On Thursday, Democratic presidential nominee and current Vice President Kamala Harris visited Savannah, Georgia, for a campaign rally, where she was welcomed by a packed, enthusiastic crowd. A video clip posted on social media by the Harris campaign’s Daniel Wessel appears to show the venue — Savannah’s 9,500-seat Enmarket Arena — packed to the brim with cheering supporters of the Democratic pick.
“This is Savannah, Georgia. The first time a general election presidential candidate has campaigned here since the 1990s. Folks are ready for @KamalaHarris,” Wessel posted.
And once Harris’ speech actually started, the evident enthusiasm continued. Georgia journalists Greg Bluestein and Adam Van Brimmer said that the “rowdy crowd of thousands” gathered Thursday in Savannah was “so energized that they repeatedly drowned out her speech with cheers.”
Harris had already campaigned in Georgia at an earlier point of her technically still young presidential bid, showing up in Atlanta within mere days of taking over for President Joe Biden after he stepped aside from this year’s race for the White House amid questions about his advanced age. And in conjunction with the Savannah event, Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, also embarked on a bus tour of southeastern Georgia.
In Georgia, Democrats were victorious in the 2020 presidential election with Biden at the top of the ticket, breaking a long streak of Republican victories in the state in general elections amid a race for president. Subsequently, Georgia Democrats saw more success in statewide elections, sending two Democrats to the U.S. Senate, including Raphael Warnock — a pastor at the Atlanta church where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was also a pastor in the 1960s.
And recent polling publicized by Fox News found a lead in Georgia for Harris of two percentage points. While not enough to make sweeping generalizations about the race in a strictly polling context, that lead, if repeated in November, would — of course — hand Harris the state.
This is Savannah, Georgia.
The first time a general election presidential candidate has campaigned here since the 1990s.
Folks are ready for @KamalaHarris. pic.twitter.com/iGTwfKzmSD
— Daniel Wessel (@da_wessel) August 29, 2024
