her gender or ethnicity. This week, the Trump team spent over $12 million on advertisements that linked Harris to the current administration’s approach to border security. The ads utilized the slogan “dangerously liberal.” It seemed like they were trying to convey a similar message.
However, during his appearance at Wednesday’s National Association of Black Journalists convention, the former president shocked both the Chicago audience and a number of Black voters he was trying to win over by making the false assertion that Harris, who is the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, “happened to turn Black” unexpectedly.
A lot of Republicans are really angry with those comments, especially since they were preaching unity within the party after the Republican convention only two weeks ago.
In an interview with AWN’s Manu Raju this week, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski expressed her desire that the country will have a discussion about issues and policies, as well as her own hopes for the campaign. You have two political campaigns with radically divergent platforms on these matters. Okay, then, how about we address the problems?
Trump supporter and senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham suggested that the campaign highlight differences in policy.
For as long as I’ve known her, the vice president has “proudly embraced her heritage,” Graham told AWN. “Her policy decisions are the root of my issues with Vice President Harris.”
Trump, on the other hand, is not avoiding the offensive and unfounded accusations on Harris’ family history. On the contrary, he has ramped up his internet conspiracy theories about her identity and posted more and more.
According to a senior Trump campaign official who spoke with AWN, the campaign will not “shy away” from responding to the remarks made by the previous president. Instead, it intends to employ them as a fresh front, this time based on the idea that Harris is a “phony.”
A similar message will be delivered in Atlanta, the advisor said.
During her campaign in Arizona last week, Vance sided with Trump and attacked Harris, calling her a “phony” who “caters to whatever audience is in front of her.”
The senator from Ohio is defending Trump after the campaign spent weeks responding to critiques of Vance’s statements about women without children being called “childless cat ladies” and about the need for stronger voting power for those with children.
A few weeks ago, Vance’s pick was interpreted as a way to appease the MAGA base and provide a youthful contrast to Biden’s age-related challenges; Vance will turn 40 on Friday.
Despite Biden’s departure, the campaign has already attempted to reintroduce Vance two weeks after his primetime convention debut, in light of his history of making harsh statements about people without children.
