Kamala Harris to cap off bus tour today with rally in Savannah

Vice President Kamala Harris and running mate Tim Walz are set to end their Georgia bus tour across southeast Georgia with a rally in Savannah on Thursday afternoon.

Channel 2′s Richard Elliot is on his way to Chatham County where the Vice President hopes to drum up some support in her bid for the presidency.

We’ll have full coverage of the rally, starting on Channel 2 Action News at 4 p.m.

The bus tour kicked off on Wednesday where the duo visited Liberty County High School in Hinesville and the Sandfly barbecue restaurant outside Savannah.

Harris campaign communications director Michael Tyler said bus tours offer an “opportunity to get to places we don’t usually go (and) make sure we’re competing in all communities.”

The campaign is hoping the events to motivate voters in GOP-leaning areas who don’t traditionally see the candidates and hopes that the engagements drive viral moments that cut through crowded media coverage to reach voters across the country.

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Tyler said the campaign’s strategy of using informal engagements to reach voters has been consistent from when President Biden was on the ticket, but the nature of the events has shifted along with the candidates.

The Democratic strategy to peel off votes in Republican parts of the state has had some success before. Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s first Black senator, won reelection in 2022 by nearly 3 percentage points — while Biden carried Georgia by only a quarter percentage point about two years earlier — in part by venturing into the deepest red areas. The operatives involved in Warnock’s win are now on Harris’ campaign team.

The Georgia trip is a makeup visit from earlier in the month when the duo was set to embark on a seven-state swing tour introducing the new Democratic ticket. The North Carolina and Georgia legs of the trip got scrapped as Tropical Storm Debby battered the region.

Thursday’s rally will be a solo one for Harris. Walz will be campaigning in another state.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

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