SAVANNAH – With less than 10 weeks until the general election, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, will be in Georgia this week.
The couple is expected to travel around the state by bus. The last stop will be a performance by Harris in Savannah on August 29, but Walz is not expected to perform with her there.
Most of the tour details have not yet been announced.
The couple’s trip through Georgia comes between last week’s Democratic National Convention, other state-level campaign events and a debate scheduled for Sept. 10 between Harris and former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.
Harris and Walz accepted the party’s nomination during the party’s convention in Chicago. In her acceptance speech, Harris said the election was the most important in the nation’s history and called her opponent an unreliable man.
“But the consequences – but the consequences of bringing Donald Trump back to the White House are extremely serious,” she said.
Harris’ candidacy was endorsed by President Joe Biden immediately after he dropped out of the race last month. His exit followed a June 27 presidential debate with Trump that was widely described as disastrous. Biden’s lackluster performance left many wondering whether the 81-year-old president was fit for another term. After that debate, calls for him to drop out of the race grew louder.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve you as President. And while I intend to run for re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country that I step down and focus solely on performing my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote in a letter posted on his X account.
Although Biden has dropped out of the race, he will serve out the remainder of his term, meaning Trump, 78, will face Harris, 59, on November 5.
After Georgia voted clearly Republican in 2008, 2012 and 2016, Biden narrowly defeated Trump in the Peach State in 2020, receiving all 16 electoral votes.
If Harris’ campaign wants to repeat the Democrats’ victory in Georgia, it will have some catching up to do. According to an Aug. 26 New York Times poll summary, Trump has a four-point lead over Harris in the state, attracting 50 percent of likely voters in Georgia, while Harris is at 46 percent.
Polls by the FiveThirtyEight project show a much more balanced race, with Trump’s lead being less than a full point.
The New York Times summary also showed a neck-and-neck race in Pennsylvania and Arizona, with Harris leading in Michigan and Wisconsin.
According to nationwide polls of likely voters, Harris is ahead of Trump by just over three percentage points.
