ATLANTA—Vice President Kamala Harris rallied supporters during a July 30 campaign gathering that capped a rapid series of events, beginning with President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race on June 21, just 107 days ahead of the election.
Harris addressed a capacity crowd of more than 10,000 attendees at the Georgia Convocation Center, many of whom had waited 90 minutes or more in the searing heat and endured torrential rainfall to gain admittance.
That was followed quickly by Harris’s campaign announcement and a string of endorsements by high-profile party members, including former President Barack Obama.
The rally was Harris’s largest so far in what will be the briefest presidential campaign in the modern era, and it took place in a state where Biden’s margin of victory was just 0.3 percent in 2020.
Push in Georgia
The rally marked Harris’s sixth visit to the Peach State this year and the 15th since taking office in 2021. Biden carried Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020. In 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump won by 5 percentage points.
“The path to the White House runs right through this state,” Harris told the crowd, later emphasizing the brief window available to rally voters.
“November 5th is in 98 days,” she said, a fact remarked on by virtually all of the introductory speakers, including Georgia Democrats Sens. Jon Ossof and Raphael Warnock, Rep. Nikema Williams, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, and voting activist and former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
Democrats have mounted their largest-ever campaign operation here according to Michael Tyler, communications director for the Harris campaign. Some 170 staff members operate from 24 offices throughout Georgia, Tyler told reporters on July 29. In advance of Harris’s visit, the campaign rallied about 2,500 volunteers to 174 events in the state.
The Trump campaign has a rally scheduled in Georgia for Aug. 3.
Georgia is one of a handful of battleground states, which include Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Arizona. Both the Harris and Trump campaigns have announced volunteer mobilization efforts in these states.
The Trump campaign’s battleground initiative, Trump Force 47, has engaged tens of thousands of volunteers, Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, told The Epoch Times by email.
“We have paid staffers and volunteer-powered field programs in every battleground state, and they are expanding daily,” Leavitt said.
The Harris campaign has recruited more than 500,000 volunteers for battleground state outreach, both in person and electronically, according to campaign staffer Dan Kanninen.
Increased Energy
In a speech lasting just under 20 minutes, Harris cast the election as a choice between moving forward into the future or retreating into the past.
“This campaign is about two very different visions for our nation, one focused on the future, the other focused on the past,” Harris said. “Across our nation, we are witnessing a full-on assault on hard-fought, hard-won freedoms and rights.”
The candidate pledged to work toward reducing the cost of health care, restoring access to abortion, protecting the right to vote, reducing gun violence, and rebuilding the middle class.
Harris’s presence in the race has rallied some voters who were less enthusiastic about supporting Biden.
“I think Biden did the right thing by stepping down,” Suzi Campbell, 67, of Atlanta told The Epoch Times, adding that she was a Biden supporter but is more excited about Harris’s prospects.
“There’s a lot of energy here,” Shuann Harris, 67, of Atlanta told The Epoch Times.
“It’s younger energy. It’s fresh. I feel like the younger generations are excited about it,” Dwayne LaGrone, 26, of Atlanta told The Epoch Times.
Tyler Greene, a student at Morehouse College who was invited to introduce Harris at the rally, told The Epoch Times that the vice president appeals to younger voters because “she embodies so many identities and things that we as young people can identify with.”
The fact that Harris has spent much of the past four years in Biden’s shadow and is not well known by the public could provide an advantage in reaching beyond the Democratic Party’s base, according to Nicholas Higgins, a professor of political science at Greenville State University.
“Because of the lack of public knowledge of who Kamala is, and this race to try to define her, I think you have an opportunity where some more moderate independents can swing the election in ways that they might not have had it been Trump–Biden,” Higgins told The Epoch Times.
Trump leads Harris by 2 percentage points in an average of Georgia polls compiled by Real Clear Politics. The margin in Georgia is 3.6 percent. A poll released on July 30 by Susquehanna Polling shows Harris with a 4-point lead in Pennsylvania.
However, any early enthusiasm among moderates could be short-lived, according to Henry Olsen, a senior fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
“I think the Trump campaign is well armed to paint Harris as somebody who is too liberal and not a leader. And I don’t think they lack the funds to make those points,” Olsen told The Epoch Times.
Either way, Harris presents a clear alternative to Trump, according to Atlanta’s mayor.
“The distinction between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is like night and day,” Dickens told The Epoch Times. “It is a real big difference between [them in] leadership style and the impact that they have had on the country.”
Harris has yet to name a vice presidential nominee. Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Andy Bashear of Kentucky, along with Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, are widely considered the top contenders.
Harris told reporters on July 30 that she had not yet chosen her running mate but expected to be traveling with that person next week. She has a campaign rally scheduled for Philadelphia on Aug. 6.
From The Epoch Times