ATLANTA: Vice President Harris’ trip to Atlanta, Georgia, comes as re-energized Democrats see the swing state as back in play after it looked like a hope for President Joe Biden before his shock withdrawal from the 2024 election.
The presumptive Democratic nominee aims to expand the party’s 2024 battleground map and appeal to young black voters by delivering a decisive, 20-minute speech to about 10,000 supporters in a packed arena, pledging that Americans “will not go back” to “failed policies.” “Trump.
Harris’ nascent presidential bid took off after Biden left the race on July 21, with much of the party rallying behind her and her campaign raising a staggering $200 million.
“The power in this race is shifting, and there are signs that Donald Trump feels it,” she said.
The Republican candidate recently said he would forgo political tradition and not debate Harris, and also unleashed a barrage of insults against his opponent, calling her a “crazy” and a “bum.”
“Okay, Donald, I hope you’ll reconsider joining me on the debate stage, because as the saying goes, if you’ve got something to say, say it to my face,” Harris said to roars of approval.
Harris also repeated her favorite line about how, as a former prosecutor and California attorney general who stood up to predators and fraudsters, she knows a “Donald Trump type.”
“I will proudly put my record against his any day of the week in this campaign,” she said.
With just 98 days before the election, Harris is under pressure to announce her choice for vice president. Asked Tuesday if she had chosen one, Harris told reporters, “Not yet.”
But the search must be drawing to a close, as her team announced Tuesday that Harris and her new running mate will be campaigning in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada next week.
As the race for the White House came to a head, Harris, 59, on Tuesday unveiled her first TV ad since replacing Biden, while Trump’s camp released a battle spot attacking her on the key election issue of immigration.
Harris pushed back on the attack, saying in her speech that while the Biden administration worked with conservatives to create critical border legislation, Trump “drank” it for political gain.
“Donald Trump doesn’t care about border security,” she said. “She only cares about herself.
Harris said if elected she would focus on key economic goals such as expanding affordable health care and addressing rising consumer costs.
She also attacked Trump, 78, for his “extreme ban on abortion,” referring to restrictive new laws passed in several states in the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court — with three justices nominated by Trump — stripped constitutional protections for abortion.
Regarding Georgia’s potential competitiveness, Harris insisted that “the road to the White House goes right through this state.”
In a sign that the southern state will be hotly contested, Trump and classmate J.D. Vance announced that they will hold their own rally in Atlanta on Saturday.
“Kamala Harris and her accomplices have made the great people of Georgia pay a high price for their politics of awakening,” the Trump campaign said Tuesday.
Harris took over a bleak electoral map from a floundering Biden, with the Democratic hopes resting entirely on the three post-industrial Rust Belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
But now they’re looking again at other “Sun Belt” states like Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, all of which Democrats narrowly won in 2020.
Vance spoke at a rally in Henderson, Nevada on Tuesday where he attacked Harris as “dangerously liberal” while Trump campaigned in Pennsylvania on Wednesday.
Adding some Atlanta flair for younger voters was Megan Thee Stallion, a hip-hop star who performed before Harris took the stage.
