U.S. election news: Harris, Walz travel through Georgia

HINESVILLE, Ga. –

U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris and her working mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, dropped in on a highschool band follow Wednesday as a part of a two-day bus tour through southeast Georgia campaigning for the vital battleground state, as the scholars carried out their faculty battle tune for the Democratic ticket.

“We’re so proud of you and we’re counting on you,” Harris advised the younger crowd at Liberty County Excessive College, some shrieking with pleasure on the sight of the vice-president. “Your generation … is what is going to propel our country into the next era of what we can do and what we can be.”

Harris advised the scholars that she too performed within the band — French horn, xylophone and kettle drums — and whereas not each notice they play shall be excellent, “all that practice makes for beautiful music.”

The journey culminates Thursday with a rally in Savannah. Marketing campaign officers consider that so as to win the state over Republican Donald Trump in November they have to make inroads in GOP strongholds. They want greater than Atlanta and the suburbs that delivered for Joe Biden in 2020.

Harris marketing campaign communications director Michael Tyler mentioned bus excursions provide an “opportunity to get to places we don’t usually go (and) make sure we’re competing in all communities.”

The marketing campaign desires the occasions to inspire voters in GOP-leaning areas who do not historically see the candidates, and hopes that the engagements drive viral moments that lower through crowded media protection to succeed in voters throughout the nation.

Harris and Walz additionally stopped at Sandfly, a barbecue restaurant, the place among the patrons had been lecturers. One thanked Walz, a former highschool trainer.

The stops are meant as moments the place voters can study “not just what they stand for, but who they are as people,” Tyler mentioned.

Tyler mentioned the marketing campaign’s technique of utilizing casual engagements to succeed in voters has been constant from when President Biden was on the ticket, however the nature of the occasions has shifted together with the candidates. Throughout a bus tour in Western Pennsylvania, for instance, they stopped at a soccer follow — Walz is a former assistant highschool soccer coach.

Walz met Harris on the tarmac in Savannah and the 2 greeted college students from Savannah State College earlier than setting off of their vibrant blue bus with pink and white accents, “Harris Walz” emblazoned in massive letters on the facet together with the phrase “A New Way Forward.”

It appears like a daily marketing campaign bus, however this one is an armoured U.S. Secret Service car pushed by brokers that comes with lights and sirens and safe communications. After the primary cease, Harris shifted again to her conventional SUV, the bus relegated to the again of the motorcade.

Harris and Walz are additionally sitting down with CNN anchor Dana Bash for his or her first joint interview. The interview will air Thursday night time.

Democratic presidential nominee U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris boards Air Pressure Two at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Aug. 28, 2024, as she travels to Savannah, Ga., for a two-day marketing campaign bus tour. (Saul Loeb/Pool through AP)

The Democratic technique to peel off votes in Republican components of the state has had some success earlier than. Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s first Black senator, received re-election in 2022 by practically three share factors — whereas Biden carried Georgia by solely 1 / 4 share level about two years earlier — partially by venturing into the deepest pink areas, pushed partially by operatives who are actually on Harris’ marketing campaign group.

The Georgia journey is a make-up go to from earlier within the month, when the duo was set to embark on a seven-state swing tour introducing the brand new Democratic ticket. The North Carolina and Georgia legs of the journey received scrapped as Tropical Storm Debby battered the area.

Harris has one other marketing campaign blitz on Labor Day with Biden in Detroit and Pittsburgh with the election simply over 70 days away. The primary mail ballots get despatched to voters in simply two weeks.

The easygoing stops had been a distinction to a bakery go to final week by Trump’s working mate JD Vance in Valdosta, Georgia, the place he struggled to banter with workers whereas shopping for doughnuts and one employee requested to be saved off digital camera.

Throughout an NBC interview Tuesday, Vance mentioned that he felt horrible for the employee.

“We walked in, and there’s 20 Secret Service agents, and there’s 15 cameras, and she clearly had not been properly warned, and she was terrified, right? I just felt awful for her.”

Vance additionally mentioned Wednesday that he was amongst those that spoke with Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp after Trump’s blistering assaults towards him at a rally within the state just some weeks in the past.

“I encouraged him to support the president, and he didn’t take much persuasion. He wanted to support the president because he thinks Kamala Harris is going to be a disaster,” Vance mentioned.

Republican vice-presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks at a marketing campaign occasion in Erie, Pa., Aug. 28, 2024. (AP Picture/Gene J. Puskar)

On the rally, Trump tore into the governor, blaming him for his slim 2020 loss within the state. In a roughly 10-minute tirade, Trump railed towards Kemp for not giving in to his false theories of election fraud. He additionally blamed the governor for not stopping an area district legal professional from prosecuting him and others for his or her efforts to overturn the ends in the state.

Trump modified his tune final week, thanking the governor in a social media submit for all his “help and support in Georgia, where a win is so important to the success of our Party and, most importantly, our Country.”

On the eve of Harris’ go to, Kemp advised Fox Information: “I’m not sure exactly what happened going into the rally. I’ve seen a lot of different stories and people’s explanations of what happened.”

Kemp mentioned on Fox that Republicans “need to be telling people why they should vote for us, what we’re going to do to make things better than they are right now. And there’s a host of issues that I think you could contrast Kamala Harris and her record.”

“To me, that’s what we need to stay focused on, not some dustup from two or three weeks ago,” he mentioned.

In the meantime, the Harris marketing campaign launched a brand new advert throughout the battleground states, searching for to tie Trump to the conservative “Project 2025.”

The primary advert asserts that Trump is “out for control” over voters, juxtaposing Trump quotes with ominous screenshots of the plan. It is a part of Harris’ US$370 million in digital and tv advert reservations between Labor Day and Election Day.

Led by the Heritage Basis, a conservative suppose tank, Venture 2025 is an in depth 920-page handbook for governing underneath the following Republican administration, together with ousting 1000’s of civil servants and changing them with Trump loyalists and reversing the Meals and Drug Administration’s approval of medicines utilized in abortions.

Trump has tried to distance himself from Venture 2025, although it was drafted by longtime allies and former officers of the Trump administration. Final month, he posted on social media that he had not seen the plan, had “no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it.”

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Related Press Author Michelle Worth in New York contributed to this report.