SAVANNAH, Ga. — Vice President Kamala Harris, hoping to win the critical battleground state of Georgia in the presidential election, must attract Democratic voters in Atlanta and smaller urban areas, including Savannah, where she held a rally Thursday for supporters who knew little about her policies.
“She has my vote,” Gregory Craigmiles said. “She could be dead, and she’d have my vote.”
Like others who lined up for the rally, Mr. Craigmiles is an ardent opponent of former President Donald Trump.
He doesn’t know much about Ms. Harris’ agenda, nor does he care that she has reversed her position on building a border wall, that she has changed her mind about eliminating private health insurance and banning fracking, or backed off a proposal to mandate electric vehicles, he said.
He said everybody’s views evolve, and the goal is to defeat Mr. Trump — not dwell on flip-flopping or what positions Ms. Harris supports.
His wife, Shirley Craigmiles, said she wants to see a woman elected president in her lifetime, and Ms. Harris is her pick.
“We really didn’t pay much attention to her before she started running for president, so she’s pretty new to us. I don’t know if she’s flip-flopping or not.”
The crowd at the rally included a mix of people from Savannah and other parts of Georgia, as well as supporters who drove from South Carolina and Florida to attend.
The stop in Savannah capped a two-day bus tour in southern Georgia.
Since entering the race in July, Ms. Harris has made the fight for Georgia far more competitive. She erased a 4-percentage-point lead Mr. Trump had built before President Biden dropped out of the race on July 21. In the Real Clear Politics average of recent polls, Mr. Trump is ahead in Georgia by a mere 0.3 percentage points.
Georgia’s 16 electoral votes are in play, and Democrats are confident that Ms. Harris, the first Black female presidential nominee, can win the state, as Mr. Biden narrowly did in 2020.
Although conservative rural areas in Georgia are likely out of reach for the Democrats, Savannah leans Democratic. More than half the population is Black, and many residents live on low incomes.
According to recent census data, Savannah’s poverty rate hovers around 20.5%, far higher than the state’s 12.7% rate.
Ms. Harris addressed a crowd of thousands at Savannah’s Enmarket Arena, which borders low-income neighborhoods.
She promised rallygoers that she would lower costs, including grocery prices, by ending what she described as price gouging and would take on Big Pharma by capping the costs of prescription drugs and insulin for everyone, not just Medicare recipients who now enjoy some price caps.
“I will take on the high cost of housing and work with developers to cut the red tape and build millions of new homes,” Ms. Harris said.
She pledged a tax cut for 100 million Americans, including a $6,000 child tax credit for “the new car seat, the new crib and baby clothes.”
Ms. Harris told the crowd that her campaign is about “understanding folks just need a little help from time to time and understanding it’s not just about getting by; it’s about getting ahead.”
Unlike Mr. Trump, she said, “I will always put the working-class and middle-class families first.”
Her message resonated with young Black voters in the city, who said she came across as a candidate who would help people without elite college degrees and important titles.
“She’s looking out for building up the middle class,” Savannah resident Robert Samuels said.
Darnell, who voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 and did not want to provide his last name, said he would vote for Ms. Harris because he wants to see a Black female president and because she offers “something new,” even though she has been the vice president for almost four years.
He said Ms. Harris “is very fair” but laughed when asked about her handling of the border or the economy.
“I’m going this way this time, but you never know how this is going to go,” he said.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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