Harris and Walz to head to Georgia as campaign seeks to build on convention momentum

Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will launch a bus tour of southern Georgia next week, the duo’s first time campaigning in the state together and, as of now, their first public event after the Democratic convention in Chicago.

The ticket will be using the momentum from the party’s convention to drive them into the last couple months of the general election. In addition to the bus tour, Harris and Walz are expected to tape their first joint interview next week and attend multiple fundraisers most likely to take place in New York, California, Florida and Georgia, according to two sources familiar with the planning.

Following the tour, Harris will headline a solo rally in Savannah, Georgia. The trip will mark Harris’ seventh trip to the state this year, and her second since launching her presidential campaign last month.

“Campaigning in this part of the Peach State is critical as it represents a diverse coalition of voters, including rural, suburban, and urban Georgians — with a large population of Black voters and working class families,” the Harris-Walz campaign noted in a release announcing the bus tour.

Harris and Walz’s visit will come as the Republican ticket ramps up its campaigning in the state. Vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance of Ohio held a campaign event in Valdosta on Thursday, following a rally by former President Donald Trump in Atlanta earlier this month. Republicans, too, have sought to capitalize on polling that suggests the party could pick up a larger share of Black and Latino voters this election cycle.

The southern Georgia bus tour is expected to echo the campaign’s bus tour of western Pennsylvania earlier this month, which included stops at a local campaign field office, firehouse and high school football practice.

Harris and Walz initially planned to visit Savannah during the campaign’s battleground state-state tour earlier this month, but they had to postpone the event due to Tropical Storm Debbie.

Though it’s unclear exactly where Harris and Walz will go, Southern Georgia houses some of the state’s largest Black populations, including Dougherty County, which has the second-highest share of Black residents in the state. The campaign has opened field offices in predominantly Black cities Albany and Valdosta.

“The South Georgia region is a priority for the campaign: we have nearly 50 full time staff across 7 offices in the area, including Valdosta. We have hosted more than 500 events in the region since May 31,” Harris-Walz Georgia campaign spokesperson Adelaide Bullock said.

Ranada Robinson, research director for the New Georgia Project Fund, said appealing to Black voters in both rural and urban areas will be critical to Harris’ success in the state, as it was to Biden’s victory in 2020.

“Black voters are the key to winning Georgia. Of course Black Georgians can’t do it alone, but we are absolutely the reason 2020 turned out the way it did,” she said. “Black voters had historical turnout, and it has to happen again for there to be victory in Georgia.”

Earlier this month, Harris held the second rally of her presidential campaign in Atlanta, an event that featured Megan Thee Stallion; the campaign said it attracted more than 10,000 people.

It then launched a mobilization effort in the state and now touts nearly 400,000 volunteers, 174 staffers and 24 coordinated campaign offices sprawled across Georgia. The campaign refers to its ground game there as “the largest in-state operation of any democratic presidential campaign cycle ever in Georgia.”

Harris campaign chair Jen O’ Malley Dillon identified Georgia as one of the campaign’s top targets, noting shifting demographics that could aid the vice president in expanding support from 2020.

“The Vice President’s advantages with young voters, Black voters, and Latino voters will be important to our multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes,” Dillon wrote in a recent memo.

Harris and Walz are also expected to barnstorm battleground states around Labor Day, before Harris focuses more of her time on debate prep ahead of her September match-up with Trump.

A Trump adviser said the campaign expects Harris will get a “bump” coming off the convention but compared it to a “sugar high,” saying they didn’t believe it will change the overall state of the race.

Source nbcnews.com