It’s a legal question expected to be handled in court, primarily because of different interpretations of Chesapeake’s city charter — seemingly the only charter for a major Hampton Roads city that puts the city in this novel position.

Multiple council members are challenging mayors this November elections in surrounding cities, like Virginia Beach and Portsmouth. Yet Chesapeake finds itself in this situation as it’s the only Hampton Roads city with a provision in the city charter that requires council members to formally resign from their council seat during their mayoral election bid instead of after. Carey’s council term is set to end Dec. 31. Chesapeake’s charter provision calls for a council resignation by June 30, though it was established when Chesapeake held city elections in May.

The ongoing legal question has spurred division among council members, some of whom are practicing a boycott of certain city business they don’t believe Carey should be part of, like closed sessions, as a result.

At a July 23 meeting, some residents said Carey was being penalized for an oversight issue in the charter, and called for council to make the appropriate changes in lieu of legal action. But that’s challenging in a Dillon’s Rule state like Virginia, where the General Assembly determines the scope of local governments’ power. That means when a city needs to update its charter, state legislators are the ones who can make it happen.

“No two local government situations are alike, and they’re often quite obscure provisions that are at issue,” said Richard Schragger, a law professor at the University of Virginia.

He added that in Chesapeake’s case, it can be tricky because even if the dates should have been changed, the charter also clearly states June 30.

“So then the question becomes, if there’s ambiguities in the interpretation of that provision, who makes that decision? And generally we end up in courts when that’s the case,” Schragger said.

For most Hampton Roads cities, council members who declare candidacy in a mayor’s race must formally resign their council position following the election or upon the start of the newly elected mayor’s term, according to the respective city charters. That includes Norfolk, Hampton, Suffolk and Virginia Beach.

In Virginia Beach, Councilman Chris Taylor, representing District 8, has joined a crowded field to challenge the sitting mayor. To do so, Taylor had to file a formal resignation letter effective after the election since his council term spans until 2026, which will necessitate a special election. His resignation will take effect Dec. 31, regardless of whether he wins or loses the mayoral race.

Sabrina Wooten is another Virginia Beach council member challenging the mayor, but her term ends at the end of the year.

Portsmouth’s charter lacks any resign-to-run requirement. The current vice mayor, Lisa Lucas-Burke, is challenging sitting Mayor Shannon Glover. There is no apparent provision in Newport News’ charter that addresses resign-to-rule stipulations, but a process for filling vacancies is included.

General Assembly action in 2021 shifted Chesapeake’s elections from May to November, but the accompanying provision for resignation was not altered, according to an opinion issued in May by Republican Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares. His opinion concluded that Carey was required to step down by June 30.

In March, Carey declared a bid to challenge Mayor Rick West. On July 9, a majority of council members directed the city attorney’s office to file a writ of mandamus with the Circuit Court asking a judge to compel Carey to resign from his position as he seeks election as mayor.

While it’s still unclear when the city will formally file the petition in Circuit Court, Carey said he was officially served last week by the city with a notice of intent to file. City Attorney Catherine Lindley previously said a “reasonable time” must lapse before filing with Circuit Court, though she has declined to specify what that timeframe will be.

Carey has previously called the move political and unethical.

“Citizens realize how foolish this endeavor is for council to waste taxpayer dollars to attack a political opponent,” he said in a phone interview Monday.

Carey was first elected to City Council in May 2020. He assumed his role July 1 when Chesapeake still held local elections in May instead of November. In Miyares’ opinion, he stated that though resignation would have the effect of shortening Carey’s term, it’s “due to his voluntary decision to seek election to the office of mayor, as was the case prior to the 2021 amendments for council members seeking to become mayor in middle of their otherwise four-year term.”

Around a dozen residents spoke at a July 23 meeting, mostly expressing frustration with division among council and the city money and resources that will be dedicated to litigating the issue. Others said he should stay in his seat through the end of his current term.

Resident Nancy Pettigrew and George Reed of the New Chesapeake Men for Progress argued that the intent of the charter change law wasn’t to result in a monthslong vacancy when a council member runs for mayor.

“Forcing Councilman Carey off the council at this point in the year will hamper the work that the City Council does,” Pettigrew said. “And in fact, we are already seeing that happen.”

Reed cited a summary document about the 2021 law when it was passed, which states the terms of mayor, council and school board members should not be shortened as a result of shifting elections to November. It also states all those members elected at a May general election and whose terms end as of June 30 “shall continue in office until their successors have been elected at the November general election and have been qualified to serve.”

Another election-related bill passed that year amended that portion of state code and the clause Reed cited was removed.

“We ought to have a writ of mandamus to get our city attorney to configure our charter to meet the state law,” Reed said. “I say to you there must be a different agenda. You should explain that agenda to the public. Because it’s certainly not running good governance with transparency and accountability.”

Natalie Anderson, 757-732-1133, natalie.anderson@virginiamedia.com

WASHINGTON — When it comes to the political history of gay rights in the United States, a lot of people think they have it figured out.

They assume “one party is wholly committed to LGBTQ rights, and the other is completely opposed. And it’s understandable why a lot of Americans think that way,” says historian Neil J. Young.

But it’s not that simple, Young says. In his recent book, “Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right,” he traces a more complex path from the 1950s to the present day.

Young joined “Equal Time” this month to discuss some of the conservatives who stayed true to their values while working toward same-sex marriage and the end of policies like “don’t ask, don’t tell.” The excerpt below has been condensed and edited. For more, listen to the full podcast.

Q: What did early gay rights activism look like before the Stonewall demonstrations in 1969?

A: I begin my book in the Cold War era, the Lavender Scare, which was when both political parties were really committed to rooting out homosexuals from the federal government and making life difficult for gay persons in this country.

I was surprised to discover that there was an activism among a handful of gay conservatives that’s really important to the advancement of a gay rights movement — or at the time, it was known as the homophile movement.

This story has been told mostly from the left, focusing on folks like Harry Hay, who was the leader of the Mattachine Society. But Dorr Legg and other right-of-center gay men, they were making arguments about limiting federal power, constraining the government, as the pathway to freedom for homosexuals.

Q: Who were some other key gay conservatives?

A: Someone I didn’t know that much about, but is a very important character in the book, is Leonard Matlovich. He was an Air Force sergeant, served three tours of duty in Vietnam, was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart and was seriously injured in combat. He came out of the closet in 1975, and he did this in order to challenge the military’s ban against gay servicepersons.

He teamed up with Frank Kameny, who was a very prominent gay rights activist who was challenging the ban. And Leonard Matlovich was in a lot of ways the perfect poster boy, because he was good-looking, he was really masculine, he was from the South and he had all those military honors.

Kameny thought it was important to show that this isn’t some hippie radical who’s trying to revolutionize American society and destroy the American military. This is a conservative Republican, and he is just fighting for the right to die for his country.

And of course, he doesn’t win his legal battle against the military. But he sets in motion a history that takes several decades to resolve and ultimately leads to the end of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Q: What were some of the conflicts over tactics and priorities back then?

A: The gay Republican organizations I was looking at, they were all absolutely committed to defeating the Briggs Initiative, or Proposition 6, that’s put on the ballot in 1978 and would have made it illegal for any gay person in the state of California to work in the public school system.

But then after that, what’s next? What are we existing for? One of the ongoing debates was this question of, “Am I a gay Republican, or a Republican gay?”

The group that said they were Republican gays, or Republicans who happened to be gay, were much more conservative in their politics, and they didn’t believe in the notion of gay rights. They said, “That’s not something the federal government can grant me. I just want to be left alone.”

And that’s a conservative principle, right? Stay out of my bedroom, stay out of my wallet, stay out of my business. So they opposed any laws on the books that actively discriminated and they wanted to work to eliminate those laws, but they didn’t want any sort of granting of rights, and they didn’t want any sort of identity-based politics tied to their sexual identity.

Q: Many look at the Ronald Reagan years, and the reaction to HIV/AIDS, as an inflection point.

A: A more tolerant attitude was actually beginning to develop in the nation around homosexuality in the early ’80s. That was almost completely wiped away because of the HIV/AIDS crisis and the way that folks like Pat Buchanan and Gary Bauer, these hard-right conservatives within the Reagan administration, really pumped up a homophobic politics based on fears about the disease, to push back against the gay rights movement more broadly.

And so gay Republicans were caught in the crosshairs of that. They had been huge defenders of Reagan, they were big admirers of him both in ’80 and ’84, but by the late ’80s and into the 1990s, a lot of them who were still living were incredibly disillusioned with the Republican Party.

Q: In the 2000s, the marriage equality movement went from divisive to generally accepted.

A: We saw public attitudes changing so quickly, in such a short period of time. One of the things I found fascinating was that gay conservatives, or the larger terrain of gay men on the right — [including] libertarians and classical liberals and other folks who don’t necessarily even identify with a conservative label — were really fundamental in developing the intellectual argument for same-sex marriage. I’m thinking about people like Andrew Sullivan and Bruce Bawer and Jonathan Rauch.

They were talking about the right to same-sex marriage far before any gay Democrat was. They helped move the needle among enough independents and enough Republicans to make this a consensus position in the nation, and this was their strategy all along.

Q: How is the gay conservative movement evolving now, when we see most Republicans adjusting in the image of Donald Trump?

A: When I was finishing the book to go to press, this was when the “Don’t Say Gay” stuff was happening in my home state of Florida and was spreading across the nation. And gay Republicans have been in a lot of ways big supporters of Ron DeSantis on this, because they believe that it’s very specific, targeted legislation that only has to do with underage children. So I [asked people], “OK, maybe that’s the case for this particular legislation, but are you at all worried about where this is headed? Do you think this is the opening wedge of a broader assault on LGBTQ rights, including same-sex marriage?”

And all of them said, “No, no, no. Marriage is completely safe and protected. It’s written in stone.”

We have to secure progress through ongoing action, not taking it for granted and assuming that it’s just written in stone and can never be overturned. I mean, the Dobbs [decision overturning abortion rights] is a great example of this, and hopefully there won’t be more to come.

___

©2024 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Visit cqrollcall.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

This week, a coalition of election officials, businesses, and civic engagement, religious and veterans groups will make a national push to encourage hundreds of thousands of Americans to serve as poll workers in November’s presidential election.

Poll worker demand is high. With concerns over the harassment and threats election officials face, and with the traditional bench of poll workers growing older, hundreds of counties around the country are in desperate need of people who are willing to serve their communities.

On Aug. 1, there will be a social media blitz across Facebook, TikTok, X and other platforms that will encourage Americans to spend a few hours helping democracy. They’re being asked to wake up before sunrise, welcome voters to polling places, hand them a ballot, and make sure the voting process goes smoothly.

Many sites will see long lines and frustrated voters; they may face unexpected problems such as a power outage or a cantankerous voting machine. Nearly all will hand out scores of tiny “I Voted” stickers.

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission, a federal agency that works with election officials to improve the voting process, established the recruitment day in 2020. The commission offers a social media toolkit, full of suggested hashtags and cartoon video snippets, to help local election officials reach potential new workers. There are 100,000 or so polling places across the country, and the agency’s website shows potential workers how to sign up.

“Serving as a poll worker is the single most impactful, nonpartisan way that any individual person can engage in the elections this year,” said Marta Hanson, the national program manager for Power the Polls, one of the leading nonpartisan groups in the recruitment effort.

“Poll workers are the face of our democracy and the face of our elections,” she told Stateline.

Launched in the spring of 2020 during the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, Power the Polls gathered nonprofits and businesses together to help election workers close the gap left after many poll workers, who tend to be older, decided to no longer serve due to health concerns. Nearly half of the poll workers who served in 2020 were older than 60.

The group’s effort recruited 700,000 prospective poll workers nationwide.

“It is our vision that every voter has someone who looks like them and speaks their language when they show up at the polling place, and that election administrators have the people that they need,” Hanson said.

Polling places still need poll workers. This year Power the Polls is tracking more than 1,835 jurisdictions, spanning all 50 states and the District of Columbia, that the group identified through outreach to election administrators, monitoring local news and working with on-the-ground partners.

Of those jurisdictions, Hanson said, 700 towns and counties have “really, really high needs.”

For example, Boston needs 500 new poll workers by its Sept. 3 primary, while Detroit needs 1,000 more people to sign up before November. In small towns in Connecticut and rural California, officials are desperate to find 20 people to help. Los Angeles County is looking for people who speak one of a dozen languages that are prevalent in the area.

In suburban Cobb County just outside of Atlanta, Director of Elections Tate Fall said recruiting poll workers has been difficult, but not at the level she’s heard about in other communities nationally. Her team has found success at farmers markets, Juneteenth festivals and senior services events.

Among her challenges, she said, is that many of the poll workers who have signed up this year are new and need more training and practice before November. She also worries about reliability.

“It’s just we have a lot of people sign up and then they never mark their availability, or they only want to work in their precinct,” Fall said. “We need people that are a bit more flexible. But overall, we’re doing good.”

Over the past four years, local election officials have been bombarded by misinformation, harassment and threats fueled by the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

To ease voters’ skepticism about ballot security, officials will often welcome them into the elections office and give them a tour.

In Nevada, Carson City Clerk-Recorder Scott Hoen goes a step further by inviting skeptical residents to see the election process firsthand as a poll worker.

“Lo and behold, once they go through the cycle, they understand and they can touch, feel it, see it, know it, understand it, that we run a really good, tight election here in Carson City,” Hoen said. “I think they have a better comfort with me now doing that, teaching them what’s going on.”

In Marion County, Florida, Supervisor of Elections Wesley Wilcox has been worried about people who believe the 2020 election was stolen working as poll workers and potentially disrupting the voting process. But the required training to become a poll worker has alleviated some of that concern.

“We’ve had them, and they actually become some of our advocates in this process,” he said.

Joseph Kirk, the election supervisor for Bartow County, Georgia, said that, beyond learning about the voting system, being a poll worker is just fun.

Kirk tells voters that it’s an opportunity to take a day off work, get paid, meet new people, see the characters of the community and enjoy a good meal, since some poll workers bring in homemade food to share.

And for the high school government students he recruits in their classes, it’s a way to participate in elections as early as 16.

“It’s a community,” he said. “And being part of it is really special.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

©2024 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

MEXICO CITY — Speaking in Guatemala City on her first foreign trip as vice president, Kamala Harris issued a stern message to Central Americans.

“I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border,” she said. “Do not come. Do not come.”

Her 2021 remarks were widely scorned by rights advocates as arrogant and out of touch with the complex mix of poverty, violence and other factors that drives people to leave their countries. Later, as border crossings surged, Harris’ words would be mocked by Republicans as evidence that the Biden administration had no plan when it came to halting migration.

The episode underscored the political pitfalls of an issue expected to play a key role in this year’s presidential race — and the formidable nature of the foreign policy portfolio that Harris had taken on at President Joe Biden’s request: addressing the root causes of migration from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

It was an unwinnable assignment that Harris never wanted and never fully embraced. And while she claimed some accomplishments — including coaxing private companies to pledge billions of dollars of investment in Central America — she was criticized for her tepid interest in the issue and for visiting Latin America just twice.

“It was promising at first, but then disappointing,” said a Mexican official who met with Harris in 2021 when she and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador signed an agreement to forge new development programs in Central America.

Harris grew distant after the summit and stopped attending meetings, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity: “She quit.”

Now that she is the leading Democratic presidential candidate, Harris is facing renewed scrutiny over her record in the White House and her views on immigration more broadly.

Harris was never in charge of immigration enforcement or border policy. But that hasn’t stopped Republicans from painting her as a failed “border czar” who is to blame for a record surge in unauthorized migration under Biden.

“Let me remind you: Kamala had one job. One job. And that was to fix the border,” Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, said at the Republican National Convention this month. “Now imagine her in charge of the entire country.”

As for those on the left disappointed that Harris hasn’t been a stronger defender of migrants, some acknowledge that would be difficult in the current political climate, where concern over immigration has become a top issue for voters.

Angelica Salas, the executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, has known Harris for decades and said her comments in Guatemala belied a track record of standing up for migrants earlier in her political career.

“Why have you been put up to say this?” Salas remembers thinking. “This is not who you are.”

Manfredo Marroquín, an anti-corruption activist in Guatemala who met Harris there in 2021, said she seemed sympathetic to migrants, but that it was clear “she was under pressure to show a hard line on immigration.”

Harris, he said, had been saddled with the hopeless task of quickly curtailing migration from a long-troubled region where leaving to work in the U.S. has long been one of the only escapes from poverty.

He termed her assignment in the region “mission impossible.”

______

When Harris became the district attorney of San Francisco in 2004, she quickly established herself as a supporter of immigrant rights. She prosecuted an unlicensed contractor in a wage theft case involving day laborers and criticized proposed federal legislation that would have made helping people without legal status a felony.

She continued that bent as state attorney general, most notably opposing a Republican bill in Congress that would have withheld federal funding from California police who complied with the state’s sanctuary law that limited how long they could hold immigrants for transfer to immigration custody.

“When local law enforcement officials are seen as de facto immigration agents, it erodes the trust between our peace officers and the communities we are sworn to serve,” she wrote in a 2015 letter to U.S. senators. She also issued guidelines to California law enforcement agencies outlining “their responsibilities and potential liability for complying” with immigration authorities’ hold requests.

In her first official speech as a U.S. senator in 2017, Harris railed against President Donald Trump’s executive actions targeting immigrants. “I know what a crime looks like, and I will tell you: An undocumented immigrant is not a criminal,” she said. “The truth is the vast majority of immigrants in this country are hardworking people who deserve a pathway to citizenship.”

In budget talks, she favored beefing up border security with various forms of technology but called expanding the border wall “ridiculous.”

She was the first Senate Democrat to announce she would withhold support from any deal that didn’t include a fix for DACA, the Obama-era program that protects immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from deportation, and which Trump had targeted. She introduced bills to increase oversight of immigrant detention centers and halt funds for new facilities, as well as to provide legal representation for immigrants in deportation proceedings.

As she campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination ahead of the 2020 election, she was firmly to the left of Biden and many of her rivals on immigration issues. She made headlines when she said that, as president, she would consider overhauling the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. At the time, some on the left were advocating that it be abolished.

By the time Harris and Biden entered the White House, a political crisis was brewing at the U.S.-Mexico border, with the number of migrants entering the country steadily rising.

Biden tapped Harris to lead a high-profile response that bet heavily on improving conditions in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, the so-called Northern Triangle. The White House wanted Harris to enlist governments and private companies to fund economic and social programs throughout the region.

Harris got to work, soliciting donations from various countries, including Ireland, Japan and South Korea. Her office announced initiatives by companies, including Nespresso, which pledged to expand its collaboration with small-scale coffee farmers in hopes that more economic opportunity would diminish the allure of heading north.

But Harris seemed wary. While Biden had enthusiastically taken the lead on diplomacy in Latin America when he served under President Barack Obama, traveling to the region 16 times during his eight years as vice president, Harris seemed to sense the political danger of being identified with such a divisive topic as immigration.

Amid Republican efforts to paint immigration as a threat, 55% of U.S. adults now believe that “large numbers of immigrants entering the United States illegally” are a critical threat to U.S. vital interests, according to a recent Gallup poll. The poll showed that immigration had surged to the top of the issues that voters cared most about — more than the economy or inflation.

_____

Harris’ fears were confirmed by the flak she received in Guatemala after warning migrants to stay home.

“For Guatemalans, ‘Do not come’ was similar to Trump constructing a wall,” said José Echeverría, the director of the Organización Movimiento Cívico Nacional, who was among the civic leaders who met with Harris on that trip. He said he was disappointed that White House officials never followed up with him and other community leaders.

After the visit, the vice president’s office announced an additional $170 million in U.S. aid for Guatemala, including funding for job-training, agricultural research, law enforcement reform and other initiatives.

But Marroquín, the anti-corruption activist, said aid and initiatives from private companies seldom reach the country’s needy as effectively as remittances sent from migrants abroad.

“This aid hardly impacts anyone in the communities — it’s not enough, it’s delayed, or it never arrives,” he said.

Will Freeman, a fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said even the best-intentioned programs struggle to address what drives migration.

“The root cause is the disparity in the labor markets between the U.S. and the Northern Triangle, and there’s no workable strategy that’s gonna close that gap,” Freeman said. “Do you think you’re gonna make $20-an-hour jobs common in Guatemala?”

Still, Freeman said Harris’ approach was a welcome shift from the Trump administration, which withheld aid from Central American countries in 2019 in retaliation for what he called their lack of help in stanching the flow of migrants to the U.S. border.

“The Trump administration basically treated these countries as, you know, the source of a problem,” Freeman said. “Their entire policy was punitive.”

He and others also applauded Harris’ efforts to fight corruption and promote democracy — which were not priorities for Trump.

Harris shunned Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who after leaving office was arrested, extradited to the U.S. and sentenced to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking. She did the same with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who defied the constitution to stay in power a second term and alarmed civil rights advocates with widespread arrests and detentions as part of a crackdown on gangs.

When Guatemalan anti-corruption crusader Bernardo Arévalo won his country’s presidential race last year, the White House fought efforts by his political enemies to bar him from taking office. But when he finally took office, many Guatemalans were disappointed that Harris skipped his inauguration.

The results of Harris’ work are difficult to measure, analysts say.

The three countries in Harris’ portfolio showed significant drops in annual migration, from more than 700,000 border arrests in the 2021 budget year to fewer than 500,000 in 2023.

But total apprehensions at the border during the Biden presidency hit record numbers, with 2.2 million in 2022.

The peak during the Trump administration was 850,000 in 2019, though experts say the Biden figures undoubtedly include more people who crossed the border multiple times, thanks to a pandemic-era policy that rapidly returned migrants to Mexico, from where they could try again.

The increase during the Biden years was fueled by people fleeing Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti, who together accounted for 583,000 border arrests in 2023.

Some say the administration miscalculated, choosing a narrow strategy that failed to anticipate the shifting nature of migration. “Migration was becoming this completely different thing,” Freeman said.

Amid growing criticism about the border from Republicans but also from Democratic leaders in blue states such as New York, where hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers arrived in recent years, Biden enacted an executive order June 4 limiting asylum access at the southern border.

Since then, overall arrests of migrants have decreased by more than half, reaching the lowest point since Biden took office.

Immigration agents arrested fewer than 84,000 people in June, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which was lower than the 95,000 arrests in June 2019, the last year before the pandemic.

“Border crossings are lower today than when the previous administration left office,” Biden said in an Oval Office address on Wednesday about his decision to drop his run for reelection.

_____

Since Harris became the leading Democratic candidate, she has avoided the topic of migration.

But Rep. Adam B. Schiff, a California Democrat running for Senate, said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that Harris will be able to push back effectively on the Republican criticisms of her record — and the Biden administration’s record — on immigration.

“She can articulate what she and the president are doing to secure the border, to beef up resources, about how in fact Donald Trump was the one who tried to kill any work that might have come out of Congress on the issue,” he said.

Harris, who like Schiff is a former prosecutor, has “a case to make” about how Republicans “have demonstrated they have no interest in solving the problems at the border,” Schiff said.

“They only have an interest in exploiting them,” he added.

It’s clear that Harris campaign messaging on immigration will be distinct from that of Trump. The Republican Party’s official platform says the next Trump administration will “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history,” removing “millions of illegal migrants.”

But given the electorate’s concerns about illegal immigration, it remains to be seen how far Harris will go in the other direction.

Salas, the California activist, remembers Harris as a fearless leader who championed immigrant rights during the toughest moments of the Trump administration. “She told us we could depend on her,” Salas recalled.

She was disappointed when, as vice president, Harris’ voice on the issue suddenly became “muted.”

If Harris wins the presidency, Salas wants her to “be bold on executive action,” using her power to defend immigrants in the same way Trump used his power to target them. She also wants Harris to push for immigration reform to regularize the status of undocumented migrants, many of whom have lived in the U.S. for decades.

“I know her and I know how competent and knowledgeable she is on this issue,” Salas said. “I saw how much she fought for us when we truly needed somebody that would stand up for us.”

_____

(Los Angeles Times staffer writer Noah Bierman in Washington and special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in Mexico contributed to this report. Linthicum and McDonnell reported from Mexico City, Castillo from Washington and Rector from San Francisco.)

___

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

AMBLER, Pa. (AP) — Democrat Josh Shapiro had a dual message for enthusiastic voters in suburban Philadelphia this week, telling them Kamala Harris belongs in the White House — and then reminding them of all he’s done as governor of battleground Pennsylvania. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, likewise, told voters in Georgia that Harris has the makings of “a great president” — and then highlighted the elections he’s won as a Democrat in Republican territory.

The two governors were demonstrating a time-honored tradition in presidential campaigns: Summertime auditions from vice presidential contenders who walk the line between open self-promotion and loyal advocacy for the potential boss.

Vice President Harris, the likely Democratic nominee, appears intent on making a choice that she’s comfortable with personally and that can expand her electoral appeal in a matter of days. Her campaign has been vetting about a dozen potential running mates, according to people familiar with the search process. Shapiro and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly are seen as among the front-runners, according to the people.

Three people familiar with the vice president’s plans said Tuesday that she and her yet-to-be-named running mate would begin traveling to battleground states next week — suggesting that a decision could be coming soon. The people said they didn’t know who her pick would be or which states Harris could visit. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details that haven’t been made public.

In the meantime, Harris advisers, led by former Attorney General Eric Holder, have been combing through reams of paperwork submitted by potential running mates, while the candidate herself is holding personal conversations with the finalists, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Harris, according to another person familiar with the matter, is seeking someone with executive experience who can also serve as a governing partner. Notions of a so-called short list have not stopped those on the Democrats’ broader national bench from finding the spotlight.

“I’m not going to talk about the interactions I’ve had with the campaign,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker declared recently on MSNBC. He added, though: “Let’s just say I’m aware that the vetting process is quite an in depth one.” Then he listed his accomplishments, offering that he was the only Midwestern governor to raise his state minimum wage to $15 per hour.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, once held out as an ideal nominee if Biden bailed out, has said, more or less, that she’s not a contender. But she appeared Monday with Shapiro in Pennsylvania and mused on MSNBC last week that “two women on the ticket would be exciting.”

Harris would be the first woman, first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to serve as president. Many Democrats have argued she should balance her ticket both demographically and politically.

Dems’ VP list has notable differences

Shapiro, 51, is among the most popular U.S. governors, winning his 2022 election in a rout over a Trump-endorsed Republican. He’s an outspoken supporter of abortion rights who has won three statewide elections in Pennsylvania. His speaking style draws comparisons to former President Barack Obama. But he has taken flak from the left for his support for Israel’s war on Hamas, a private school voucher program and natural gas infrastructure.

His allies argue that he would help Harris win Pennsylvania, complicating if not blocking Republican Donald Trump’s path to an Electoral College majority.

Like all contenders, Shapiro sidesteps questions about the vetting process and stresses Harris should not be pressured. But he’s mentioned more than once that he’s known her for nearly two decades.

Beshear stands out in a heavily Republican state. During his weekend stop in Georgia, he talked of winning votes in “tough counties” but emphasized liberal bona fides: “I am a proud pro-union governor. I am a proud pro-choice governor. I am a proud public education governor. I am a proud pro-diversity governor.”

Closest in age to JD Vance among the Democrats’ possibilities, Beshear openly mocks Trump’s understudy for presenting himself as a son of Appalachia. “I mean, there’s a county that JD Vance says he’s from in Kentucky – and I won it by 22 points last November,” he said.

Back home in Frankfort recently, Beshear played down the importance of being from a battleground, saying, “About every successful ticket going back to 2000 did not have someone in a swing state.”

Of course, sometimes the spotlight can produce mistakes. Twice in Georgia, Beshear mispronounced Harris’ first name as “Kah-MAH-lah,” rather than the correct “KAH-mah-lah.”

Beshear and Shapiro were both state attorneys general, like Harris, before becoming governors. But their tenures did not overlap considerably with Harris’ service in California. She worked more closely with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper during his days as an attorney general, but Cooper on Monday said he had opted not to be considered for vice president.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, 60, is a favorite of some progressives. He brings an atypical national political resume: He was a non-commissioned Army officer, public school teacher and state high school championship football coach before entering politics. Before being elected governor, he was one of the last white Democrats in Congress to represent a mostly rural, small-town House district — a notable juxtaposition for Harris, the Bay Area Californian.

“She will make the best choice she’s going to,” Walz said Sunday on CNN, a day after Trump held a mass rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota. “One way or another, she is going to win in November, and that’s going to benefit everyone,” Walz said, including “a lot of those folks who were out in St. Cloud with the (former) president.”

Kelly, 60, is the only top contender in Congress. He boasts an impressive military resume and experience as an astronaut. He has strong Latino support locally and solid relationships with Arizona officials along the U.S.-Mexico border. That balance could give him credibility on immigration policy as Republicans frame high numbers of migrant border crossings as a national crisis.

But Kelly has had to shore up his credentials with labor, a key Democratic faction. He took heat from union leaders because he was one of just a handful of Democrats who did not sponsor the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would make it easier to organize workers. He said at the time he supported the goals but had concerns. Following pressure this month, he now says he would vote for the bill if it came up for a vote.

Everyone has an opinion

Harris is expected to announce her pick in time for Democratic delegates to ratify her decision in a virtual nominating vote that could conclude by Aug. 7. Whatever her timetable, the media and campaign circuit is allowing plenty of Democrats additional time in the spotlight.

In the meantime, everyone seems to have an opinion.

Steven Benjamin, the White House director of public engagement, laughed as he told reporters on Air Force One on Monday that his office has received thousands of recommendations from around the country.

Donna Brazile, who managed Democrat Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 2000 and was instrumental in urging Biden to pick Harris in 2020, said the selection process involves “a lot of noise” that underplays the complexity of the decision.

“The most important stage is what the lawyers will do to you,” she said, with a laugh and emphasizing the seriousness. “It’s worse than a dental hygiene check. … Before you get to suitability and other factors, before it gets to political people like me, they’ve done a forensic examination of your life.”

___

Barrow reported from Cumming, Georgia. Associated Press reporters Zeke Miller and Will Weissert in Washington, Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina; Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Bruce Schreiner in Frankfort, Kentucky; Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix; and Colleen Long aboard Air Force One contributed.

“My daughter said whoever is running TikTok is ‘fire,’” Ken Ulman, the chair of Maryland’s Democratic Party, said of the Harris campaign’s account.

Some young Republican voters also are fired up about having millennial JD Vance, 39, as the vice president pick on Donald Trump’s ticket.

“It’s very exciting for someone who is formally officially a young Republican — we age out at 40 — to be on the ticket … to see someone from their generation who they relate to,” said Jackie Sackstein, the chair of Maryland Young Republicans.

A poll from NPR, PBS News and Marist conducted among 1,309 adults July 22 found 39% of millennials and Gen Z believe Biden made the right decision in choosing to drop out of the presidential race, and that 43% of members of both generations said they are more likely to vote in November. The poll also found that 28% of millennials and Gen Z have a favorable impression of Vance.

Both sides are aiming to capture the youth vote. For Harris, 59, the effort has taken off on social media, attracting viewers of all ages.

Ulman, a member of Gen X, has found himself immersed in the online political universe forged by millennials and Gen Z, where videos of news conferences have a chartreuse tint reminiscent of pop singer-songwriter Charli XCX’s “brat” album cover and Harris’ viral quote about falling out of a coconut tree is remixed with pop music.

The quote comes from a comment Harris, now the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, made at the White House in 2023: “My mother used to — she would give us a hard time sometimes — and she would say to us, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.’”

In a TikTok video, Charli XCX described “brat” as “that girl who is a little messy and likes to party, and like maybe says some dumb things sometimes; who, like, feels herself but then like also maybe has a breakdown, but kind of like parties through it, and is very honest — very blunt — a wee bit volatile; yeah, but does like dumb things. But it’s brat. You’re brat. That’s brat.”

“I, over the last couple of days, have learned like many Americans what ‘brat’ means,” Ulman said. “We’re motivated by young people getting fired up, and it’s pushing all of us.

Ulman called the newfound excitement among young voters “infectious” and “a new moment.” Many of them were disenchanted with Biden, 81, not only because of his age, but also because of a misalignment among his policy and their expectations. Younger voters, who tend to skew liberal, have expressed concerns about his administration’s handling of climate change, student loan debt and the Israel-Hamas war among other issues.

According to the NPR, PBS News and Marist poll, 47% of millennials and Gen Z would vote for Harris over former President Donald Trump, 78, who polled at 42% between the two generations. Over 75% of voters under 35 believe Harris should be the Democratic nominee.

Harris has yet to officially receive the party’s nomination, which will be decided at the Democratic National Convention next month, and she has just under 100 days to plead her case to voters.

Henry Snurr, the chair of Young Democrats of Maryland, said there has been a sense of appreciation toward the president for handing leadership over to a new generation.

“It’s not just that she’s a breath of fresh air — she’s like a whirlwind of fresh air,” Snurr said. “We’re still ridin’ with Biden, it’s just that Kamala is driving right now.”

The state Democratic Party is sending 118 delegates to the national convention in Chicago next month. According to Ulman, 35% of them are 35 or under. Snurr said 2024 was the first instance “in a long time” that Maryland’s Democratic Party reached its youth demographic goal for DNC delegates.

On the other side, younger Republicans in Maryland said they aren’t concerned about Harris’ candidacy and appreciate how easy it has been to rally support for Trump and his running mate, Ohio U.S. Rep. JD Vance, among two very online generations.

“They are from the same administration, they have basically supported the same policies,” Sackstein, the chair of Maryland Young Republicans, said of Biden and Harris. “It’s the same message they have to defend.”

She is, however, excited about the prospect of Vance serving as vice president. Vance has followed Trump in focusing his messaging on the president’s age and long tenure in Washington, D.C.

“When I was in the fourth grade, a career politician by the name of Joe Biden supported NAFTA — a bad trade deal that sent countless good jobs to Mexico,” Vance said during his speech at the Republican National Convention. “When I was a sophomore in high school, that same career politician named Joe Biden gave China a sweetheart trade deal that destroyed even more good, American, middle-class manufacturing jobs.”

Harris was originally set to debate Vance in the lead-up to November’s general election. He will now face her vice presidential pick, which her campaign has yet to announce.

While Harris is younger than both Trump and Biden, Sackstein noted that she still isn’t from the generation of young voters headed to the polls in November.

Ahead of Biden’s announcement, Snurr said the Young Democrats’ messaging to young voters homed in on his record regarding issues that younger generations care about deeply — like housing affordability and lowering health care costs and student debt — and reminding voters what’s at stake under a second Trump administration.

“We are seeing what the other side is trying to do, which is literally taking rights away that their parents and grandparents had that they no longer have,” Snurr said of the Republican Party.

The passion infused into a younger voter base by Harris’ candidacy could allow the Democratic Party to focus its energy on races down the ticket, including Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks’ campaign for U.S. Senate, which is at risk of being in Republican control this election cycle.

“The energy will absolutely benefit every Democrat running for office in 103 days,” Ulman said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the fact that President Joe Biden, born in 1942, is a member of the Silent Generation and that Vice President Kamala Harris is a baby boomer who identifies as a Gen Xer. An earlier version listed the wrong generations due to an editing error.

Two days after President Joe Biden signed a sweeping executive order on artificial intelligence last year, Vice President Kamala Harris brought the wonky document to a global AI summit, telling an international audience what set the U.S. apart in its approach to AI safety.

In an event meant to address the potential catastrophes posed by futuristic forms of AI, Harris made waves by pivoting to present-day concerns — and the need to codify protections quickly without stifling innovation.

“When a senior is kicked off his healthcare plan because of a faulty AI algorithm, is that not existential for him?” Harris told a crowd in London last November. “When a woman is threatened by an abusive partner with explicit deepfake photographs, is that not existential for her?”

Now, she’s running for president and her chief opponent, former President Donald Trump, has said he wants to “cancel” the Biden order. Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, also brings his own views on AI, which are influenced by his ties to some Silicon Valley figures pushing to limit AI regulation.

AI’s growing visibility in everyday life has made it a popular discussion topic but hasn’t yet elevated it to a top concern for American voters. But this could be the first presidential election where the candidates are crafting competing visions on how to guide American leadership over the fast-developing technology.

Here are the candidates’ records on AI:

Trump’s approach

Biden signed his AI executive order last Oct. 30, and soon after Trump was signaling on the campaign trail that, if re-elected, he’d do away with it. His pledge was memorialized in the platform of this month’s Republican National Convention.

“We will repeal Joe Biden’s dangerous Executive Order that hinders AI Innovation, and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology,” says Trump’s platform. “In its place, Republicans support AI Development rooted in Free Speech and Human Flourishing.”

The Trump campaign didn’t respond to a requests for more details.

Trump didn’t spend much time talking about AI during his four years as president, though in 2019 he became the first to sign an executive order about AI. It directed federal agencies to prioritize research and development in the field.

Before that, tech experts were pushing the Trump-era White House for a stronger AI strategy to match what other countries were pursuing. In 2017, not long before Google quietly introduced a research breakthrough helping to set the foundation of the technology now known as generative AI, then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin brushed aside concerns about AI displacing jobs, saying that prospect was so far in the future that “it’s not even on my radar screen.”

That perspective later shifted, with Trump’s top tech adviser telling corporate leaders in 2018 that AI-fueled job displacement is “inevitable” and that “we can’t sit idle, hoping eventually the market will sort it out.” The 2019 order called on federal agencies to “protect civil liberties, privacy and American values” in applying AI technologies, and to help workers gain relevant skills.

Trump also in the waning weeks of his administration signed an executive order promoting the use of “trustworthy” AI in the federal government. Those policies carried over into the Biden administration.

Harris’ approach

The debut of ChatGPT nearly halfway through Biden’s presidential term made it impossible for politicians to ignore AI. Within months, Harris was convening the heads of Google, Microsoft and other tech companies at the White House, a first step down a path that brought leading developers to agree to voluntary commitments to ensure their technology won’t put people’s rights and safety at risk.

Then came Biden’s AI order, which used Korean War-era national security powers to scrutinize high-risk commercial AI systems but was mostly directed at safeguarding the government’s use of the technology and setting standards that could foster commercial adoption. Unlike the European Union, however, the U.S. still has no broad rules on AI — something that would require Congress to pass.

Harris already brought to the White House a deep understanding of Silicon Valley, having grown up and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area and later served as California’s attorney general, where she forged relationships with some tech leaders, said Alondra Nelson, former director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Even before ChatGPT, Nelson led the White House efforts to draft a blueprint for an AI “bill of rights” to guard against the technology’s potential harms. But it was the speech at the Global Summit on AI Safety in London where Harris brought all those threads together and “articulated to the world what American AI strategy was,” Nelson said.

Harris said she and Biden “reject the false choice that suggests we can either protect the public or advance innovation.” And while acknowledging a need to consider existential threats to humanity, Harris emphasized “the full spectrum of AI risk.”

“She kind of opened the aperture of the conversation about potential AI risks and harms,” Nelson said.

Vance and the VCs

Trump’s pick of the former venture capitalist Vance as running mate added a new element to the differences between the campaigns. So did Trump’s newfound endorsements from a group of AI-focused tech leaders including Elon Musk and the venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.

Vance has acknowledged some harmful AI applications, but said at a July Senate hearing that he worries that concern is justifying “some preemptive overregulation attempts that would frankly entrench the tech incumbents that we already have.”

Andreessen, who sits on the board of Meta Platforms, has criticized a provision of Biden’s order that requires government scrutiny of the most powerful and ostensibly risky AI systems if they can perform a certain number of mathematical calculations per second.

On a podcast with business partner Horowitz explaining their support of Trump, Andreessen said he was concerned with “the idea that we’re going to deliberately hamstring ourselves through onerous regulations while the rest of the world lights up on this, and while China lights up on this.”

Horowitz read aloud the RNC call to repeal Biden’s order, saying “that sounds like a good plan to me” and noting that he and Andreessen had discussed the proposals with Trump at a dinner.

Trump met with another group of VCs in a video podcast in June, sharing their view that AI leadership will require huge amounts of electricity — a perspective he shared again on the RNC stage where he said it will require “twice the electricity that’s available now in our country.” It was his sole mention of AI in the 92-minute speech.

Are they that different on AI?

Much is still unknown, including to what extent either Harris or the Trump-Vance ticket will heed the opinions of their competing wings of Silicon Valley support.

While the rhetorical differences are sharpening, “there’s a lot of similarity” between how the Trump and Biden administrations approached AI policy, said Aaron Cooper, senior vice president of global policy for BSA The Software Alliance, which advocates for software companies including Microsoft.

Voters haven’t yet heard much detail about how a Harris or second Trump administration would change that.

“What we’ll continue to see as the technology develops and as new issues arise, regardless of who’s in the White House, they’ll be looking at how we can unleash the most good from AI while reducing the most harm,” Cooper said. “That sounds obvious, but it’s not an easy calculation.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump released new television advertisements on Tuesday as part of a multimillion dollar battle to gain the upper hand in this year’s reshaped campaign.

The Harris advertisement, which is a minute long and describes her as “fearless,” serves as a highlight reel of her political career dating back to her days as a courtroom prosecutor in California. The likely Democratic nominee, who is less well known than Trump, is racing to introduce herself to voters after being thrust to the top of the ticket when President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid a little more than a week ago.

“This campaign is about who we fight for,” Harris says in the advertisement, which is running during the Olympics, the Bachelorette, the Daily Show and other popular programs.

Her campaign said it’s the first spot in a $50 million advertising push ahead of the Democratic National Convention, which starts on Aug. 19 in Chicago.

Meanwhile, Trump is trying to define Harris in his own way. The Republican nominee’s half-minute advertisement targets her work on migration issues, dubbing her the “border czar” and blaming her for illegal crossings into the United States. After displaying headlines about crime and drugs, the video brands Harris as “Failed. Weak. Dangerously liberal.”

Border crossings hit record highs during the Biden administration but have dropped more recently.

The Trump campaign has so far reserved $12.2 million in television and digital ads through the next two weeks, according to data from the media tracking firm AdImpact.

The organization did not have updated figures for the Harris campaign on Tuesday morning.

The poll found Harris has 48% to Trump’s 46% among likely voters.

The result is within the survey’s margin of error, making the results a statistical tie.

Among a slightly larger pool of all voters, not just those seen as likely to vote, the poll finds Harris and Trump tied at 46%.

The campaign is still in flux. Harris’ campaign began on July 21, immediately after President Joe Biden said he would end his reelection campaign.

Since then, in Florida and across the country, Democrats have reported enthusiastic support for their new candidate as Republicans have switched gears from opposing Biden to opposing Harris.

“I think it shows that we are a pretty divided country. Part of the deficit for Biden was with Democratic enthusiasm. At least for now, it appears that Harris has captured much of the Democratic base and returned the race to basically a dead heat,” Kevin Wagner, an FAU political scientist, said via text.

Wagner — who also is co-director of FAU’s PolCom Lab, a collaboration of the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies and Department of Political Science, which conducted the poll — said the numbers show “how much Biden was dragging the ticket.”

Demographic breakdowns:

— American voters quickly assumed their partisan positions. Among Democratic likely voters surveyed, Harris has support of 82%. Among Republicans, Trump has support of 87%. Independent likely voters are closely divided, with 45% for Harris and 43% for Trump. “The presidential race really shows how much partisan identity drives our choices. This has become another election that will be decided by who turns out their voters better,” Wagner said.

— There is a gender gap. Among women, Harris is at 50% and Trump at 43%. Among men, Harris has 45% and Trump is at 49%.

— Democrats have touted Harris’ appeal to younger voters. The Florida Democratic Party put out an email blast Tuesday morning that proclaimed, “The youth vote will decide the election.”

That doesn’t show up in the FAU poll. Among likely voters younger than 50, Harris is at 41% to 49% for Trump. Among likely voters 50 and older, Harris is at 52% and Trump is at 44%.

Wagner said the breakdowns by age are large groups that may not best assess the views of the youngest voters. And, he said, younger voters often are one of the last groups to focus on an election.

A week ago, an FAU national poll found 49% for Trump, the Republican nominee, to 44% for Harris, among likely voters. It’s not a direct comparison, since the poll released on July 23 was conducted immediately after the conclusion of the Republican National Convention with questioning halted immediately after Biden dropped out. So the matchup was hypothetical, without people actually seeing the rollout of her campaign.

When likely voters were given the additional choice in the new poll of independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., he gets 8% in a three-way matchup.

With Kennedy in a hypothetical matchup, Harris is at 44% and Trump at 43%.

Another test

The poll included a generic question asking people which party they’d vote for in fall elections for U.S. House of Representatives.

Likely voters favored the Democrat over the Republican 47% to 42%, a five-point advantage for Democrats, and among all voters a Democrat was ahead 46% to 42%, a four-point advantage.

A week earlier, Republicans had a one-point advantage among likely voters, and Democrats had a one-point advantage among all voters.

Wagner said the small Democratic lead in the latest survey is a “good measure that Harris’ candidacy has brought the base back and will likely help down ballot. This is one of the reasons so many elected Dems wanted Biden to step aside.”

Favorability

Harris was viewed favorably by 53% of voters and unfavorably by 44%, which is a net favorability rating of 9 percentage points.

Among Democrats, 87% viewed her favorably, compared to 17% of Republicans and 48% of independents.

Trump was viewed favorably by 49% of voters and unfavorably by 50%, a net negative of 1 point.

Among Democrats, 19% viewed him favorably, compared to 86% of Republicans and 43% of independents.

Biden departure

Many voters had positive emotional reactions to Biden’s decision to end his reelection and Harris taking his place, the survey found.

Asked about Biden being out and Harris being in, 20% of voters expressed excitement, 18% joy/happiness, 18% fear, 9% pride, 7% sadness and 7% anger.

Comparisons:

• Democrats — 33% expressed excitement, 24% joy/happiness, 16% pride, 7% fear, 7% sadness and 3% anger.
• Republicans — 32% expressed fear, 12% anger, 11% joy/happiness, 10% sadness, 7% excitement; and 3% pride.
• Independents — 19% expressed excitement, 17% joy/happiness, 16% fear, 8% anger, 7% pride and 5% sadness.

Republicans (26%) and independents (28%) were much more likely than Democrats (11%) to say they didn’t know how they felt.

Fine print

The poll of 997 U.S. registered voters was conducted July 26 to July 27 by Mainstreet Research for Florida Atlantic University’s PolCom Lab, which is a collaboration of the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies and Department of Political Science.

The survey used an online panel and automated phone calls to reach other voters. It has a margin of error equivalent to plus or minus 3 percentage points for the full survey of Democrats, Republicans and independents.

However, the margin of error for smaller groups, such as Republicans or Democrats or men and women, would be higher because the sample sizes are smaller.

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.

ATLANTA (AP) — Little more than a week ago, Georgia appeared to be slipping out of the Democrats’ reach: President Joe Biden’s campaign pledged to concentrate more on holding the Midwestern “blue wall” states and indicated they might be willing to forsake “Sun Belt” battlegrounds.

But now that Biden has bowed out of the race and Kamala Harris is the likely nominee, Democrats are expressing new hopes of an expanded electoral map and welcoming the vice president to the state that delivered Biden his narrowest victory margin in 2020 with a show of political force intended to signal a new landscape against Republican Donald Trump.

The roughly 8,000-capacity basketball arena at Georgia State University was filled to its rafters with thousands of voters waving signs, dancing to the Harris campaign soundtrack and celebrating an atmosphere that would not have been possible just 10 days ago, with the party reeling over whether the 81-year-old Biden would remain in the race after a dismal performance magnified concerns about his age and abilities.

“This is like Barack Obama 2008 on steroids for me,” said Mildred Hobson Doss, a 59-year-old who came downtown from suburban Lilburn. “I would have voted for President Biden again. But we are ready.”

Harris is hoping a large rally, featuring a performance by hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion, will help affirm her campaign’s momentum. The campaign argues that Harris’ appeal to young people, working-age women and non-white voters has scrambled the dynamics in Georgia and other states that are demographically similar, from North Carolina to Nevada and Arizona.

“The energy is infectious,” said Georgia Democratic Chairwoman Nikema Williams, a congresswoman from Atlanta. “My phone has been blowing up. People want to be part of this movement.”

In a strategy memo released after the president left the race, Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon, who held the same role for Biden, reaffirmed the importance of winning Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, a trio of industrial states that have formed the traditional Democratic blue wall.

But she also argued that the vice president’s place atop the ticket “opens up additional persuadable voters” and described them as “disproportionately Black, Latino and under 30” in places like Georgia.

“This campaign is about freedom,” said Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, who was there with his fellow Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff. “So the question is, do you want to be free? Or do you want to go back?”

“When you show up, we win.”

Republicans, who still control Georgia’s state government, counter that Biden’s lagging popularity and concern over higher consumer prices and immigration will transfer to Harris in the historically conservative state.

But they concede that the landscape suddenly looks much closer to 2020 – when Biden won by about 0.25 percentage points — than when Trump was riding high after the Republican National Convention and surviving an assassination attempt.

“Trump was going to win Georgia. It was over,” said Republican consultant Brian Robinson. “The Democrats have a chance here for a reset.”

And Trump is not taking chances. Earlier Tuesday, the former president announced that he would come to Atlanta on Saturday for a rally in the same Georgia State arena.

Robinson said Harris still has plenty of liabilities, including the progressive positions she took in her failed 2020 primary campaign and her various rhetorical stumbles. But he said Harris so far in this campaign has been “in command,” and if that continues, “we have a new ballgame and she will be competitive in Georgia.”

Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt dismissed Harris as “just as weak, failed and incompetent as Joe Biden” and said the vice president would have to explain her support of Biden administration policies that “hurt working families in Georgia over the past four years.”

The Harris campaign and Georgia Democratic officials have 24 offices across the state, including two added last weekend in metro Atlanta. Trump and the Republican National Committee opened their first Georgia offices only recently.

Democrats are betting that a combination of high turnout among traditional, core Democratic constituencies, as well as a strong showing in the suburbs and small pickups elsewhere, can be enough for Harris to carry Georgia.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, said in a recent interview that the best GOP campaigns can win comfortably in Georgia but bad efforts — combined with strong Democratic campaigns — lose. Kemp, for example, won reelection by 7.5 percentage points in 2022 over national Democratic star Stacey Abrams. Yet in the same election cycle, Georgians reelected Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock over his Republican challenger Herschel Walker, who was endorsed by Trump.

In recent elections, Democrats have held wide advantages in the core of metro Atlanta, where Jayapal spoke. The party also performed well in Columbus and Savannah, as well as some rural, majority-Black counties. But Republicans dominated in other rural areas and small towns and cities –- where Trump has held multiple rallies in recent years.

The fast-growing, diversifying Atlanta suburbs and exurbs offer the most opportunity for swings, especially from GOP-leaning moderates disenchanted with Trump.

For Harris, that means depending on voters as varied as Michael Sleister, a white suburbanite, and Allen Smith, a Black man who lives not far from downtown Atlanta.

Sleister, who considers himself an independent, has lived in Forsyth County for 35 years. “I’ve voted Republican many times in my life,” he said, but not since the GOP took a rightward turn during President Barack Obama’s administration.

“Now I see the Republican Party as representing a direct threat to my grandchildren,” he said, adding that he sees Trump “as just a horrible person.”

Smith is a 41-year-old Atlanta native who has become a first-time campaign volunteer since Harris became the likely nominee.

“I was driving when I heard the news about President Biden endorsing her, and I started pounding my fist — I decided right then I would do whatever I could to help her get elected,” Smith said.