In Harris’ 1st Visit To Georgia, Donald Trump Jr.’s 2nd In 2 Weeks, Campaigns Pitch Hard To Georgia Voters
Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., addresses reporters before a campaign event Friday in Atlanta.
John Amis / Associated Press
Updated at 10:41 a.m. Saturday
The polling for the presidential race in Georgia shows the outcome as too close to call, and that’s clear, based on the high profile campaign visits the state has been receiving. On Friday, U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris traveled to Georgia for the first time since joining the ticket, and Donald Trump Jr. made his second trip here in two weeks, exactly a week after his father, President Trump, held a rally in Macon, Georgia.
“We need to win overwhelmingly, and we cannot do that without you, Georgia,” Trump Jr. told a few hundred people in a hotel ballroom in North Atlanta before another visit in Macon. “So get out there, bring your friends, vote and let’s make sure we win so that we can make liberals cry again.”
“Atlanta, Georgia, the whole state of Georgia is so important. The people of Georgia deserve to have a president who sees them and cares for them,” Harris told reporters as she landed in Atlanta. “So we’re here to talk about what Joe and I are prepared to do.”
Former Congresswoman and current Republican Congressional nominee, Karen Handel, Gov. Brian Kemp and Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan also addressed the Republican crowd before Trump Jr.
“We are standing right in the middle of ground zero right here. We’re in the suburbs,” Duncan said before Trump Jr. spoke. “Our job is to continue to convince the 10% in the middle that we’re worthy to vote for, we’re worthy to continue to lead them in the direction they expect us to.”
The event was in the 6th Congressional District, where in 2018 Democratic Congresswoman Lucy McBath defeated Handel by one point, flipping what has been a long-held Republican stronghold.
Kemp acknowledged the frequency of the Trumps’ visits to Georgia.
“I want to not only thank Don Junior but the whole Trump family. They have been no strangers to Georgia, I can tell you. We have been to events with Ivanka and Eric and all the rest of them,” he said. “They love Georgia, and they have Georgia on their mind. But I’ll tell y’all, we cannot take this race for granted.”
Harris held a smaller event, with more safety restrictions, in a parking lot at Morehouse College.
Her visit comes a week after Sen. David Perdue mocked the pronunciation of her name at a campaign rally, and less than a week after her husband, Doug Emhoff, was here campaigning.
She was preceded on stage by U.S. Senate candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff and U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath.
Supporters unable to enter the event gathered outside of the gates to watch from a distance.
Desiree James is a hygienist in Midtown who says some of her customers, people of color especially, have told her they are fed up with the president.
“It’s not even a party thing for them at this point, because I have a feeling that a lot of them did actually vote Republican at some point in their life, but it’s about a character thing,” James said.
Nearly 1 million new voters have registered in Georgia since the 2016 election. And as of Thursday, nearly 2.5 million people had already voted, totaling about 1.5 million more votes than had been cast in late October of 2016.
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