Harris tours Georgia as Democrats see the state fully in play

Vice President Kamala Harris is aiming to go on offense against former President Donald Trump in Georgia, kicking off a bus tour on Wednesday in the rural southeastern corner of the battleground state.

Harris’ trip reflects a growing sense of optimism among Georgia Democrats that she could hold on to a state President Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020. The Democratic ticket’s standing in the polls there has increased significantly since Biden dropped out of the race, although Harris still trails Trump, according to a New York Times polling average. She is being joined by her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, on the two-day bus tour, which will culminate with a rally in Savannah.

The bus tour also underscores the Harris campaign’s efforts to motivate rural Democrats not just in Georgia but also in nearby North Carolina, a demographically similar Sunbelt state.

Both states have significant populations of Black voters, including many who live in rural areas. Democrats have said they must drive up turnout outside the cities and suburbs to defeat Trump statewide. Polls show Harris performing far better in North Carolina than Biden did, and her allies in the state have compared the energy of her campaign to Barack Obama’s in 2008, the last time a Democrat was victorious there.

Her swing through Georgia with Walz carries echoes of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, in which he and Al Gore, his running mate, traversed the Peach State’s rural towns with their wives, as Clinton leaned on his Southern bona fides. Clinton later won Georgia by less than 1 percentage point, making him the last Democrat to take the state before Biden’s victory in 2020.

Biden won Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes and lost North Carolina by under 75,000, his closest defeat in the election. The two states, which had been leaning toward Trump before Harris’ rise, are now considered tossups. One of Trump’s easiest paths to victory involves holding North Carolina and flipping Georgia and Pennsylvania, which with 19 electoral votes is the most valuable of the battleground states.

The Harris campaign knows that winning Georgia or North Carolina would almost certainly guarantee her the White House. A Democrat who can defeat Trump in those traditionally moderate states is likely to face a far easier route to victory in the union-heavy blue wall of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Republicans know that, too. Trump and his allies have invested heavily in advertising in Georgia and North Carolina.

“If Harris wins North Carolina, she’s the next president of the United States,” Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, a Democrat, said in an interview this month.

There has been some tension between Democrats in Georgia and North Carolina as they lobby their national party for resources.

North Carolina Democrats have been particularly motivated by the Republican candidate for governor, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is from his party’s far-right wing and has called for banning abortion at six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant. In contrast, Georgia has no competitive statewide races this year, unlike in 2020, when the Senate campaigns of Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff helped turn out Democrats alongside Biden.

That is part of why Democrats have set their sights beyond the deep-blue Metro Atlanta area and are trying to mobilize voters in Georgia’s southeast and coastal regions, where there are many Black voters whose support will matter at the margins.

“The coast matters,” said Aaron Whitely, the chair of the Democratic Party in Chatham County, which includes Savannah, a smaller Democratic stronghold. “It is not surprising to us that the blue wave is in full effect here.”

New York Times/Siena College polls this month found Trump leading Harris by 4 percentage points among likely voters in Georgia, but trailing her by 2 points in North Carolina. A previous Times/Siena survey of the Sun Belt states — which did not include North Carolina — found Trump beating Biden by 8 points in Georgia.

Although Biden won in 2020 thanks in large part to turnout from Black voters, his support from them dimmed amid high inflation. Harris, who is Black and of South Asian descent, has reenergized many of them, polls show.

Black voters make up roughly one-third of the electorate in Georgia and one-quarter in North Carolina, both higher than their representation nationwide. In 2020, about 13% of Americans who cast ballots were Black.

Georgia and North Carolina aren’t the only states where the Harris campaign is targeting rural voters. She and Walz also took a bus tour this month through a conservative county outside Pittsburgh.

Harris is raising money at a faster pace than Trump, allowing her to flood the airwaves in the battleground states. She has also built a more robust infrastructure of campaign offices and staff than Trump, which Democrats say will give her the advantage in getting out the vote. The Trump campaign is relying more on a force of volunteers and well-funded efforts from outside super PACs.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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