‘Georgia is ours to lose’: Trump and Harris camps target swing states | US elections 2024

As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump prepare for what promises to be an ugly and grueling final sprint to the finish line in November, the campaigns of both presidential candidates are turning their attention back to the few remaining states that are closest together and where the battle will likely be decided.

Georgia is emerging as a crucial battleground for both leaders as they struggle to capture voters’ attention in a historic election. On Wednesday, the White House vice president travels to southern Georgia to hold her first campaign event in the state with her recently named running mate and former high school football coach, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

The duo will tour the region by bus, seeking to reach diverse voting bases, including rural areas where the former president has strong support, and suburban and urban counties in Albany and Valdosta, where they have large black communities. On Thursday night, Harris is scheduled to conclude the tour with a rally in Savannah, where she will speak to Georgia residents about the stakes of this election.

The Democratic campaign’s intense focus on Georgia underscores that it is not resting on its laurels after what most commentators agreed was a perfect convention in Chicago last week. Despite the marked jump in popularity Harris has made since her dramatic trade-off with Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket five weeks ago, the race remains essentially neck and neck.

The latest 538 poll tracker for Georgia puts Trump 0.6% ahead of Harris in Georgia, with Harris at 46.0% and Trump at 46.6%. That’s right in the middle of the margin of error — and suggests the state is open territory for either candidate.

On Sunday’s political talk shows, Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina who is one of Trump’s closest deputies, stressed the importance of Georgia to Trump’s re-election chances. “If we don’t win Georgia, I don’t see how we get to 270,” he told CNN’s State of the Union, referring to the number of electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

Graham added that he would soon accompany Trump to what he called a “unity event” in Georgia, predicting that if Trump made the right play in the state, he would win.

“I believe Georgia is our loser. It’s really hard for Harris to tell Georgians that we’re on the right track — they don’t believe it,” Graham said.

The problem for Graham and other top Republican advisers is that Trump often blatantly ignores their directives. During his most recent trip to Georgia, Trump railed against the state’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, whom he still blames for not supporting him in his bid to undermine the 2020 election — and whose support he now needs to win in November.

Graham implicitly acknowledged to CNN the problems the attack on Kemp had caused, but insisted: “I think we’ve repaired the damage between Governor Kemp and President Trump.

“He’s going to throw his field game behind President Trump and every other Republican in Georgia.”

Three days after the Democratic convention, which began with a burst of red, white and blue balloons and an ecstatic response from delegates, the Harris-Walz campaign is now laser-focused on that same ground game. The key is to translate the palpable energy that exploded from the Chicago convention into hard work, making phone calls and knocking on doors in Georgia and the other six battleground states: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon released new data Sunday that she said showed the convention’s positive impact in all of the hardest-hit states. Chicago was the biggest week so far in Harris’ fledgling bid for the White House, she said, with volunteers signing up for nearly 200,000 services during the week.

The money keeps pouring in, too, with the campaign raising $540 million in five weeks — a record in U.S. presidential campaign history. About $82 million of that was raised during convention week.

O’Malley Dillon said it was all a sign that Harris was building on her momentum: “We are not taking any voter for granted and are communicating tirelessly with battleground voters every day between now and Election Day — while Trump focuses on little else but online rants.”

A leading Harris surrogate, Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, appeared on Fox News on Sunday to try to convince right-wing voters and undecided independents that they could safely support Harris. “She’s gone to the middle,” Polis said, when asked about some of the more progressive policies Harris had previously embraced but has since dropped — including a fracking ban and Medicare for All.

Polis added: “She is pragmatic. She is a tough leader. She is the leader for the future.

“She will be a president for all the American people.”

As the euphoria of the convention wears off, Harris has already begun to face tougher questions, particularly when she opens herself up to tougher questions by facing an interviewer. The Democratic nominee has so far carefully avoided speaking to a major news outlet.

Cory Booker, the Democratic senator from New Jersey, questioned why Harris did not want to be questioned, telling CNN: “As the campaign progresses, she will be interviewed more often.”

“She’ll be involved in debates,” Booker said. “I think she wants to do more.”

With the battleground states still essentially winnable, fears are growing that Trump could be tempted to launch a new conspiracy to overturn the outcome if he loses narrowly in November. There is ample evidence that Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) supporters are laying the groundwork for a challenge.

At a rally last week in Asheboro, North Carolina, Trump said, “Our primary focus is not to get more votes, but to make sure they don’t cheat, because we have all the votes you need.”

Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, was asked on NBC News’s Meet the Press whether he believed the election would be free and fair. “I think it will be free and fair,” he replied.

Then he added: “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that happens. We’re going to pursue every avenue to make sure that legal ballots are counted.”