SAVANNAH, Ga.—Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, urged supporters to work hard for another victory in 2024 while cautioning against complacency during a campaign speech on Aug. 29 in Georgia, a key battleground state that President Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020.
“We’re here to speak the truth. And one of the things that we know [is that] this is going to be a tight race until the very end,” Harris said. “So, let’s not pay too much attention to the polls, because we are running it as the underdog.”
In her speech, Harris framed her White House bid as a “fight for America’s future.”
“We fight for a future with affordable childcare, paid leave, and affordable healthcare,” she said, outlining her campaign promises such as offering a tax break to 100 million Americans, including $6,000 for families with newborn babies.
As in previous speeches, she also portrayed the election as a “fight for freedom,” with a particular focus on protecting women’s right to abortion.
“Georgia, for the past two election cycles,” Harris said, “you sent two extraordinary senators to Washington, DC; you sent President Biden and me to the White House.”
“Let’s do it again,” she said before ending her campaign speech.
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have been on a two-day bus tour, visiting rural communities and suburbs in South Georgia to rally support in the Peach State.
On Aug. 28, they visited Liberty County High School in Hinesville, where they watched a rehearsal by the school’s marching band and delivered brief remarks to students and faculty. Later in the day, they stopped by a barbecue restaurant in a small strip mall in Savannah.
Edwin Benton, a professor of political science at the University of South Florida, told The Epoch Times that the Harris-Walz campaign is seeking to build on the momentum from 2020 by mobilizing black voters in the hopes of repeating the large turnout that flipped the state.
“What [Trump] didn’t expect is the huge turnout of African Americans, and it was a significant effort on [the] part of Biden in 2020 to get these people to the polls,” Benton said, noting that the Democratic Party’s volunteers on the ground were pivotal in ensuring these voters turned out.
Since launching her campaign on July 21, Harris has been traveling the country to narrow many of Trump’s leads in national and battleground state polls.
“Trump had been making gains among both Latino and black voters, particularly among younger black voters, prior to Biden stepping aside,” Aaron Dusso, a political science professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, told The Epoch Times.
“But that has all been nearly entirely reversed since Harris moved to the top of the ticket. This can be seen in the gains she has made across the entire sunbelt. Georgia is going to be a hotly contested battleground going forward.”
Harris has not yet released a comprehensive platform on her website, making the interview crucial for those undecided voters to learn about her policy proposals.
Following last week’s Democratic National Convention, Harris saw a slight upward bump in many national and battleground state polls.
During her acceptance speech at Chicago’s United Center, she highlighted her middle-class roots and sought to align her party’s agenda with themes of patriotism and freedom, messaging typically associated with the Republican Party. Her approach, aimed at attracting undecided voters, drew criticism from Republicans.
Her campaign has less than 70 days to convince any remaining undecided voters to back her ticket.
