No member of the mostly enraptured audience at Enmarket Arena on Thursday better exemplified the hopes that Kamala Harris’ candidacy has aroused in many Georgians than Beverly Hollis-Breck, a “born and bred” Savannahian.
“This has been a long time coming,” the 60-something Hollis-Breck said of Harris, the first woman of color in the U.S. to win her political party’s presidential nomination. We’re not going back to “scuffling and struggling,” she said.
But as candidates and political operatives know all too well, hope and enthusiasm are one thing, getting people out to vote is another.
For that, you need a legion of door knockers, phone callers, and devoted supporters willing to stand on street corners and wave signs championing the ticket. That, in turn, requires organization and infrastructure.
Which is where the rub comes in for the Harris-Walz ticket in Coastal Georgia. Local Democratic Party committees in the region are, with a couple of notable exceptions, feeble and far outnumbered by Republicans in their counties.
For the Harris-Walz campaign, that means it must rely on their own operatives and a patchwork of grassroots community groups to rally support for their ticket in the mad dash to Election Day less than 70 days away.
“We are going to need all hands on deck, and that means that we can’t depend on any one individual group to deliver a vote,” said Patti Hewitt, the Democratic candidate for the 1 st District congressional seat held by Republican Earl “Buddy” Carter.
“We are going to have to get the voters that have stopped voting or have felt as if their vote is not counted, and that’s going to require people and groups who have proven roots and influence in their communities.”
Losing less
The Trump and Harris campaigns agree that the path to the White House runs through Georgia, with its 17 electoral votes.
Savannah Mayor Van Johnson has taken the significance of Georgia in the Nov. 5 election a step further , boasting that, “the lane to the White House goes through Savannah.”
The Harris-Walz campaign is open about its goal in Coastal Georgia. While Chatham boasts the largest number of Democratic voters outside metro Atlanta and Liberty County is a party stronghold, the region as a whole is ruby red in presidential elections.
While Donald Trump has fared poorly in Chatham County, losing to Hillary Clinton by 15% of the vote in 2016 and 19% of the vote to Joe Biden four years later, he won Coastal Georgia by 15% over Clinton and by 12% of the vote over Biden.
The Harris campaign’s aim isn’t to win more votes than Donald Trump here in November; it’s to lose by a lower margin.
That, in addition to increased votes from metro Atlanta and other Democratic strongholds in state, is the best route to victory, according to a local Democratic political operative.
“We’ve gotten used to being ignored by candidates,” state Rep. Al Williams from Midway said. “But it’s to their peril because the metro Atlanta area cannot win this election. It’s going to take Democratic votes throughout the state.”
‘Lean into our base’
A successful blueprint for softening those margins in rural Georgia already exists.
Raphael Warnock won a special election for U.S. Senate seat in 2021 and a full term a year later by appealing to swing voters and driving up turnout among rural and Black voters in Coastal Georgia and elsewhere in the state. His campaign manager, Quentin Fulks, is now in directing Harris’ campaign in Georgia.
“I think that’s what you’re going to see her do,” Warnock said at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week about the presidential nominee.
“Lean into our base. Lean into the folks who would naturally support her. But also it’s important to talk to the people who are in the middle, and it’s important to talk to the Republicans.”
GOP dominance
To execute its “lose-less’ strategy, the Harris-Walz campaign is relying little on the local party committees up and down Georgia’s coast. It can’t afford to do otherwise.
The local committees have been enfeebled by years of neglect by the state Democratic Party or state party officials who view Coastal Georgia’s more affluent enclaves as mere sources of large checks, said local Democratic leaders interviewed for this story said.
They’ve also been weakened by the sheer scope of Republican dominance in local and state races in recent years and the inability of Democrats to bridge the gap between rural and urban areas of Coastal Georgia.
“The difference between a place like Chatham County and, say Ware County or some of our more rural counties, is bigger than we realize,” said Wade Herring, who ran unsuccessfully in 2022 for the 1 st District congressional seat held by Buddy Carter.
Instead the Harris campaign has set up field offices across the state and is relying on a patchwork of non-governmental organizations and single-issue groups to get out the vote.
The Harris campaign has 24 field offices with 190 full-time staff across Georgia. That includes seven field offices with 50 full-time staff in South Georgia.
By comparison, the Trump campaign currently has 12 field offices, with 300 field staff and 14,000 volunteers.
Black voters
Much of the focus of the Harris campaign in Coastal Georgia is on Black voters, with good reason.
In the 2020 Democratic primary, more than 57% of Democratic voters in Coastal Georgia were Black, while 32% were White. More than 62% of the voters were women, while 37% were men.
In terms of both race and gender, Black women were by far the largest group of Democratic voters (37%) in the region. White men were the lowest (12%).
To rally this critical bloc of support to the polls, the Democratic nominee’s supporters in Coastal Georgia are, for instance, holding a zoom call next week to discuss issues facing rural Black Americans and farmers.
That effort echoes the insistence by Fulks, Harris’ campaign manager in Georgia, that campaigning in rural communities was crucial to Warnock winning over Republicans in his successful Senate campaign.
Once again, voter registration also is moving center stage, with Liberty County members of elite Black fraternities and sororities known as the Divine Nine are undertaking voter outreach efforts in Liberty County.
Students at Savannah State University, Georgia’s oldest Black university, launched a voter registration campaign on Wednesday — another reminder that Warnock and Jon Ossoff largely owe their Senate seats not to the Georgia Democratic Party or to local Democratic committees.
They owe them, rather, to efforts started in 2018 by Stacy Abrams and her organization, Fair Fight Action, to mobilize the vote.
Great strides
There are early signs that the enthusiasm inspired by Harris’ candidacy may spur the institution-building that beleaguered Democratic Party committees in Coastal Georgia sorely need if they are to play a larger role in shaping the region’s politics.
Longtime Savannah-area Democrats said the Chatham County Democratic Committee has made great strides under the leadership of Aaron “Adot” Whitely. They also praise Mitzi Toth, chair of the Skidaway Island Democrats.
Still, attendance has boomed at the meetings of both local committees, as well as at meetings of local Young Democrats, since Harris became the party’s nominee, these Democrats said.
With fresh leadership and Harris’ candidacy, the fortunes of Coastal Georgia Democrats may now be shifting, starting with the November election, Herring said.
“I think people that might have not been paying attention or had resigned themselves not to voting are now paying attention and are excited about voting,” he said.
Rising to the occasion
For all the fervor that Harris’ candidacy has generated in Coastal Georgia, however, some longtime Democrats still advise caution. They still feel depressed after the soaring hopes and enthusiasm aroused by Stacy Abrams and her two, unsuccessful gubernatorial bids in 2018 and 2022.
Others described the needed work ahead.
“Where are the unions? Where’s the gay community? Where’s Planned Parenthood? Is anybody reaching out to these people?” one asked.
But it was hard for even cautious Democrats to pour cold water on the hopes and enthusiasm of those who gathered to hear Harris on Thursday.
Ashley Benson-Jaja, with two young children in tow, one wearing a tutu, said she was compelled to attend the rally by Harris’ support of reproductive rights and a sense that the candidate is doubling down on democracy.
“I feel proud to be an American again,” she said. “Harris rose to the occasion.”
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