This weekend brought another – and this time final – round of presidential campaign rallies to battleground Georgia as both camps used the little time left to fight for every vote while projecting confidence that the state’s 16 electoral college votes were within reach.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump both campaigned in Georgia this weekend, with Harris firing up supporters in Atlanta on Saturday and Trump firing up his base in Macon on Sunday.
Both campaigns dispatched a stream of high-profile surrogates and celebrity supporters over the weekend. Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz and second gentleman Doug Emhoff stumped in Cobb County Sunday with REM frontman Michael Stipe and Jon Bon Jovi, and GOP vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance is set to campaign in Atlanta Monday.
Harris took the stage outside the Atlanta Civic Center to wild applause and offered herself as a unifying candidate.
“Georgia, we have an opportunity in this election to finally turn the page on a decade of Donald Trump, who spends full time trying to keep us divided and afraid of each other,” she said. “We’re done. We’re done with that. We are exhausted with that. Enough of that.”
Trump spoke to supporters at Atrium Health Amphitheater in what he says will be one of his final rallies.
“It was hard working patriots like you who built this country, and two days from now, it is hard working patriots like you who are going to save our country. Two days. What a beautiful sound,” Trump said.
Trump’s speech came on the heels of controversial remarks made at an earlier rally, where he said he would not mind if journalists were shot and said he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after losing the 2020 election.
The Harris-Walz campaign immediately seized upon the comment.
“They’re worried because you’re voting in record numbers in early voting and Georgia, if you turn out and vote like you did last time, Trump’s going to be looking to find more than 11,780 votes,” Emhoff said to the crowd at the Renaissance Atlanta Waverly Hotel, referring to the former president’s infamous call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to “find” the votes he was short.
A new poll released Sunday gave the Harris-Walz campaign its first bit of good news in weeks. The final set of polls from The New York Times and Siena College showed Harris ahead of Trump by one percentage point in Georgia, but that was still within the margin of error. Recent polling has consistently given Trump a slight edge in Georgia.
“Georgia, you have the potential to win this whole damn thing for America,” Walz said.
The campaign urged supporters to continue the work to win over undecided voters, especially those who are nostalgic for a pre-pandemic economy.
“I understand clearly that I am preaching to the choir, but our recital is in two days, choir, and we need to sing,” Walz said. “There are folks out there, though, that still haven’t made up their mind.”
Harris in Atlanta
Harris, who was here last week, kicked off what is expected to be her final Georgia stop before Election Day with an Atlanta rally featuring speeches and performances by local stars like Monica, 2 Chainz and Pastor Troy and state leaders like Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, Congresswoman Nikema Williams and Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens.
The mood was like a summer music festival, with a diverse crowd dancing and swaying to pop, R&B and hip hop classics.
Among those rocking out was Earnestine Pittman, who came to the Atlanta rally with daughter Kandis Watson and granddaughter Hannah Watson. All three generations wore pink and green hats and shirts representing Alpha Kappa Alpha, the same historic Black sorority that Harris is a member of.
Pittman said those colors represent a commitment to serve others.
“That says something about her, the choices that she made in life,” she said. “She made the choice to become what we say is an Alpha Kappa Alpha woman, and just by that, it means that we are people who like to serve, to be of service to others. So at a very young age, she said ‘I want to help people. I want to be of service.’”
The three said they are expecting Harris to outperform her polls, and that they are excited for the first woman president of the U.S. to be an Alpha Kappa Alpha sister, but they said they would have supported Harris even if she hadn’t pledged the same sorority as them.
“I support her first because she’s a real person,” Pittman said. “She makes you feel like you know her, you know, like she knows me. So I really like that about her, and I really believe in her policies, I believe that she’s going to do what she says she’s going to do, and I see her as a person of truth, a person of compassion, she’s caring, and you feel like this is a person that has walked where we have walked, and because she’s walked our walk, she’ll be able to provide the things that we need in order to, as she says, not just to get by, but to get ahead.”
Harris interrupted her remarks at a couple points to ask the crowd to make a path so medics could reach members of the crowd who had become distressed under the bright fall sun. At least four people were seen being wheeled away from the crowd for treatment.
The veep didn’t break new ground with her remarks, sticking to the same promises she’s been making in stump speeches since she officially became the nominee in August.
On economics, Harris pledged a tax cut for the middle class as well as a ban on corporate price gouging to fight inflation and an expansion of Medicare coverage for home care.
She sought to tie Trump and his Supreme Court appointments to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, which left Georgians under a six-week abortion ban, and said a second Trump administration could put in vitro fertilization and contraception at risk as well. Harris pledged to sign a bill to restore Roe protections if Congress passes one.
“As president, I pledge to seek common ground and common sense solutions to the challenges you face. I am not looking to score political points. I am looking to make progress,” Harris said.
“I pledge to you to listen to those who will be impacted by the decisions I make. I pledge to you to listen to experts and to listen to people who disagree with me, because unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe that people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I will give them a seat at the table. That’s what real leaders do.”
Trump in Macon
Trump’s rally in Macon featured the usual cast of Georgia Republicans and out-of-state GOP figures like Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
Herschel Walker, the football legend who made an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate in 2022, also reemerged Sunday to give Trump an on-stage boost.
Wearing a black Make America Great Again hat and a black long coat, Trump highlighted the murder of a Georgia woman in a dark speech focused on immigration and other familiar themes that have been central to his comeback bid.
“The day I take the oath of office the immigrant invasion ends and the restoration of our country begins,” Trump said.
“When I win, I will not let these animals into our country any longer,” Trump said. “I will not let them spill one more drop of precious American blood.”
Trump claimed to be “hundreds of thousands of votes ahead” in Georgia, but even though 4 million people have voted in Georgia, how they voted will not be known until after the final day of voting Tuesday.
“After all, we have been through together, we stand on the verge of the four greatest years in American history. You watch. It’s going to be so good. It’s going to be so much fun.
“It’ll be nasty a little bit at times, and maybe at the beginning in particular, but it’s going to be something,” he said.
On Sunday, Macon’s Alan and Lisa Martin expressed confidence that Trump would clinch Georgia’s 16 electoral votes on his path to a second term in the White House.
“We want all the votes for the United States citizens to be counted,” said the 59-year-old Lisa Martin. “If they’re noncitizens, if they’re not legal votes, they don’t need to be counted.”
The Martins said the second Trump administration would result in fewer undocumented immigrants crossing the border, lower living costs, and help to ease some of the divisiveness facing the nation.
“This is affecting everyone, and this man is pulling us together,” Alan Martin said. “He wants us to be a cohesive unit, a team, a nation. That’s where we’re going to come back and we’ll be as strong as we’ve ever been.”
Several Trump voters said Sunday they believe that Trump’s pro-American economic policies will improve the lives of working class families by lowering taxes and creating jobs.
This story was provided by WABE content partner Georgia Recorder.
