How Biden's withdrawal upended the Georgia race

ATLANTA — Just before he dropped out of the race, President Joe Biden called former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms to check in. She thought he sounded “strong” and committed to the matchup against Donald Trump. Her husband, Derek, thought otherwise.

“I think he’s getting out,” he told his disbelieving wife, one of Biden’s most trusted advisers. “That was a ‘thank you for everything you’ve done for me’ call.”

His instincts were right, and within a week, Georgia was back in the electoral fight. Vice President Kamala Harris’ rise to de facto nominee brought new excitement to Democrats who had been mired in talk of doom ever since Biden’s poor debate performance, if not before then. Thousands of volunteers poured into campaign offices, and polls tightened within margins of error amid an energy surge.

And Georgia Republicans who last week left their party’s convention in Milwaukee upbeat and unified behind Trump now confront a different race on an altered course.

With internal discord mostly behind them, Democrats in Georgia and across the nation who were once steadfastly behind Biden thanked him profusely for his roughly half-century in U.S. politics and closed ranks around Harris.

The rapid consolidation turned the “Democrats in disarray” narrative that held sway over much of this campaign on its head. It took less than two days for the party to line up squarely behind Harris after Biden quit his reelection bid.

And Republicans now must shift their campaign machinery after years of pummeling Biden as aged to suddenly take on Harris, a 59-year-old woman of Black and Indian heritage with decades of experience as a prosecutor and U.S. senator.

Whether Harris is “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare,” as Bottoms and other Democrats contend, or a mere extension of Biden’s mediocre legacy, as Republicans would like voters to believe, will be decided in November.

But what’s clear now is that Georgia — once seen tilting toward Trump — is very much in play.

Harris made that clear by scheduling a campaign event in Atlanta on Tuesday as one of her first stops since becoming the presumptive nominee, hoping to excite a Democratic base that had long dreaded the Biden-Trump rematch.

“This is a completely different ballgame — and the shifting dynamics will reset the race here in Georgia and across the country,” said Stephen Lawson, a GOP strategist who said the dynamics in Georgia still appear to benefit Trump.

Lawson said the race could hinge on whether Harris can ultimately present a stronger economic plan than Biden has articulated — and how it would appeal to the independent and swing voters who helped the president eke out a victory in Georgia in 2020.

“That may ultimately be the deciding factor in the race — and in a state — that was decided by 12,000 votes just four years ago,” Lawson said.

Former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, one of the few prominent Republicans to endorse Harris, put it another way.

“This is no longer a runaway freight train. Donald Trump is beatable,” Duncan said. “If the 10% in the middle break toward Kamala Harris, Donald Trump gets beat. Then hang on.”

‘Harris honeymoon?’

Now that Harris is her party’s unquestioned nominee — no obvious blocs of internal opposition have surfaced — the race to define her is fully engaged. And key polls show her ascendance has already altered the political landscape.

Among them is a poll of 400 likely Georgia voters that Republican-leaning Landmark Communications conducted a day after Biden’s withdrawal. Harris and Trump are deadlocked, and a plurality of independents are backing her campaign.

Republicans have downplayed the Democratic uptick as a “Harris honeymoon” that will peter out once the rush of attention and excitement around her candidacy wears off.

“There’s a honeymoon period right now, as you’d expect. But let’s face it, she hasn’t been vetted,” said Republican U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter of St. Simons Island, who called Harris one of the “most liberal” members of the U.S. Senate during a roughly four-year stint representing California.

“Once her record is exposed,” Carter said, “I think her numbers will reflect that.”

Trump’s campaign and its allies are already pressing to sully Harris’ image, unleashing volleys of TV attack ads that mock her history and criticize her liberal voting record.

Republicans hope the wave adds to a perception of Harris that already skews negative. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll conducted in the weeks before Biden’s withdrawal showed a majority — 53% — view her unfavorably. Only 5% don’t have an opinion.

Brian Robinson, a veteran Republican strategist who has worked with many of the state’s GOP leaders, said those poll numbers prove his point. Harris’ unfavorability rating in Georgia was within a few percentage points of Biden’s.

“This will not change the dynamic,” he said. “Harris’ approval numbers are as bad as Biden’s. Voters who want change in policy direction — and that’s a majority — still only have one choice.”

He added: “Biden-Harris was headed to defeat before Sunday. Democrats had a chance to change the trajectory of this but chose not to.”

A ‘moral question’

Georgia Democrats see a ray of sunshine, with Harris polling higher in the AJC survey than Biden among Democrats and Black voters. State Rep. Dar’shun Kendrick said that energy is already playing out on the ground.

“I’ve hardly had time to process this in all my excitement,” said Kendrick, one of Georgia’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention. “But if we create more energy and put a Black leader on the top of the ticket, how can it not make Georgia more of a battleground? It’s just natural.”

The Harris campaign said since Sunday, more than 100,000 volunteers have signed up to back the vice president, including more than 4,000 in Georgia. Nearly 200 Harris events are scheduled across the state over the weekend.

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock said Democrats will push at every instance to highlight a divide between Harris, who served as San Francisco’s top prosecutor and California attorney general, and Trump, who was convicted in June on felony charges involving hush money payments to a porn star.

“As you look at the contrast between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, it really is a moral question, too,” Warnock said during a “Politically Georgia” event. “Will America choose the criminal? Or the person who’s spent much of her career prosecuting criminals?”

Harris also faces a number of immediate hurdles that will test her campaign. Delegates to the Democratic convention will begin virtual voting as early as Thursday to select the party’s nominee, and Harris must soon pick a running mate.

Trump and other Republicans will only sharpen their attacks as they test out arguments. In his first major event since Harris cleared the field of Democratic rivals, Trump dubbed her the driving force behind “every single Biden catastrophe.”

“She’s worse than him because he’s a fake liberal. You know, he wasn’t that liberal. He was fake,” Trump said at a North Carolina rally. “She’s a real liberal.”

And the party must overhaul its nominating convention that begins Aug. 19. Bottoms, now a senior adviser to the Harris campaign, said it will be a singular moment for a campaign in flux.

“We already knew we were in store for an exciting convention, and I would say it’s been amped up 10 trillion,” she said. “I’m already picking out my nice flat comfortable shoes so I can be ready to hit the ground running when I get there.”