ATLANTA– The campaign for the 2024 presidential election will pick up Saturday where the 2020 election left off. Or rather: in a place where it never actually ended.
Four years ago, Georgia came so close that Republican Donald Trump was indicted here for his quest to “find 11,780 votes” and overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. Now that they’ve put their Super Tuesday domination behind them to stage an all-but-certain rematch, the two rivals will hold dueling events in a state that both sides see as crucial to win in November.
“Elections are difficult. We are now a real battleground state,” said U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, an Atlanta Democrat who is also chair of the state party.
Once a Republican stronghold, Georgia is now so competitive that neither party can agree on how to describe the current divide. A “52-48 state,” said Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, whose party controls the state government. “We’re not blue, we’re not red,” Williams countered, but “periwinkle,” a claim she supports with Biden’s 2020 victory and Georgia’s two Democratic senators, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, sent to Washington sent.
In any case, there is agreement that Biden and Trump each have a path to victory — and plenty of obstacles along the way.
“Biden’s numbers are in the tank for a lot of good reasons, and we can certainly talk about that. And so it’s a place where Trump can absolutely win the race,” Kemp said at a recent forum sponsored by Punchbowl News. “I also think he could lose the race. I think it’s going to be a lot harder than people realize.”
Biden’s margin in 2020 was about a quarter of a percentage point. Warnock won his 2022 Senate runoff by 3 points. Kemp was elected by 1.5 percentage points in 2018 but expanded his reelection margin to 7.5 points in 2022, a blow in a battleground state.
In each of those elections, Democrats had big advantages in the core of metro Atlanta, where Biden will be there on Saturday. They also performed well in Columbus and Savannah and in a handful of rural, predominantly black counties. But Republicans dominated in other rural areas, small towns and the smallest towns — like Rome, where the former president will appear Saturday in the congressional district represented by archconservative firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The fast-growing, diversifying suburbs and exurbs of metro Atlanta, meanwhile, offer the most opportunity for swings, especially from moderate Republicans disenchanted with Trump.
“This will be won or lost on the margins,” said Eric Tanenblatt, an Atlanta attorney and longtime Republican fundraiser who supported the Republican Party’s bid against Trump.
Democrats have a head start in building their campaign organization, promising sustained, direct relief to millions of Georgians — unlike during the pandemic-limited 2020 campaign and more like Warnock’s reelection bid.
“When you’re talking about close margins like those in 2020, organizing has to be at the heart of the campaign strategy,” said Jonae Wartel, Biden’s state director and a veteran of Warnock’s operation.
Biden’s visit Saturday follows first lady Jill Biden’s campaign in the state, and Vice President Kamala Harris has visited Georgia many times since she and Biden were inaugurated.
Still, Biden could see a slip in any part of his coalition for a number of reasons: inflation, the war between Israel and Hamas, concerns about a spike in the number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and broad concerns about whether he can handle the task at 81 years old.
There are also local issues: Biden cannot afford to lose younger voters in metro Atlanta, spurred by their opposition to a police training facility being built in Atlanta and supported by the city’s Democratic leadership. And Republicans are stepping up their immigration attacks by highlighting the case of a Venezuelan migrant who entered the U.S. illegally and is accused of killing a Georgia student, Laken Riley, last month.
Williams countered that Biden has a positive record to sell. She pointed to an infrastructure package that Congress passed with bipartisan support and a strong overall economy with low unemployment, rising wages and stabilizing inflation. The economy is strong enough, she noted, to give Georgia the big surplus that Republican Kemp boasts about.
“We have work to do between now and November to remind people what happened,” Williams said.
Trump’s biggest challenge could be rallying centrist white voters who left the Republican Party in some recent elections. Democrats are eager to remind those voters, especially women, of Trump’s role in the Supreme Court’s decision to end the nation’s right to abortion — a ruling notable in Georgia because of a state ban on abortions after six weeks pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.
The ongoing racketeering trial of the former president in Fulton County will keep a spotlight on Biden’s argument that his predecessor is a threat to American democracy. And the divide between Trump and traditional Republicans, including Haley supporters, remains on full display.
“Far be it for me to tell the former president what to do, but I think he would want someone like Nikki to be part of his team — and she could bring other people with her,” said Tanenblatt, the Haley bundler .
Tanenblatt said he sees “no evidence” that Trump or his advisers are engaged in conventional efforts for party unity, such as what Biden did with Bernie Sanders and his progressive base in 2020.
“Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the former president’s biggest supporters, was there before Nikki came out and said she should switch parties,” Tanenblatt said. “That’s not the kind of rhetoric you should be putting out.”
Kemp, once a target of Trump’s ire for certifying Biden’s slate of 2020 electors, is among prominent Republicans nationally who have yet to endorse Trump. The governor pledges to support the Republican ticket and reiterates Trump’s attacks on Biden, particularly on immigration. But the question remains what role Kemp will play in the fall. When Trump loyalists took over the state GOP after 2020, Kemp simply built his own political organization. It is expected to focus mainly on competitive seats in state legislatures before November.
Georgia Republican Chairman Josh McKoon downplayed any talk of fragmentation, noting that the left has a plethora of campaign and nonprofit organizations reaching out to voters. “Government. Kemp is a great governor, and his work will benefit Republicans,” McKoon said.
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, the highest-ranking Georgia Republican to openly support Trump, said the Republican Party’s overall message is the most important variable. “This ’24 election cycle will be about kitchen table issues,” Jones said, predicting this will win back enough of the usual Republicans who in 2020 “voted on the emotion of a personality.”
Trump himself also claims he can attract more black and Latino voters, especially men. Wartel promised an aggressive response with “an all of the above” approach. She promised more visits, not just from Harris and the Bidens, but also from “many local champions” who vouched for them.
Some activists show why that becomes another tightrope.
Harris came to Atlanta’s Morehouse College, a historically black campus, last fall at the height of public debate over a planned law enforcement training facility derided by opponents as “Cop City.” The development, backed by Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, has sparked protests, with some violent clashes, and Dickens has opposed a referendum on the project’s future.
When Dickens took the Morehouse stage to introduce Harris, he was drowned out by cheers from students from multiple campuses.
Hillary Holley, who leads the Care in Action group organizing domestic workers in Georgia, said this reflected frustration over “anti-democratic tactics” that could in turn influence Biden.
Dickens, Holley said, “is not a surrogate for Biden and Harris to be around.”