SAVANNAH — President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign on Friday opened its first Georgia field office focused on Black voter outreach.
Savannah Mayor Van Johnson, state Sen. Derek Mallow, state Rep. Edna Jackson, and former Savannah Mayor Otis Johnson all addressed a small crowd who attended the event in a vacant lot across Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard the new office at the edge of Savannah’s historic district.
The Biden campaign’s Georgia state director, Porsha White, said additional field offices would soon open in cities across the state. She noted that Biden’s victory in Georgia four years ago was vital to his winning the electoral vote and that the campaign is “not taking Georgia’s votes for granted” this November.
“For Biden to win again, we have to come together, we can’t stay home,” Van Johnson said, a nod to the apathy expressed by Black voters in many recent presidential polls. “Don’t get caught up in the hype that President Biden hasn’t delivered for Black Americans and Black Georgians. He has.”
The office opened two days after Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris launched the “Black Voters for Biden-Harris” initiative at an event in Philadelphia. Biden aides told journalists at that appearance that the campaign is making an intense push to connect with Black voters, a traditionally loyal voting bloc for Democrats. A similar event is planned for Saturday in Decatur with U.S. Reps. Nikema Williams of Atlanta and Jasmine Crockett of Texas, and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.
Biden made a direct pitch 12 days ago in Atlanta at his Morehouse College commencement address. He outlined the stakes of the 2024 election in that speech and how he is determined to “root out systemic racism.”
Biden had broad support from those gathered Friday in Savannah. They lined up to claim Biden-Harris campaign signs and rifled through stacks of T-shirts in search of the right sizes.
Many speakers focused on what Trump’s election would mean for Savannah residents.
“We have a man who says he wants to be a dictator on his first day of office,” said Otis Johnson, a two-term mayor, and a civil rights leader since he was a teenager when he desegregated Armstrong State College as the school’s first Black student. “Do you think he’s going to give up being a dictator on the second day?”
Trump’s felony conviction handed down Thursday in a New York hush money trial was also top of mind at the rally. State Sen. Derek Mallow, D-Savannah, said the verdict underscores the choice for voters this November — between Biden, a candidate with a moral compass, and Trump, who has “no morals at all.”
The Biden campaign field office is at 714 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. in Savannah.
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