Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that President Joe Biden won Georgia in the 2020 presidential election.
CUMMING, Ga. – In deep red Forsyth County, Georgia, about 500 Democratic volunteers and organizers came together on a hot, muggy Sunday morning with one goal in mind: Electing Vice President Kamala Harris as president this November.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear , one of Harris' most prominent potential running mates, channeled his own victories in the Bluegrass State to encourage the group.
"People ask me and I'm sure they ask you too: How do you do it? How do we win?" the Democratic governor told attendees at the opening of a new campaign office in Forsyth County. Harris was not at the gathering.
"We win by staying true to our values of compassion, of empathy, of doing right by our neighbors... We win by caring and fighting for every single vote in every single county," Beshear added. He also joked "This is not my first speech on the back of a pickup truck" as he stood on the vehicle.
Beshear won his first gubernatorial race in his deep-red home state in 2019 by less than half a percentage point and his second in 2023 by 5 percentage points – victories he said came down to the hard work of on-the-ground campaigning.
The Harris campaign is vetting him along with several other candidates, including Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Govs. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Tim Walz of Minnesota. She is expected to choose her vice presidential candidate by Aug. 7.
"She is tough and she is smart, and that's going to make her a good president," Beshear said at the campaign event. "But she's kind and she has empathy, and that's going to make her an absolutely great president."
Beshear slammed Trump's track record of "multiple bankruptcies and 34 felony convictions," and his choice of running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. Vance, grew up spending summers in rural Kentucky and rose to fame via his bestselling memoir "Hillbilly Elegy," but Beshear has repeatedly knocked the senator in recent days, saying Vance simply "ain't from" Kentucky.
The Kentucky governor on Sunday also reflected on the national debates raging in the 2024 presidential election, arguing "so much is on the line," including women's rights and control of the House and Senate.
The crowd wasn't deterred by the odds. Jennifer Ambler, who attended the office opening and is running for state representative in north Georgia's District 100, told USA TODAY that "Having a governor specifically from the South is a great idea. He would be a great choice to really be competitive in the South."
The campaign event comes one week after President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Harris to be the Democratic nominee for president.
Most major political figures in the Democratic Party quickly backed her. The day after Biden dropped out, enough delegates to the Democratic National Convention pledged to vote for her that she became the presumptive nominee.
Beshear, 46, is the twice-elected Democratic governor of a deep-red state that chose former President Donald Trump by almost 30 percentage points in 2016 and by almost 26 percentage points in 2020. Some political observers have said in recent days that Beshear's ability to win statewide demonstrates he could win support from some voters who might otherwise choose Trump this fall in pivotal swing states.
Georgia is considered a swing state in this presidential election, though it leans Republican. The state chose Biden by just .2 percentage points – just under 12,000 votes – in 2020, and Trump by around 5 percentage points in 2016.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Andy Beshear, one of Kamala Harris' potential VP picks, makes campaign stop in pivotal swing state
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