SAVANNAH — Former President Donald Trump’s campaign opened a field office here Saturday with coastal Georgia GOP heavyweights rallying Republican voters to engage with their neighbors ahead of the November election.
“If he doesn’t win Georgia, he’s not going to win,” U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-St. Simons Island, told the crowd gathered outside the “Trump Force 47″ headquarters on Savannah’s southside.
“Without Georgia, there is no pathway to victory,” said Kandiss Taylor, chair of the 1st Congressional District Republican Party. Taylor, who ran an unsuccessful bid for governor in 2022, encouraged attendees to support Trump in a T-shirt that read “Donald Trump did nothing wrong.”
The Savannah field office opening comes amid a broad push across the state by the Trump campaign. Last week, the Trump organization opened headquarters in suburban metro Atlanta and began training volunteers for a voter mobilization effort. Trump lost Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes four years ago, with the winner, Joe Biden, benefitting from a 20% increase in voter turnout in 2020 compared to 2016. Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 race.
The Biden reelection campaign opened a Savannah field office in late May.
Credit: Adam Van Brimmer
Credit: Adam Van Brimmer
Getting Georgia Republicans to the polls in the 2024 election is a focal point for the Trump campaign. Wylie Shaw, a deputy field director, told attendees at the Savannah headquarters opening of the power of low-propensity voters.
Shaw declined an interview request following the event, saying he was not authorized to speak to the media. Brittany Brown, the Chatham County GOP chair and the Trump campaign’s Savannah-area director, also refused comment and said she doesn’t speak to the media.
Several Republican state lawmakers joined Congressman Carter in delivering remarks at the field office opening, with several mentioning Thursday’s presidential debate in Atlanta and predicting a Trump triumph. State Sen. Ben Watson, a practicing physician and the chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, said Biden should submit to a mental acuity exam, while state Rep. Ron Stephens, a retired pharmacist and a House member since 1997, suggested Biden be drug tested ahead of the debate.
Shaw, the Trump campaign official, told the crowd to “tune in next Thursday to see the beatdown of the century.”
The debate, hosted by CNN at its Atlanta studios, airs at 9 p.m. Thursday.
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