ATLANTA, GA – When Vice President Kamala Harris headlines a rally Tuesday evening in battleground Georgia’s capital and largest city, she’ll stand in front of the largest crowd this cycle for the Democratic Party’s national ticket.
Hours before the vice president arrived in Atlanta, the Georgia State Convocation Center – which has a listed capacity of 8,000 people for concerts – was filling up with supporters.
It’s another sign of the energy and excitement that’s returning to the party nine days after President Biden’s blockbuster announcement that he was suspending his re-election campaign against former President Trump and endorsing his vice president.
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The crowd grows inside the Georgia State Convocation Center ahead of a rally headlined by Vice President Kamala Harris, on July 30, 2024 (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
Biden’s immediate backing of Harris ignited a surge of endorsements for the vice president by Democratic governors, senators, House members and other party leaders and elders. Within 36 hours, Harris announced that she had locked up her party’s nomination by landing the verbal backing of a majority of the nearly 4,000 convention delegates.
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“Freedom is on the ballot this November. That is why I will be in Atlanta tonight with @theestallion to talk about the stakes of this election,” the vice president wrote in a social media post on her way to Atlanta.
Rapper Megan Thee Stallion is expected to perform at the rally, which received nearly 20,000 RSPVs ahead of the event.
Vice President and Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks at West Allis Central High School during her first campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 23, 2024. (KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
The stop by Harris is a key test of the Democrats’ momentum on the ground in the key southeastern battleground state where Biden narrowly edged Trump four years ago.
Once a red bastion, Georgia has become extremely competitive in presidential, Senate, and gubernatorial elections in recent cycles, thanks in large part to the growing strength of Black and Latino voters, who make up a key party of the Democrats’ base in the state.
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But Biden’s disastrous performance against Trump at a late June debate against Trump that was held in Atlanta fueled questions about his physical and mental abilities to serve another four years in the White House.
It also spurred a rising chorus of calls from within his own party for the 81-year-old president to end his bid for a second term in the White House.
Trump’s edge over Biden in the key battleground states – including Georgia -started to grow in public opinion polling in the wake of the debate.
The former president is intent on winning back Georgia in November.
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio introduces GOP Presidential nominee former President Donald Trump during a rally on July 27, 2024 in St Cloud, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
And hours before Harris arrived in Atlanta, the Trump campaign announced that the former president and his running mate – Sen. JD Vance of Ohio – will hold a rally on Saturday at the Georgia State Convocation Center – the same venue where Harris is on Tuesday.
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Trump will likely easily fill the venue, as the former president has been drawing large crowds at his rallies since launching his 2024 campaign over a year and a half ago.
The Harris campaign, ahead of the Atlanta rally, highlighted the campaign’s large ground game advantage over Trump’s campaign in the swing states.
Battleground states director Dan Kanninen noted that the campaign had 24 coordinated offices in Georgia, far ahead of the Trump campaign, which opened its first office in June.
“This battleground advantage will almost certainly be decisive in a race likely to be decided by just tens of thousands of votes,” Kanninen argued.
The vice president, ahead of the rally, was set to meet with local abortion rights activists – another sign of how she plans to showcase the issue as a central part of her White House campaign.
The Harris campaign said that in her speech, the vice president “will lay out how she will prioritize the strengthening of middle-class families:
And pointing to inflation, which is easing from highs two years ago but remains a persistent issue for most Americans, Harris “will say a key to this is recognizing that prices remain too high for many essentials that families rely on, and she will lay out her plans to lower costs”
The campaign also noted that Harris would “also discuss the state of the race, reiterating that she is the underdog in this race but has real momentum and grassroots enthusiasm at her side, and she is expected to call out Trump for refusing to honor his commitment to debate.”