Georgia
Georgia was fading from the presidential battleground map. But Kamala Harris has put the state back in play.
Last week, both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump held rallies at the same Georgia State University venue in downtown Atlanta just days apart.
Harris’s event on Tuesday burst at the seams with jubilant Democrats thrilled over her new role as the face of the party and its presumptive 2024 presidential nominee.
Meanwhile, Trump’s Saturday rally, which attracted the MAGA faithful, tried to blunt Harris’ ascension in a race that the former president less than a month ago thought would be against the more politically-vulnerable President Joe Biden.
The new landscape comes at a critical time for both campaigns in Georgia, the onetime Republican presidential stronghold that has since taken on a shade of purple after backing Biden in 2020 and electing Democrats to the Senate in both 2021 and 2022.
Whereas many Republicans were beginning to see Georgia for the taking due to Biden’s sagging numbers, Harris has given Democrats a jolt of energy in the state. And now, neither side can take this Southern battleground for granted.
Harris has strength with young voters and minorities
Biden in 2020 swept nearly every swing state, boosted by his electoral advantage with young voters and minorities.
In Georgia, Biden’s strong support among these groups, especially with Black voters, helped him win the state by less than one percentage point that year.
But more recently, Biden struggled to rally that base. He was often mired in the low-to-mid 40s in most Georgia polls.
A big part of that slippage was because Trump was winning over an atypical number of Black voters for a GOP presidential candidate, and a chunk of young voters were opting instead for third-party candidates like independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
But Harris has reversed that trend, giving her momentum that had eluded Biden in Georgia this year.
A recent Emerson College/The Hill survey showed Trump with a narrow two-point lead (48% to 46%) over Harris in the Peach State. And the latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll taken in Georgia showed Harris and Trump tied at 47% support each among registered voters.
Harris can expand her suburban support
Trump’s allies had long prepared for a rematch with Biden, using a playbook centered on sweeping GOP voters and winning over independents and undecided voters on the economy.
It could have been particularly effective in Atlanta’s suburbs, especially in outer suburban communities where Republicans still dominate in non-federal statewide races.
But Harris’ ascent has thrown those plans into disarray.
Even though Harris is a key part of the Biden administration, she has a chance to reintroduce herself to an electorate that didn’t want a 2020 rematch. Her focus on issues like upholding the Constitution and protecting reproductive rights puts her squarely where a lot of suburban residents are ideologically.
Trump weighed down suburban Republicans across the country in 2016, and in 2018 and 2020 his brand of Republicanism continued to push many suburbs — including those in the Atlanta area — further from their old GOP leanings.
Trump underperformed in many inner suburban Atlanta communities during the March GOP presidential primary, with former UN ambassador Nikki Haley earning thousands of votes even after she had left the race.
A sizable number of these anti-Trump GOP voters could eventually migrate to Harris and give her added support in a region where she’ll also need to perform strongly with Democrats to overcome Trump’s rural strength.
Trump still hasn’t let 2020 go
Elections are about the future. And if Trump holds on to 2020 instead of uniting Georgia Republicans, Harris will likely benefit.
During Trump’s rally on Saturday, he once again lashed out at Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, leaning into the bitterness of the 2020 election that tore apart the GOP.
Trump has long argued, without evidence, that he was the true victor in Georgia that year. But neither Kemp nor Raffensperger would aid Trump in overturning the state’s presidential results, and most Republicans have sought to move beyond the ex-president’s grievances on the issue.
But not Trump.
“He’s a bad guy, he’s a disloyal guy, and he’s a very average governor,” Trump told rally attendees of Kemp on Saturday.
“In my opinion, they want us to lose,” the former president said of Kemp and Raffensperger.
After Trump in a Truth Social post mentioned Kemp’s wife, Marty, by saying he didn’t want the Georgia first lady’s endorsement, the governor told the ex-president on X to “leave my family out of it.”
In 2022, Trump tried to dispatch Kemp and Raffensperger in GOP primaries to no avail, as they defeated MAGA-aligned challengers.
This year, a divided Republican Party headed into November would seriously imperil the party’s chances at flipping the state as the Harris campaign pours time and resources into Georgia.
If Trump can’t even appear in Georgia alongside the state’s popular sitting GOP governor, it could affect organizing and turnout — as Kemp’s get-out-the-vote operation was critical in his reelection victory against Democrat Stacey Abrams in 2022.
Georgia
LSU Football Coach Brutally Destroyed For One Simple Reason
LSU coach Brian Kelly probably didn’t expect to spend his Thursday night getting destroyed on social media, but that’s what happened!
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish punched a ticket to the semifinals of the College Football Playoff after beating Georgia 23-10.
The game certainly felt like it was a lot further apart than the final victory of 13 points. The Fighting Irish balled out, and Marcus Freeman now has his team eight quarters of football away from winning a national title.
Brian Kelly roasted after Notre Dame beats Georgia.
The person fans wanted to take shots at after the game?
The former Fighting Irish coach now leading the Tigers.
Brian Kelly left Notre Dame after the 2021 season, and there was a big sense he was doing it because he felt the SEC gave him the best shot to win a national title.
How’s that working out for him? Kelly has arguably become less relevant in the SEC while Freeman has the Fighting Irish rolling.
Fans were quick to point that out on X after the game. Check out some of the tweets below, and let me know what you think at David.Hookstead@outkick.com.
Do we think there might be some bad blood between Notre Dame fans and Brian Kelly? I think the answer to that is pretty obvious, and it’s an overwhelming yes.
Brian Kelly cut and ran, and essentially did so because he didn’t think Notre Dame was good enough for his career.
Now, he’s not moving the needle at all in the SEC, Marcus Freeman has ND rolling and Fighting Irish fans are quick to dance all over Brian Kelly.
He was probably just hoping to have a calm Thursday night after earning a bowl win. Instead, he ended up getting lit up on X. Welcome to college football.
Next up for Notre Dame is Penn State. Hit me with your predictions at David.Hookstead@outkick.com.
Georgia
Notre Dame’s signature win over Georgia shows how different Marcus Freeman’s Irish are
NEW ORLEANS — Marcus Freeman grabbed hold of his six kids, each making their way to a podium covered by blue and white confetti. Notre Dame’s head coach had already lifted the Sugar Bowl trophy, capping a Thursday night that took everything and everyone. So Freeman stole a moment to soak in the scene Notre Dame hired him to deliver, sharing it with his family.
They’d all just watched Notre Dame beat Georgia 23-10 to advance to the semifinals of the College Football Playoff.
Inside the Caesars Superdome, Freeman became something bigger than the first-time head coach thrust into the top job three years ago after Brian Kelly’s abrupt exit for LSU, only because he had Notre Dame at his back. His program played fearless football against the kind of opponent that had made it feel inferior for so long. The Irish went for it on fourth down, and when they didn’t get it, they forced a four-and-out. When they wanted to burn clock in the fourth quarter, they made Georgia panic with a mass substitution that got the Bulldogs to jump offside.
The Irish sprung their first kickoff return touchdown of the season, buoyed by a Marshall transfer. Notre Dame created two massive turnovers, one of which was a strip sack by a Duke transfer that set up a touchdown pass to a Clemson transfer. A South Carolina transfer hit three field goals. And when the Irish needed a fourth-down stop near the goal line, a transfer from Northwestern broke the pass up.
This Notre Dame team did what no Notre Dame team has done in 31 seasons and won a major bowl game. And it did it only because its head coach manifested this scene into reality, pulling every available lever and finding every possible edge. The Irish needed them all.
“That’s the aggressiveness in terms of our preparation that I want our program to have, and again, out there when it matters the most,” Freeman said. “That’s got to be one of our edges, that we are going to be an aggressive group and not fear making mistakes.”
The end result sends Notre Dame to the Orange Bowl to face Penn State on Jan. 9, one week after this signature win that included so many autographs. It would be impossible to read off them all, starting with the head coach and going all the way down to the walk-on receiver Leo Scheidler, who helped spring Jayden Harrison’s 98-yard kickoff return to open the third quarter.
JAYDEN HARRISON
9️⃣8️⃣ YARDS#GoIrish | @j_harrison5
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) January 2, 2025
Notre Dame needed every leading actor and bit part to follow the script. And the entire football program remembered its lines.
“They’re incredible kids. They are the best of the best,” said defensive coordinator Al Golden. “I think they choose Notre Dame for all the right reasons. It’s not me, me, me. Any of those guys to come here and submit to the program and put your ego aside and go for team glory? That’s rare. Rare. Rare. Rare.”
Golden’s defense delivered without star defensive tackle Rylie Mills and cornerback Benjamin Morrison, both lost for the season to injury. And so reserve defensive tackles Gabriel Rubio and Donovan Hinish stood tall, especially after Howard Cross III left with an ankle injury. Cornerbacks Christian Gray and Leonard Moore continue to fill in for Morrison. And when All-American safety Xavier Watts missed time, Rod Heard II stepped forward.
“All of us who decided to join the team for our last year committed ourselves to this vision of being national champions,” Heard said. “We’ve leaned into Notre Dame. Whatever I have to do for this team, that’s what I’m gonna get done.”
Inside the Notre Dame locker room, RJ Oben cradled the game ball given to him by Freeman. For one night he wasn’t the other transfer from Duke, Oben was the guy who made his first sack in an Irish uniform, dropping Gunner Stockton in the final seconds of the first half and forcing a fumble recovered by Junior Tuihalamaka. One snap later, Riley Leonard hit Beaux Collins for a 13-yard touchdown, Notre Dame’s only offensive touchdown in the game.
“If you’re gonna make a game-changing play, now is the time,” Oben said. “We came here knowing this is a big stage and this is why we’re here, to perform in a season like this. All the guys.”
GO DEEPER
Mandel’s Final Thoughts: Rust Belt schools get their CFP revenge in quarterfinals
But how Notre Dame put down Georgia said less about personnel than the culture connecting it. The Irish got production from virtually every transfer against the Bulldogs, none of those players wanted by the SEC champions. And Notre Dame got much from its core too, an offensive line that’s grown throughout the season into a group that could spring a 12-play, 41-yard drive in the fourth quarter that bled 7:36 of clock and left the Bulldogs without recourse.
A punt has never looked so good.
“It’s Notre Dame football at its finest. They delivered their very best when their very best was needed,” said offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock. “We probably set offensive football back 15 years. But we did what we needed to do to win.”
Notre Dame did it because Freeman called the biggest game of his life, the day after a tragedy on Bourbon Street pushed the Sugar Bowl back a day.
At breakfast, Golden counseled defensive backs coach Mike Mickens that Notre Dame needed to stay aggressive in coverage, even if the Irish got beat with a deep ball. And they did get beat with Stockton’s arm. And they did stay aggressive.
Freeman knew he needed something big from special teams, no matter how much Jeter had struggled through injury this season and no matter what it took from special teams coordinator Marty Biagi. Freeman got that too. After the game, Biagi wore his father Stephen’s Notre Dame jacket, honoring him after he succumbed to lung cancer four hours after the Indiana game late last month. Just a day before Notre Dame beat the Hoosiers, Biagi’s wife gave birth to the couple’s twins. A girl and a boy. Their names are Brooke Renee and Stephen Jacob.
“He wouldn’t have wanted, as a Notre Dame grad, to go any other way,” Biagi said. “I know he was up there tonight watching. Trying to make him proud.”
Stephen Biagi would have been as Jeter drilled field goals from 44, 48 and finally 47 yards early in the fourth quarter to put Notre Dame ahead by the final score. And Harrison’s kickoff return did feel like divine intervention as he cut through Georgia’s coverage units, sprung by a walk-on receiver’s block after Scheidler subbed in for starter Collins, who needed an IV at halftime.
Even not punting worked, as Notre Dame tried that mass substitution on fourth-and-1 from its own 18-yard line early in the fourth, rushing the punt unit off and the offense on, trying to get Georgia to jump offside. Notre Dame had no intention of actually snapping the ball, until Jalon Walker jumped.
The play was called “Got ’Em.”
“And we did,” Denbrock said.
In the Superdome tunnels, Denbrock tried to make sense of this all, less the game he just called and more what it meant for the program he’d called it for. This is Denbrock’s third stint at Notre Dame under his third head coach. He’s been in these games. Never won them. No one around Notre Dame has, amid a major bowl losing streak that dates back to Lou Holtz and covers the tenure of four other head coaches. Most of these games haven’t been close. They’ve been supposed referendums on what Notre Dame football can be in the modern age.
And now Notre Dame is something else entirely.
“We’ve all endured all of these ‘we don’t belong’ and ‘you’re not supposed to be here’ and all that stuff that we’ve had to deal with all those years,” Denbrock said. “To see those kids erase that, at least for the time being, and do the things, that was all about heart and toughness.
“Regardless of the stage we’ve been on, we’ve been true to who we are. I’m just so happy for everybody.”
Because that’s exactly what this required.
Everybody.
GO DEEPER
CFP semifinals first look: Previewing Notre Dame-Penn State, Ohio State-Texas
(Top photo: Jonathan Bachman / Getty Images)
Georgia
Notre Dame vs. Georgia score, live updates: College Football Playoff quarterfinal at the Sugar Bowl
Three teams have booked their tickets to the College Football Playoff semifinals. Who will be the fourth?
The final game of the quarterfinals — the Sugar Bowl showdown between Georgia and Notre Dame — was postponed to Thursday after a terrorist attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans in the early hours of Jan. 1 left 15 dead and dozens injured.
Follow the game action below (scroll for live updates).
Date: Jan. 1 | Time: 8:45 p.m. ET | TV: ESPN | Line: Notre Dame -1 | Total: 45.5
No one will question how well Georgia coach Kirby Smart can motivate his team, especially in a circumstance like this with his starting quarterback injured and off to the NFL. But just how well can Georgia move the ball with Gunner Stockton in the game? We won’t be surprised to see Georgia stick to its run game.
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