Campaign season is in full swing in Georgia, a newly minted battleground state.
Ivanka Trump visited Acworth Tuesday with Sen. David Perdue, the Republican incumbent in a tight race for his seat with Democratic nominee Jon Ossoff. Donald Trump Jr. visited Kennesaw and Savannah on Monday. Now, President Donald Trump is set to hold a rally in Macon on Friday, three weeks after a metro Atlanta campaign stop.
On the Democratic side, Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, stopped in Decatur and Columbus Monday to encourage early voting. It was the first time either Biden has visited the state since the primary.
Perdue walked on stage with Ivanka Trump in Acworth Monday while speaking on the phone to the president. “What we were doing just then is not playing, trust me,” Perdue said. “I never walk onto a stage while on the phone; it was embarrassing. But the man called, and he called downstairs 15 minutes ago. … But he sent a very special message: ‘We’re going to win Georgia.’”
Ivanka Trump called Perdue a “great friend” and a “great champion for the president and for the people of Georgia.”
“We all know what’s at stake, and that’s why we are fighting so hard,” she said. “We will leave it all on the field to make sure our president, my father, secures four more years.”
“And the energy is good,” she said. “We feel it in Georgia.”
In Decatur on Monday, Biden too expressed confidence about Democrats’ chances in the state. “Are you ready to turn Georgia blue?” she asked the crowd.
“We are going to vote early across Georgia starting in DeKalb County because we know that if we deliver Georgia, we deliver America. And they will not count us out again,” said Stacey Abrams, former Democratic gubernatorial candidate before Biden spoke.
Abrams followed state Sen. Nikema Williams at the Biden event, chair of the Georgia Democratic Party, who often calls the state “Battleground Georgia.”
“Georgia is a battleground state,” agreed Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who is also defending her seat. “We are going to keep the Senate in Republican hands because of Georgia … that roadmap runs through Georgia, and I’m really excited to be fighting for our conservative values.”
This attention from presidential campaigns is a shift from 2016 when neither presidential candidate visited Georgia after the primary. Recent polling in the state has the presidential race as neck-and-neck. The latest one from Survey USA puts Biden at 48% and Trump at 46%.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has ranked each of Georgia’s Senate races as a “toss-up.”
