Rome, Georgia
CNN
—
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will hold dueling events Saturday in Georgia as their rematch for the White House moves from an inevitable likelihood to an inescapable reality.
Biden will continue his post-State of the Union tour by heading to the Atlanta area as he embarks on a monthlong push to deliver his message directly to swing state voters. At nearly the same time, Trump will hold a rally in the state’s northwest corner as he ramps up his own political schedule with an eye toward the general election.
Their head-to-head appearances separated by about 60 miles of Georgia highway will offer an early window into the competing strategies for courting an electorate less-than-enthused about another Biden-Trump showdown. Few battlegrounds will be more closely watched than Georgia – where Biden won by less than 12,000 votes four years ago – for signs of how voters are responding to the outreach, making the Peach State a fitting kickoff to the eight-month fight ahead.
“Georgia has been ground zero on the national political landscape since 2018,” said Fred Hicks, a Democratic strategist based in Georgia. “It’s appropriate that this would be the first major stop after the State of the Union where the president is restarting his campaign, and where Donald Trump is trying to regain momentum.”
The two arrive in Georgia at a key turning point in the presidential race. Saturday’s rally marks Trump’s first since emerging as his party’s presumptive nominee after pushing former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to finally end her longshot presidential campaign, nearly sweeping the Super Tuesday nominating contests and picking up nine more delegates in Friday’s Republican caucus in American Samoa. His nomination could take another symbolic step toward becoming official on Tuesday when Georgia and three other states award their delegates.
Meanwhile, Biden’s rousing State of the Union address marked an unmistakable pivot toward the political challenge ahead. His nearly 70-minute speech did not mention Trump by name, but included multiple references to “my predecessor” and went to extraordinary lengths to set the stakes for the November election.
It’s the second-split screen appearance by the two men in as many weeks. Last month, Biden and Trump visited the US-Mexico border on the same day.
Saturday is the second in a line of trips anticipated this month as Biden’s team seeks to amplify the president’s State of the Union message and build on its infrastructure, kicking off what it’s calling the “I’m on Board” campaign. Biden visited a Philadelphia-area middle school on Friday.
Campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez told reporters Friday that the team is engaged in new efforts to “dramatically expand our volunteer engagement, scale up our battleground staff, launch our coalition groups, and invest in new paid media campaigns.”
There are plans for Biden and Harris to travel to every battleground state in the coming weeks, the campaign said. Next week, Biden will head to New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Michigan.
“Throughout this month of action, we will aggressively mobilize the diverse Biden-Harris coalition,” Rodriguez said.
That includes Saturday’s visit to Georgia, a state that has proved critical to Democrats winning the White House and the…
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