Biden and Trump seek to hold together fraying coalitions in battleground Georgia

Atlanta, Georgia CNN —

The headwinds facing President Joe Biden’s reelection bid are as apparent in Georgia as any battleground. So, too, are the questions of whether Donald Trump can capitalize on them.

The president and his predecessor are set to face off in a historic CNN debate Thursday night in Atlanta — the first for either man since the 2020 election. It’s taking place in one of the nation’s most competitive swing states, and a rare example of a Republican electorate that did not side with Trump as he sought to punish those who refused to support his false claims of widespread election fraud.

“President Trump still has to earn these Republican voters,” said Kelvin King, who was among Trump’s most prominent Black supporters in Georgia in 2016 and 2020. “He can win, but he’s got to earn it.”

King, who met with Republicans in all of Georgia’s 159 counties during an unsuccessful bid for US Senate in 2022, said he has come to the realization that Trump should spend far more time articulating his ideas for the future than relitigating the past.

“It’s almost like a bucket of water with a hole in it. He’s trying to find new voters to fill up this bucket, but there’s a hole that’s leaking a lot of Republicans out,” said King, who founded a political outreach group, Let’s Win for America, to spread a conservative message to minority voters. “He’s going to have to plug that hole.”

Four years ago, Biden defeated Trump by 11,779 votes out of 5 million cast – the first time a Democratic presidential candidate carried Georgia in nearly three decades.

Unable to accept his loss, Georgia became an early epicenter of Trump’s election denialism — eventually leading to criminal charges against the former president.

In