Vice President Kamala Harris is traveling to Atlanta on Monday to deliver a speech focused on ways she and President Joe Biden are working to improve economic opportunities for Black men.
Politico Playbook, which was the first to report on Harris’ visit, said she chose Georgia to kick off a multistate tour with a stop also planned in Detroit next week. Other dates will be announced later.
This will be Harris’12th trip as vice president to Georgia, a swing state that she and Biden carried in 2020 but one that will be harder for them to win again in 2024.
She met with voting rights activists in Atlanta in January and the month prior attended the Celebration Bowl, the national championship game for football for historically Black colleges and universities.
Harris’ most recent trip to Georgia was in February, when she headlined a rally focused on reproductive rights.
Although the speech is billed as an official visit, Black men are a key constituent group for Harris and Biden as they seek another term in office. Polling has consistently shown that more Black men are open to supporting former President Donald Trump than in previous elections.
Politico Playbook spoke to a White House official who indicated Harris decided to launch this tour after speaking privately with Black men who told her the administration needed to do a better job sharing its economic message.
The White House in a news release said that Harris will highlight how the administration has implemented policies that have increased the numbers of Black-owned small businesses and how improvements in healthcare and infrastructure and in forgiving student loan debt have removed barriers to access and helped families build wealth.
“Vice President Harris will also outline additional steps that she and President Biden are taking to expand this work,” the release said.
Other unidentified White House officials, members of Congress and local leaders will join Harris. The administration has not said where in Atlanta her speech will take place.
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