Rahul Bali
,
Rebecca Etter
| WABE
August 2nd, 2024
Hours before Vice President Kamala Harris was scheduled to land in Atlanta for a presidential campaign rally on Tuesday at Georgia State University’s Convocation Center, former President Donald Trump’s campaign announced a rally at the same venue just four days later — with his running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance in tow.
Here are five things you should know before the campaign rally on Saturday, Aug. 3, in Atlanta.
1.
This is the former president’s fourth campaign visit to Georgia this year.
The last time Trump was in Georgia was to debate President Joe Biden, whose poor performance sparked widespread concerns and ultimately led to his withdrawal from the race and endorsement of Harris. Before this, Trump was in Atlanta in April for a fundraiser and in Rome, Georgia, for a campaign rally with Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene on March 9.
Currently, Trump’s campaign has no other scheduled visits to Georgia, but that will likely change. Harris has already announced she will be back in Georgia on Friday, Aug. 9, this time in Savannah and with a running mate.
2.
This will be the first campaign event in Georgia for Vance since he became the Republican vice presidential nominee.
Trump announced his running mate at the Republican National Convention in July. Georgia Democratic state Rep. Josh McLaurin took to X shortly after the announcement to take credit for leaked text messages between himself and Vance from 2016 in which Vance was highly critical of Trump.
3.
Saturday’s campaign event will also be at the Georgia State University Convocation Center.
Trump’s rally, held at the same venue as Harris’ just days before, will offer a unique comparison of how the two campaigns are running things. According to the Harris campaign, the crowd on Tuesday surpassed 10,000 attendees.
4.
Gov. Brian Kemp will not be attending.
According to a senior aide, Kemp will not attend Saturday’s rally due to prior commitments. The relationship between Georgia’s highest elected official and the former president soured after the 2020 presidential election, when Kemp rebuffed Trump’s overtures for help subverting the result in Georgia. Kemp went on to win the Republican primary for governor in 2022 despite Trump backing his challenger, former Sen. David Perdue.
5.
Georgia Republicans attending include Congressman Mike Collins.
The representative from Georgia’s 10th Congressional District will be in attendance. Collins has repeatedly come under fire for his social media posts, including most recently tweeting without evidence that Joe Biden “sent the orders” for the assassination attempt on Trump at his July 13 campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Sam Gringlas and Patrick Saunders contributed to this story.
