SAVANNAH – Vice President Kamala Harris will hold a rally in Savannah on Thursday before thousands of supporters, an organizational flex designed to show the campaign’s strength in a part of the state where Democratic presidential contenders rarely venture.
Around the same time, Gov. Brian Kemp will participate in a more private ritual that also has important implications for Georgia’s vote. He’s the honored guest at a ritzy fundraiser for Donald Trump weeks after the former president berated him on his home turf.
Taken together, the two near-simultaneous events show how drastically the race has changed in Georgia since President Joe Biden dropped out and gave Democrats new hope of recapturing a state that Republicans see as vital to their November chances.
A few weeks ago, Republicans basked in a sense of unity around Trump’s bid. Even Kemp, with his many reasons to oppose Trump’s comeback, made the pilgrimage to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee to extend an olive branch to MAGA forces.
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
It was Democrats who worried about eroding support from their base with Biden at the top of the ticket. Polls showed Black voters, the party’s most loyal constituency, drifting away from Biden despite rock-solid support from Democratic party elders.
In the roughly five weeks since Biden withdrew from the race, Harris has consolidated Democratic support and moved to expand the map in Georgia by appealing to independents and disaffected Republicans uneasy about another Trump term.
And though her coastal Georgia bus tour on Wednesday stuck to Democratic-friendly areas, her aides say she intends to venture deeper into deep-red territories where she has no hope of overwhelming Trump but a more realistic chance of cutting GOP margins.
Meanwhile, the Republican harmony in Georgia was shattered in early August when Trump revived a long-standing feud with Kemp seemingly out of thin air. Both have worked to calm tensions since then, but senior Republicans are skeptical it will last.
Kemp is doing his part. He told Paul Steinhauser of Fox News this week that he saw the former president’s 10-minute tirade in Atlanta that branded Kemp a “bad guy” and “disloyal” and denigrated his wife Marty as a “small distraction that’s in the past.”
“To me, that’s what we need to stay focused on,” Kemp said of the party’s goal of defeating the Democratic ticket, “not some dustup from two or three weeks ago.”
A term-limited governor with potential White House aspirations of his own, Kemp has tried to follow his own approach to Trump by stressing his loyalty to the GOP while refraining from a full-throated embrace of the former president or his brand of politics.
For instance, Kemp’s aides have indicated he’s not signing over sole use of his powerful political machine to Trump’s campaign despite pressure from national Republicans. Nor is he expected to soon appear at a rally headlined by the former president in Georgia.
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
But Kemp intends to help in other ways, including taking part in the Thursday fundraiser for Trump’s campaign in Georgia co-hosted by former Sen. Kelly Loeffler and her husband Jeff Sprecher, billionaire tech executives who are Trump’s top donors in Georgia.
And his top deputies have carried his message to donors, activists and political leaders across the state. Cody Hall, one of his most trusted aides, appeared on the “Politically Georgia” show this week to reinforce the governor’s support for Trump.
At least one top Republican approved of the message. Trump took to social media to praise Hall’s podcast interview in his own unique MAGA manner as he tried to project GOP unity in Georgia.
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