GEORGIA — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden will travel to Georgia Tuesday, his first trip to the state in his campaign and part of a late effort to flip the state blue.
President Donald Trump carried the state in 2016 by 5 percentage points, but a recent polling average has the candidates in a dead heat with 9 days to go until Election Day.
Former Vice President Biden will visit the small town of Warm Springs, known for its therapeutic mineral springs and former president Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s private retreat, where he will bringing Americans together to address the crises facing our nation,” according to his campaign.
He will later travel to Atlanta for a drive-in rally, where he will encourage Georgia voters to get to the polls in their last week of early voting.
Georgia Democrats have long urged Biden to campaign in the state, especially with both U.S. Senate seats on the ballot on Election Day. Winning one or both seats would go a long way toward helping Democrats retake the Senate.
Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said on Twitter that she was “thrilled” by the news, calling Georgia a “battleground state.”
Though it’s Biden’s first campaign visit to the Peach State, his surrogates have made a number of recent appearances in the state.
Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, campaigned in Atlanta on Friday.
“Atlanta represents so much about who we are as America,” Harris said to a raucous round of honks at a drive-in rally Friday afternoon. “Atlanta represents the hopes and the dreams and the fight to make real the promise of America.”
Not only did Harris stump for her own campaign, she also encouraged attendees to submit their votes for all down-ballot Democrats. Georgia’s senate candidate Jon Ossoff and congressional candidate Nikema Williams were among the state’s Democrats running for office in attendance at the day’s events. “
We believe in our democracy because we know that America’s democracy will always be as strong as we – the people – are in our willingness to fight for those ideas.”
Biden’s wife, Dr. Jill Biden, visited Georgia on Oct. 12, the first day of early voting in the state, where she encouraged voters to make a plan to vote early: “Are you ready to turn Georgia blue?”
The Biden campaign announced that Dr. Biden will return to the state on Monday, one day before her husband’s visit — she will travel to Macon and Savannah.
Georgia has not elected a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992, when Bill Clinton won the state as part of his successful presidential campaign against then-President George H.W. Bush.