ATLANTA \u2014 President Biden and former president Donald Trump will campaign 70 miles from each other Saturday evening, seeking to woo supporters in this crucial state in the opening salvos of the general election rematch.<\/p>\n
The dueling appearances underscore the key role that Georgia, which holds its primary Tuesday, will play in November, after Biden defeated Trump in the state by fewer than 12,000 votes in the 2020 election. Trump decidedly won the state in 2016, beating Hillary Clinton by five percentage points.<\/p>\n
Biden will rally voters in Atlanta, while Trump will hold his event in Rome, a city in northwest Georgia that is part of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene\u2019s (R-Ga.) district. The visits come two days after Biden delivered a fiery State of the Union address, during which he assailed Trump, though not directly by name, for threatening individual rights, freedom and democracy.<\/p>\n
At Biden\u2019s event, he will receive the joint endorsement of three political action committees \u2014 AAPI Victory Fund, The Collective PAC, and Latino Victory Fund \u2014 and a commitment from the groups to spend $30 million to mobilize Black, Latino, and Asian American and Pacific Islander voters.<\/p>\n
Because voters of color made up such a large portion of Biden\u2019s vote share in 2020 \u2014 particularly in key swing states \u2014 Democrats\u2019 ability to motivate and mobilize these coalitions could be determinative in November, said Shekar Narasimhan, chairman of the AAPI Victory Fund.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the ballgame for Democrats,\u201d he said. \u201cEven in states where there\u2019s a predominantly white population, the margins are so thin that, for example, getting the Hmong vote in Wisconsin may be critical to winning the election.\u201d<\/p>\n
After reviewing data from recent elections and demographic statistics, the groups have decided to focus their combined efforts on three key states: Arizona, Georgia and Michigan.<\/p>\n
One of the major obstacles the groups hope to overcome is a sense that another Biden-versus-Trump presidential race is a sign of stagnancy in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really need to tell our communities that a lot has changed over the last four years,\u201d Narasimhan said. \u201cAnd in that change, there is opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Biden focuses his pitch Saturday on appealing to communities of color, Trump is expected to attack Biden on his immigration policy, more than a week after both men traveled to different parts of the southern border to make their pitch on border security.<\/p>\n
The murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, allegedly by a Venezuelan migrant who entered the country illegally in 2022, has rallied Republicans, who have cited her death to criticize the historic number of apprehensions since Biden took office in 2021 and to portray migrants as dangerous. Before Biden\u2019s State of the Union address, Greene handed Biden a pin with Riley\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
As Greene heckled Biden during the speech to \u201csay her name,\u201d Biden held up the pin and said Riley had been \u201ckilled by an illegal\u201d but then asked: \u201chow many of thousands of people are being killed by legals?\u201d (Experts say there\u2019s little evidence that undocumented immigrants commit more crime, and federal data shows most of those arrested at the border do not have criminal convictions.)<\/p>\n
During the speech, Biden offered his condolences to Riley\u2019s family and called on Congress to pass a bipartisan border security bill that died in the Senate, amid widespread GOP opposition led by Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe relish another opportunity for President Trump to go head-to-head with Joe Biden and contrast his strong record of securing the border and keeping Americans safe versus Biden\u2019s open border policies that led to the tragic death of Georgia\u2019s very own Laken Riley,\u201d Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. \u201cToday, Georgia will see the difference between a strong, focused and enthusiastic leader versus a weak, incompetent and crooked career politician.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biden\u2019s trip to Georgia comes as part of his post-State of the Union tour of the battleground states, which began Friday in Pennsylvania. Next week, he will travel to New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Michigan.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur freedoms really are on the ballot this November,\u201d Biden said during a rally in the suburbs of Philadelphia. \u201cDonald Trump and the MAGA Republicans are trying to take away our freedoms. That\u2019s not an exaggeration. We will not let him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biden\u2019s campaign also announced that it was launching a $30 million advertising campaign as part of the pivot to the general election. In the first ad, which was released Saturday, the president directly confronts concerns about his age. The ad features Biden speaking into the camera as he contrasts his record with Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, I\u2019m not a young guy,\u201d Biden says at the start of the 60-second advertisement. \u201cThat\u2019s no secret, but here\u2019s the deal: I understand how to get things done for the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s campaign riffed on the age question by releasing an ad titled \u201cNot a Young Guy,\u201d that featured videos of Biden stumbling or falling down.<\/p>\n
A Fox News poll conducted in January found that in a matchup between Biden and Trump, 51 percent of registered voters in Georgia said they would vote for Trump, while 43 percent said they would vote for Biden.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s return to the Peach State comes as he faces 13 state charges in connection with his efforts to try to overturn Biden\u2019s 2020 victory in Georgia. Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) launched an investigation more than three years ago after audio leaked of a call that Trump made in January 2021 to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), in which Trump said he wanted to \u201cfind\u201d the votes to reverse his 2020 loss.<\/p>\n
Trump was charged in August, alongside several of his allies, and he was booked at the Fulton County jail. The sheriff\u2019s office released a mug shot of Trump that day, an iconic image embraced by his campaign, supporters and fundraisers as the former president seeks to portray himself as a victim of a weaponized justice system.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not clear, however, when the Georgia election interference case will go to trial. Willis is under scrutiny for having a romantic relationship with the case\u2019s lead prosecutor, Nathan Wade. A judge is considering whether the relationship created a conflict of interest or the appearance of one and whether Willis and her office should be removed from the case. He is expected to make a decision by Friday.<\/p>\n
LeVine reported from Rome, Ga. Toluse Olorunnipa in Atlanta contributed to this report. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
ATLANTA \u2014 President Biden and former president Donald Trump will campaign 70 miles from each other Saturday evening, seeking to woo supporters in this crucial state in the opening salvos of the general election rematch. The dueling appearances underscore the key role that Georgia, which holds its primary Tuesday, will play in November, after Biden […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1952,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}