President Joe Biden’s campaign plans to hold a rally featuring Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, and actor B.D. Wong in Gwinnett County on Monday to coincide with the launch of the Republican National Convention.
The rally will also feature local Democrats targeting the state’s growing Asian American population that’s centered in the northeast Atlanta suburbs. Once a Republican bastion, Gwinnett has become a pillar of Democratic support over the past decade.
Campaign officials say the event is part of the AANHPIs for Biden-Harris initiative, a focused effort to reach Asian Americans, native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.
Emhoff, who was dispatched to Georgia earlier this year to highlight the White House’s abortion rights platform, is also set to host a roundtable Monday centering on health care costs for Asian Americans.
Even before his problem-plagued debate in Atlanta last month, Biden’s campaign took steps to reassure Georgia Democrats the state remained a top concern. Party leaders say the event aims to show Georgia is still a campaign priority.
Biden is locked in a fight for his political future as a small but growing number of Democratic officials express concerns that he’ll lose to former President Donald Trump if he doesn’t step aside for Harris or another candidate before the Democratic National Convention in August.
But the backlash has been more muted in Georgia, where public polls have long showed Biden trailing Trump by single digits. The state’s Democratic congressional delegation has reaffirmed its support for Biden, as has most of Georgia’s delegation to next month’s convention.
So far, Biden’s campaign has opened 17 offices across the state and hired about 115 staffers. The campaign was set to hold events this weekend in Douglas and Forsyth counties — two Atlanta exurbs — to launch new offices.
Emhoff tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday after experiencing mild symptoms, but officials say he’s expected to recover by Monday.
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