Vice President Kamala Harris visited Atlanta Friday – for what was her third trip to Georgia so far this year – to rally Georgia Democrats after a recent string of disappointments.
Georgia voters helped send Harris to the White House in 2020 and then handed Democrats tenuous control of Congress with the election of U.S. Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, creating a narrow path for the Biden administration’s priorities.
But more recently, Democrats here were handed a pair of setbacks when Chicago was picked as the host city for the national convention and after a push fell short to make Georgia one of the first states to vote in next year’s presidential primary.
Warnock was also the only Democrat to win statewide last year.
In a 20-minute speech to the state party faithful, Harris touted the Biden administration’s accomplishments – like a cap on insulin costs and historic climate funding – and railed against Republicans on abortion, ballot access and gun safety in the wake of mass shootings in Georgia and Texas.
“How have these so-called leaders – these extremists – dealt with what is so obviously a crisis?” she said, referring to gun violence. “By turning off microphones and expelling two elected leaders in Tennessee.
“To deal with the crisis, they silence and stifle the cries and the demands of the people, just like they are attempting to silence and stifle the teachings of America’s full history with book bans,” she said, delivering one of her big applause lines of the night. “Book bans in this year of our Lord 2023.”
Harris was greeted at the Democratic Party of Georgia’s “spring soiree” to chants of “four more years.” Before the gathering, which was held at a Buckhead events venue, Harris was at a private fundraiser at a home in southwest Atlanta.
The Atlanta visit is Harris’ first campaign trip to Georgia since President Joe Biden launched his bid for another term….
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