Democrats had feared Georgia was a lost cause with Biden running. Harris will campaign there Tuesday

ATLANTA– Less than a week ago, Georgia seemed out of reach for the Democrats: President Joe Biden The campaign promised to focus more on preserving the Midwest. “blue wall” says and indicated that they might be willing to give up Battlefields of the “Sun Belt”.

But now Biden has withdrawn from the race and vice president Kamala Harris is the likely nominee, Democrats say they have new hope for the state. They bet a new energy boost and a surge in fundraising have helped Georgia — the state that gave Biden his narrowest margin of victory in 2020 — is once again a toss-up.

Harris plans to make a show of political muscle with a rally in Atlanta on Tuesday night featuring a performance by hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion, the latest example of how much the race against Republican Donald Trump has changed since Biden abandoned his re-election bid. She will perform in the same city where Biden’s poor performance in a debate against Trump on June 27 led to a Democratic revolt that ultimately ended his campaign.

Harris hopes a large rally will confirm her campaign’s momentum. Her campaign argues that Harris’s appeal to young people, working women and nonwhite voters has disrupted the dynamics in Georgia and other demographically similar states, from North Carolina to Nevada to Arizona.

“The energy is infectious,” said Georgia Democratic Chairwoman Nikema Williams, a congresswoman from Atlanta. “My phone is blowing up. People want to be part of this movement.”

In a strategy memo released after the president left the race, Jen O’Malley Dillon, Harris’s campaign manager who served in the same role for Biden, reaffirmed the importance of winning Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, a trio of industrial states that form the traditional Democratic blue wall.

But she also argued that the vice president’s position at the top of the ticket “opens up additional voters to be persuaded,” describing them as “disproportionately black, Latino and under 30” in places like Georgia.

Republicans, who still hold power in Georgia’s state government, counter that Biden’s declining popularity and concerns about higher consumer prices and immigration will rub off on Harris in the historically conservative state.

But they concede that the landscape suddenly looks a lot more like it did in 2020 — when Biden won by about 0.25 percentage points — than it did when Trump was at a post-election high. Republican National Convention and survival of a attempted murder.

“Trump was going to win Georgia. It was over,” Republican consultant Brian Robinson said. “The Democrats have a chance here for a reset.”

Robinson said Harris still has many commitments, including the progressive positions she took in her failed 2020 primary campaign and her various rhetorical stumbles. But he said Harris has been “in charge” so far in this campaign, and if that continues “we have a new game and she’s going to be competitive in Georgia.”

Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt offered no similar rationale. She dismissed Harris as “just as weak, failed and incompetent as Joe Biden” and said the vice president should explain her support for Biden administration policies that “have hurt working families in Georgia over the last four years.”

The Harris campaign and Democratic officials in Georgia have 24 offices in the state, including two added last week in metro Atlanta. Trump and the Republican National Committee only recently opened their first Georgia offices.

Democrats are betting that a combination of high turnout among traditional, core Democratic constituencies, as well as strong turnout in the suburbs and small pickups elsewhere, could be enough for Harris to win Georgia. That approach was on display during office openings over the weekend.

Saturday’s venue was East Point, a predominantly black community and Democratic stronghold south of Atlanta. Congressional Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., was the keynote speaker, telling an audience of mostly black women that they were the key to victory — “the people who are really going to save this country.”

A day later, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, one of the candidates Harris is considering as her running mate, campaigned in Forsyth County. The area has historically been very conservative, though Democrats have narrowed the GOP’s margins in recent cycles.

“Every county matters,” said Beshear, who argued he could win two gubernatorial elections in Kentucky despite Trump’s dominance of the state in the presidential election.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, said in a recent interview that the best GOP campaigns in Georgia can easily win, but that poor efforts — combined with strong Democratic campaigns — lose.

Democrats have had a big advantage recently in the metro Atlanta core, where Jayapal spoke. The party also performed well in Columbus and Savannah, as well as in some rural, predominantly black counties. But Republicans have dominated in other rural areas and small towns and villages — where Trump has held multiple rallies in recent years.

Atlanta’s fast-growing, diversifying suburbs and exurbs, like those where Beshear campaigned on Sunday, offer the most opportunity for turnover, especially from moderate Republicans disillusioned with Trump.

For Harris, that means relying on a diverse range of voters, including Michael Sleister, a white commuter, and Allen Smith, a black man who lives near downtown Atlanta.

Sleister, who considers himself an independent, has lived in Forsyth County for 35 years. “I’ve voted Republican many times in my life,” he said, but not since the GOP took a rightward turn during President Barack Obama’s administration.

“Now I see the Republican Party as a direct threat to my grandchildren,” he said, adding that he sees Trump as “just a horrible person.”

Smith, a 41-year-old Atlanta resident who has become a campaign volunteer for the first time since Harris became the presumptive nominee.

“I was in the car when I heard the news that President Biden was endorsing her, and I started pumping my fist — I decided then that I would do whatever I could to help her get elected,” Smith said.

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Weissert reported from Washington.