Kamala Harris Is Making A Play For Georgia, But Can She Pull It Off?

ATLANTA ― While Vice President Kamala Harris rallied thousands of her cheering supporters this week, telling them that with their help she would win Georgia and the White House, her fate could well rest with the likes of David Hale, a Republican who wasn’t even in the audience.

Instead, the 25-year-old supervisor at a background check company was 15 miles away in his apartment, making dinner after a day at work.

Even so, Harris is unlikely to find a more committed vote, although he disagrees with most of her policy stances. “Her opponent is an existential threat to the American republic,” he said of the coup-attempting Republican nominee, Donald Trump. “Once we defeat this threat, we can go back to a regular policy debate. But now is not the time.”

President Joe Biden narrowly won Georgia in 2020 thanks to voters like Hale ― who said he voted for Biden but for Republicans the rest of the way down the ticket ― as well as some 27,000 Republicans who left the president line blank and similarly voted for Republicans down ballot.

The question for Democrats is whether Harris, a progressive from California of Indian and Jamaican descent, can repeat the feat of Biden, an older white moderate from Delaware.

Georgia Republicans, even those who say they are supporting Trump only reluctantly, said they already know the answer.

“She won’t win Georgia. But she’s clearly in a honeymoon period,” said Martha Zoller, a GOP consultant and radio talk show host.

Polls taken in the days following Biden’s decision to drop his reelection bid and instead endorse Harris showed Trump holding a small lead over Harris, while those taken more recently show an even race.

Attendees at Harris’ Tuesday rally at the Georgia State Convocation Center just