This Sunday, as the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris continues to take off running, potential Harris running mate and Kentucky Democratic Governor Andy Beshear helped lead a Harris campaign event in a Georgia county — Forsyth County, specifically — that journalist Greg Bluestein identified as “deep-red,” meaning heavily Republican. But hundreds showed up.
Even if Republicans hang onto their overall lead in the county in this year’s election, the manner in which presidential elections are decided — with votes effectively pooled at the state level — means that a surge in Democratic support could still make an impact. Georgia was infamously close in the 2020 presidential election, when President Joe Biden won it narrowly.
Bluestein spoke with event attendee and retired educator Lynne Nielsen, who told him: “Eight years ago a group like this wouldn’t have gathered. […] We are getting louder and prouder.”
“Something is happening, folks,” posited Democratic pollster and strategist Matt McDermott.
Beshear himself has his own history of turning around Democrats’ political fortunes in an otherwise Republican-dominated area, winning another term as governor of Kentucky — known most recently for consistently supporting Republicans in statewide elections — just recently, in the 2023 elections. Beshear faced Trump-backed Republican Daniel Cameron in that race.
After his win, Beshear spoke earlier this year on the MSNBC program “Morning Joe” about his political vision.
“I think we showed that if you stick to your principles, if you run on the things that you want to do, how you’re going to help people, and you don’t back down, you push back against that hate, you try to bring people together, that there is a path to victory even in tough states,” he stated. “Across the country, people need to see that there is a road to victory that’s run through empathy and compassion for our fellow human being.”
