CHICAGO – On the final day of the DNC, Democrats are making a major push to attract voters from Georgia, a critical swing state.
Major players from the party addressed Georgia delegates Thursday and the lineup for the event ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris’ address includes plenty of connections to the Peach State.
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The governors of New Mexico, Kentucky and New Jersey were all at the Georgia breakfast Thursday morning and spoke to delegates and the Mayor of Atlanta, Andre Dickens.
Dickens told News4JAX he feels Democrats have the workers in place to keep Georgia blue in November.
“The infrastructure has matured and stabilized since 2020 when we went blue for [President Joe] Biden. And I think you’re seeing folks here today, how important it is for Georgia to get the job done,” Dickens said.
On the local level, activists are seeing the support and that includes Blake Robinson from Valdosta. He’s one of the youngest delegates in the country and said Southeast Georgia, while often Republican-leaning, is making inroads with supporters of the Harris-Tim Walz agenda.
“I think so because the now Harris-Walz campaign has made historic investments into Georgia. We’ve opened up 24 offices, 35,000 volunteers,” he said.
Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey said Democrats were losing Georgia until just weeks ago.
“The executive director of the party said they were behind and behind meaningfully and now the polling says dead heat. I’m not here by coincidence,” Murphy said.
One person expected to speak before Harris’ keynote on the final night of the DNC is a Georgia congresswoman who has a close tie to Jacksonville. Rep. Lucy McBath’s son Jordan Davis was shot and killed for playing loud music at a Southside gas station 12 years ago. The trial trial of his killer sparked political debate in the city for years.
“I do want to say to all the residents and citizens of Jacksonville, I always say from the bottom of my heart, that Jordan’s father and I thank you because you really cared for us and you put your arms around us during horrific tragedy because you held us up,” McBath said.
In Chicago, McBath is still pushing for gun reform which she believes will save more lives.
“You know there’s so much work to be done...When I came to the DNC in 2016, I came with [Trayvon Martin’s mother] Sabrina Fulton and [Eric Garner’s mother] Gwen Carr, and Michael Brown’s mother. We all came as grieving mothers who had lost our loved ones,” she said.
McBath spent her morning talking to delegates from Georgia about why she feels it’s important to keep Georgia blue after its unprecedented electoral shift to Democrats in 2020.
“The fact that I have come back here now as a member of Congress and I ran on gun safety as an agenda and a policy so that nothing that has happened to me and my family will continue to happen around the country. That’s progress,” McBath said.