Today’s highlights include:
- Gov. Brian Kemp will miss former President Donald Trump’s rally in Savannah.
- Vice President Kamala Harris’ support among Georgia’s younger voters has improved.
- Congressional leaders announce framework aimed at avoiding government shutdown.
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Georgia. North Carolina. Pennsylvania.
The campaign for president is narrowing to a handful of battleground states, with Georgia square in the middle of the mix.
Hours after Vice President Kamala Harris finished delivering an impassioned speech about abortion rights in Cobb County, she challenged former President Donald Trump to a second debate on Oct. 23 in Atlanta. Trump declined.
As for the Republican, his campaign confirmed new visits we foreshadowed last week. He’ll head to Savannah on Tuesday for his first campaign stop in Georgia since the Aug. 3 rally in Atlanta that he used to berate Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and his wife Marty.
The Republican vice presidential nominee — U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio — has a pair of stops in Georgia on Thursday, when he’ll head to Macon and Flowery Branch. And we’re expecting Trump to swing by neighboring Alabama on Saturday to watch Georgia take on the Crimson Tide.
With polls showing close races in most battleground states, both campaigns have little room for error. Our pal Jonathan Martin over at Politico puts it this way:
If Vice President Kamala Harris can't carry Pennsylvania, her only hope is on a Southern strategy. Harris must win either Georgia or North Carolina. She has no other path to the White House. The election could well be determined when polls close in the eastern time zone.
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Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
GOOD MORNING! The presidential election is 43 days away. Here’s three things to know for today:
- Georgia’s Election Day likely got a little longer on Friday when the State Election Board approved a rule requiring poll workers to hand count the number of ballots cast.
- Four metro Atlanta counties have rejected more than 45,000 voter eligibility challenges since July — nearly four times the margin of victory in the 2020 presidential race in Georgia, the AJC’s Caleb Groves reports.
- Could it be the last campaign for former President Donald Trump? On Sunday, Trump said he thinks he would not run again if he loses in November.
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NO KUMBAYA. Don’t expect former President Donald Trump’s stop in Savannah to feature a kumbaya moment with Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.
Though they’ve both tried to calm tensions since the former president’s 10-minute anti-Kemp tirade last month, the governor won’t be joining Trump at the event.
Kemp’s aides say he has a long-planned campaign stop that day in Pennsylvania for GOP Senate candidate David McCormick.
Kemp and Trump haven’t appeared together since 2020. Relations between the two are still frosty despite a tentative truce brokered a few weeks ago with the help of their allies. Here’s a rundown of their tortured timeline.
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Credit: Screenshot
Credit: Screenshot
WHOOPS. Former President Donald Trump’s campaign launched targeted digital ads on social media over the weekend focusing on local Republicans with a beautiful backdrop of an endless mountain range in Georgia.
The only problem: It was the wrong Georgia.
Online sleuths linked the image to the country of Georgia, not our humble state.
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WAIT, WHAT? Gun control advocates packed a legislative hearing last week expecting to hear about policies aimed at keeping firearms out of schools. So they were surprised to see a demonstration from a Lawrenceville-based company on how to safely store guns at schools.
Vapensystems Inc. co-founder Martin Dijkema showed lawmakers a safe that would allow school resource officers to access a long rifle in seconds. He said it was impossible for kids to break into the safe, noting some juveniles were able to steal a rifle from a safe at a North Carolina high school in January.
“You can’t put bad safes in schools,” he said.
That’s about the time a woman in the back of the room interrupted him to ask: “What if we didn’t have the guns in schools at all?”
“Law enforcement has guns in the schools. They’ve had them in the schools for years, and this is a very good way for them to protect those guns,” Dijkema said, adding the company has safes in 15 Georgia school districts already.
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YOUTH VOTE. If Vice President Kamala Harris wins Georgia in November, a big reason could be her improvement with young voters.
In June, just 12% of likely voters between the ages of 18-29 supported President Joe Biden. A new AJC poll released las week shows Harris improved that number by a whopping 35 percentage point to 47%.
Trump still has an edge with this group, leading 51% to 47%. But “technically, it’s a statistical tie,” said University of Georgia political science professor Trey Hood, who oversaw the poll.
The top issue for younger voters was inflation and the cost of living. Liberty County resident Mason Brown said higher prices have forced him and his family to scale back.
“We don’t eat out anymore. We used to go shopping and go on vacations pretty regularly. There’s none of that anymore,” the 29-year-old told the AJC’s Michelle Baruchman.
Other top issues included “preserving democracy,” taxes and abortion.
“As a woman, I feel not safe trying to have a child. I feel like my rights would be threatened if something were to happen to that child,” said Kimberly Takatsu, 26, who lives in McDonough.
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Credit: Adam Van Brimmer/AJC
Credit: Adam Van Brimmer/AJC
HE WARNED US. Georgia Supreme Court Justice Charlie Bethel is looking prescient this morning.
Nearly two years ago, the state Supreme Court upheld a citizen-led referendum that overturned the Camden County Commission’s decision to buy land for a spaceport. At the time, Bethel warned the decision could start a trend of citizens trying to overrule their elected officials at the ballot box.
That prophecy is coming true. Today, a state judge is expected to rule on the legality of another referendum. This one seeks to reverse the McIntosh County Commission’s decision to allow bigger beach houses on Sapelo Island, the AJC’s Adam Van Brimmer reports.
Bethel’s warning was seen as a call to lawmakers to clarify the state Constitution’s clause on home rule. But lawmakers declined to do that in both the 2023 and 2024 legislative sessions.
A lawyer for the McIntosh County referendum noted the Legislature’s seeming indifference during a hearing on Friday, insinuating that the state Supreme Court would rule in their favor eventually.
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Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
LISTEN UP. Today on “Politically Georgia,” Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and state Sen. Gloria Butler, D-Stone Mountain, discuss recent actions by the Georgia State Election Board.
You can listen live at 10 a.m. on WABE 90.1 or follow “Politically Georgia” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are uploaded by noon each day, just in time to have lunch with us. Have a question for the show? Give us a call at 770-810-5297.
On Friday’s show, Tara Setmayer, co-founder of the women-led super PAC Seneca Project, and Mallory Hagan-Stramara, the group’s press secretary, talked about abortion, polling and Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to Georgia. Also, Yana Batra, co-founder and CEO of the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition, discussed the school walkouts held in response to the shooting at Apalachee High School.
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GOVERNMENT FUNDING DEAL. Congressional leaders on Sunday released the framework of a temporary government funding package that would avoid a shutdown at the end of the month.
But the deal only provides enough money to keep agencies open through Dec. 20, meaning that a new shutdown deadline will coincide with the winter holiday season.
The House Rules Committee will consider the deal this afternoon in hopes of sending it to the floor for a vote by mid-week. It does not contain language requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote for federal elections. Democrats had opposed that provision, arguing it’s already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and such provisions could create barriers for legal citizens who want to register.
Without that voting language attached, we expect most Democrats to support this new proposal while many, if not most, Republicans to oppose it. Still, it is likely to coast through both chambers this week with bipartisan support well before the Sept. 30 deadline.
The deal mostly keeps the government funded at current levels, although there is additional money for the Secret Service in response to two apparent assassination attempts targeting former President Donald Trump.
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TODAY IN WASHINGTON:
- President Joe Biden will honor the Gotham FC at the White House, the first time a winner of the National Women’s Soccer League Championship has received such an invitation.
- Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will both meet with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates, but at separate times.
- The U.S. House returns for votes this evening.
- The Senate has more confirmation votes lined up.
- Democrats on the House Oversight Committee will hold a roundtable discussion on gun violence in schools and its effects on young people.
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ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL. Events today:
- Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will deliver remarks at the Texas Democratic Party’s Freedom to Vote rally and at a campaign fundraiser, both in San Antonio.
- Former President Donald Trump will rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania.
- U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio will speak at a campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, and at an event hosted by the Believers and Ballots Coalition.
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Credit: Ernie Suggs/AJC
Credit: Ernie Suggs/AJC
GANG’S STILL HERE. The AJC’s Ernie Suggs has written an engaging story about a group of former aides and advisers to President Jimmy Carter who have regularly gathered for private Zoom meetings to talk, keep in touch and just hang out.
Many have known each other since the early days of the 1976 Carter campaign, before joining his White House team, Suggs wrote. But as Carter approaches his 100th birthday on the eve of a tight presidential election, the conversations have focused on the state of American democracy and, with most of the participants leaning Democratic, the state of Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign.
In an email containing the Zoom link to the latest meeting, the first topic of the agenda read: “Kamala Harris’ butt whupping of Donald Trump in the 9/10 debate! Any wonder why he doesn’t want to do it again?”
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Credit: Ben Gray for the AJC
Credit: Ben Gray for the AJC
SHOUTOUTS. Today’s birthdays:
- State Rep. J Collins, R-Villa Rica.
- State Rep. John Corbett, R-Lake Park.
Belated birthday:
- State Rep. John Carson, R-Marietta (was Saturday).
Transitions:
- Veteran lobbyists Chandler Haydon and David Raynor are joining forces with a new firm, Haydon & Raynor Public Affairs. Haydon has owned her own firm, Haydon Consulting, for much of the last decade. Raynor led lobbying efforts for the Georgia Chamber of Commerce for the last 14 years.
Want a birthday shoutout in the Politically Georgia newsletter? There’s a form for that! Click here to submit the shoutouts. It’s not just birthdays. We’re also interested in new jobs, engagements, birth announcements, etc.
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AS ALWAYS, send your best scoops, gossip and insider info to greg.bluestein@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com, patricia.murphy@ajc.com and adam.beam@ajc.com.
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