First Lady Jill Biden delivered a speech in Columbus Monday supporting veterans and reiterating support for her husband to serve a second term, but the attention from the presidential campaign is unlikely to move the needle on a local level, according to political experts and local residents.
Georgia cemented its status as a swing state after narrowly electing Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 and then Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in a runoff election months later .
The 2024 presidential campaigns understand that Georgia could be decided by as few as 10,000 votes, or 100,000 votes at the most, according to Andra Gillespie, political science expert at Emory University.
This narrow margin of victory means the 2020 election could have easily gone the opposite way, she said, so campaigns have to look where they can find the votes needed to win.
“That requires an all-state strategy,” Gillespie said.
Outside of Atlanta, Columbus is another heavily Democratic place, she said, which makes it a natural location for the Biden campaign to try to maximize voter turnout. Other smaller cities like Macon, Augusta and Savannah should also expect to see an increased number of campaign visits this year.
“Georgia’s going to get this type of attention until the polling data starts to consistently say that one candidate is ahead by a statistically significant margin,” Gillespie said.
A spotlight on Columbus
Columbus residents Aliscia and Stanley Pettit-Selgon don’t typically follow politics very closely, and they didn’t have a preference between Biden and former President Donald Trump for the upcoming election, they told the Ledger-Enquirer. But they were happy to see Jill Biden taking time to visit Muscogee County.
“I think it’s a blessing to this community, there’s a lot of things that need to be worked on here,” Aliscia said. “So, for her to actually visit here, to really see what’s going on, is a blessing. It’s unique.”
The couple said they’re concerned about efficient public transportation, affordable housing, preserving Medicare and Social Security, and inflation.
“There’s really not enough money because inflation caused an increase in rentals, power and gas,” Stanley said.
Isaiah Patten, a military spouse whose wife works at Fort Moore, was also happy to hear Jill Biden visited the area. More campaign events in the area could benefit Columbus for more than just political reasons, he said. These types of events bring people out, Patten said, and can be good for businesses. It also puts a national spotlight on Columbus.
“For me, being here back from 2012 to 2014, Columbus has really come up a lot,” he said. ‘It’s starting to be more of an attractive area. I think this is a great hot spot.”
But not all residents were happy to see Biden in Columbus. Dozens of Trump supporters greeted her motorcade as it approached the Bibb Mill Event Center.
These types of campaign events are unlikely to impact the voting patterns of the areas that host rallies, Gillespie said. In the areas that Trump held campaign rallies in 2016, researchers didn’t see a significantly higher vote share for him compared to places where he didn’t make an appearance.
More testing needs to be done to determine if events persuade voters who are on the fence, she said, but events could excite a campaign in a local area by recruiting more volunteers. These volunteers could then go and find more voters.
“Ultimately, this election is going to be won and lost in the streets,” Gillespie said.
Veteran issues particularly important in Columbus
During Biden’s speech in Columbus, she criticized Trump’s rhetoric on service members and advocated for her husband’s record on veterans’ issues.
Earlier this week, she launched Veterans & Military Families for Biden, which is reported to be an outreach effort to military families .
With Fort Moore nearby, veterans account for about 14% of Muscogee County’s population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau . Veteran homelessness is another primary issue for Aliscia this year.
“I think it’s kind of bad because they’ve served our country for freedom and all kinds of stuff,” she said. “And they’re out here, homeless and struggling.”
Taking care of veterans should be an issue for any candidate running for any office, retired Lt. Col. Mac Plummer told the Ledger-Enquirer. Plummer, who is the treasurer of the National Infantry Association and on the executive committee of The Plummer Home, is more concerned about what politicians actually do for veterans rather than rhetoric on the campaign trail, he said.
His work with The Plummer Home focuses on assisting veterans facing homelessness. But despite hundreds of millions of dollars in grant funding to address the issues, Plummer said, veterans in Columbus don’t seem to see the money.
“We feel like it’s going to Augusta and Atlanta and Birmingham and Montgomery,” he said. “But it’s missing I-185. It’s not coming down our long cul-de-sac.”
Plummer does feel his organizations work well with Ossoff, Warnock and Rep. Sanford Bishop, but more work has to be done to bring more funding and resources for veterans to Columbus.
When it comes to the upcoming election, Plummer pledges to support whichever candidate seems to hold true to his values.
“It’s the motto of West Point,” Plummer said. “Duty, Honor, Country.”
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