Can Harris' momentum swing battleground Georgia?

Vice President Kamala Harris’ rally in Atlanta on Tuesday night was nothing if not energetic.

In fact, if you ignored all of the “Kamala” signs and the cavalcade of Democratic power players, one could have mistaken it for a concert.

The crowd of thousands packed into the Georgia State Convocation Center danced and sang along to rapper Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” before Grammy Award-winner Megan Thee Stallion took the stage to perform — and coined the phrase “Hotties for Harris.”

“We’re about to make history with the first female president, the first Black female president,” she said as the introduction to her hit 2020 single “Savage” started to play, adding: “Let’s get this done, hotties.”

As former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms put it: “This was the energy that we desperately need to get us forward to November.”

The energy at the Atlanta event was a stark difference compared to previous campaign events featuring President Joe Biden — and, among some of the attendees, between the two campaigns writ large.

“Just seeing from everyone, there is just a strong energy here that Joe Biden wasn’t bringing,” Georgia resident Ronald Ceesay told Spectrum News. “He was in his 80s, and he was an older candidate, even if he had that strong record, he was an older candidate.”

It’s undeniable that Harris’ ascent to become the likely Democratic presidential nominee has shaken up the stagnant race for president.

Biden won Georgia over Republican Donald Trump by less than 12,000 votes in the 2020 election, but polling showed the incumbent trailing the ex-president in key battleground states, particularly following the June debate that raised questions among Democratic about his mental acuity and fitness to serve.

But in the days since Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris, polling has shown the vice president has erased Trump’s lead, even overtaking him in some polls.

“I feel like [Biden] didn’t necessarily represent me as a Black woman,” said Georgia voter Tayler Louise. “I didn’t look at him and see myself and that’s usually where the pride comes in.”

“But now I’ve done a complete switch. I got on the red, white and blue,” she added. “I’m feeling a more sense of patriotism that I hadn’t felt before.”

Younger voters and Black voters will be key for Harris’ coalition if she hopes to deny Trump a second shot at the White House. Harris would be the first woman, Black woman and person of South Asian descent to become president. She’s also a generation younger than both Biden and Trump.

But some say she’ll need to look beyond those groups to build her coalition, working to attract voters who don’t typically vote for Democrats.

“There’s a group of people that are disenfranchised with Donald Trump, conservative in nature, but ready to see somebody do something other than Donald Trump’s leadership style,” former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican who endorsed Biden and is now backing Harris, told Spectrum News.”

Duncan suggests that Harris speaks to “issues like immigration, border control, inflation, things that were tough for the Biden administration, talk with an articulate voice” in an effort to build a broader coalition.

Many Democrats had written Georgia off, as well as the other southern battleground state of North Carolina when Biden was in the race, but they have new hopes with Harris emerging as the party’s likely nominee.

North Carolina hasn’t voted for a Democrat for president since 2008, though it was the state Trump won with the most narrow margin in 2020. Both both states have seen population increases and changing demographics that could help Harris.

“Georgia is happy to receive all of this attention, because we are nestled and very unique in our positioning in the South,” said Tammy Greer, a professor of politics at Georgia State University. “And it brings more attention to the realities that states, and their voting patterns, are not dormant.”

To be sure, Georgia is getting attention from both candidates, and has been since Biden’s narrow victory in 2020 and the subsequent wins by Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in January 2021, which flipped the U.S. Senate. It’s also the site of one of Trump’s four criminal cases. (Trump was indicted last year along with more than a dozen co-defendants by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, accusing them of creating a “criminal enterprise” to overturn the state’s election results in 2020; a few defendants pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors, while Trump and the remaining co-defendants pleaded not guilty. The case has been mired in delays.)

Trump’s campaign says it has over a dozen fully staffed offices in Georgia, while Harris’ campaign says it has 24 coordinated offices already in the state. 

Trump and running mate JD Vance will hold a rally on Saturday where Harris held her event on Tuesday, while Harris and her yet-to-be announced running mate will rally in Savannah, Ga., next week.