ATLANTA — Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, are going toe-to-toe and from swing state to swing state to win voters to their cause.
Political strategist Brian Robinson said that although former President Trump will have a new opponent now that President Biden has dropped out of the race, he will stick with what's earned him his third straight GOP presidential nomination.
“With the Trump campaign, you’re seeing them have to do a reset just as much," Robinson said. "They’ve got a new target, and they’ve got to recalculate because even though Kamala Harris was part of the Biden administration, she’s got a different profile, she has a different brand, and she’ll have a different history. It'll obviously be no-holds-barred. The gloves are coming off immediately. He's not giving her a honeymoon period. He's ready to go for the jugular. But that's his style. That's what we've come to expect from him."
As for the de facto Democratic nominee, Robinson said Harris has a lot of ground to make up in swing states like Georgia despite recently improving her public speaking performance.
"She's going to have to land this performance like Simone Biles at the Olympics," Robinson said. "She desperately needs a rebrand. It’s really hard to have your own image as vice president because you’re always the second fiddle. Democrats are hopeful that Georgia's large Black population will be a savior for Kamala Harris, but Black women were already strongly for Joe Biden. Those numbers are already baked in. Where we saw the splitting away was with Black men."
Harris is set to visit Atlanta Tuesday, which will make her sixth trip to Georgia in 2024. The trip will mark her first trip to the Peach State since earning the endorsement of President Joe Biden to become the presumptive Democratic nominee. Harris quickly consolidated support within the Democratic party, and her campaign has raised millions of dollars in a matter of days.
Robinson said Harris is going to have to secure the vote of a majority of Black men, Generation Z voters and Republicans tired of Trump.
“Can Kamala Harris bring back some of those traditionally Democratic voters to her coalition? That’s yet to be seen," Robinson said. “Donald Trump has brought back some of these white, college-educated suburban Atlantans who have abandoned the Republican party in recent years. Do they feel comfortable with Kamala Harris? It’s a really big challenge for anybody. Even the most experienced and talented politicians have failed on this playing field because it’s the roughest and toughest out there.”
This campaign season, security will be just as important as strategy.
Stacey Porter knows about keeping the candidates safe, as he served for nearly a decade in the Secret Service and 23 years total with the federal government. Porter is now a principal consultant at Porter Global Security.
"Communication is key, and if communication fails, we could see bad things possibly happening," Porter said.
According to Porter, any time a campaign is traveling, they're going to have a local police department and possibly a private security company assist them.
"I know Georgia has been one of the hot states when it comes to election years, and they’ll probably do a lot of visits here. I think we’re going to see more police protection, more patrols depending on where they are," Porter said.