Georgia on his mind
Former President Donald Trump is having a hard time dropping his grievances with Georgia. Four years after his baseless attempts to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory there, Trump doesn’t appear to have forgiven Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) for his failure to “find” enough votes to put the former president back in the White House.
In the meantime, Vice President Kamala Harris is surging. She has energized Democrats and made Georgia, which looked like it was trending back into safe Republican territory, a battleground once again. She has stumped through Atlanta and will return this week on her tour, introducing her running mate, who she will announce this morning.
Winning Georgia in 2024 doesn’t appear to be at the front of Trump’s mind, though, White House Reporter Haisten Willis wrote for us this morning. Over the weekend, Trump fired an attack on Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who combined to deny him inroads to challenge the 2020 election and have been steady critics of his continued efforts to disparage the electoral process in Georgia.
“Brian Kemp should focus his efforts on fighting crime, not fighting unity and the Republican Party,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Aug. 3. “He should be seeking unity, not retribution, especially against the man that got him the nomination through endorsement and, without whom, he could never have beaten Stacey Abrams.”
Kemp didn’t support Trump in his state’s primary in March, though he said he would “support the ticket” in November. However, it’s not clear if Trump’s attacks on him and his family could be enough to change his mind.
“My focus is on winning this November and saving our country from Kamala Harris and the Democrats — not engaging in petty personal insults, attacking fellow Republicans, or dwelling on the past,” Kemp responded to Trump’s Truth Social posts online. “You should do the same, Mr. President, and leave my family out of it.”
Georgia Republicans are likely to follow Kemp’s lead. The governor is incredibly popular at home. He smashed Stacey Abrams 53.4%-45.9% in 2022 after eking out a win over her in 2018 — with the help of Trump’s endorsement.
Abrams herself, of course, has a Trumpian history of calling into question election results in Georgia.
Fending off attacks on the security of the state’s elections, Georgia Republicans are growing weary of the focus on past contests instead of looking ahead to what they want to accomplish.
“The focus needs to be on defining the Democratic nominee and defeating her. Those are the two ‘Ds’ — define her and defeat her,” longtime Georgia Republican operative Alec Poitevint told Haisten. “It’d be OK with me if we do it in a dominating fashion, so three ‘Ds’ is all right with me. That’s what I’m telling people.”
And Trump fighting with the popular Kemp isn’t likely to win him any new voters while driving away fans of the governor.
“Trump is operating in grievance mode,” University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock told Haisten. “If he were operating in ‘expand your support’ mode, he wouldn’t be doing that. There is a component of the electorate who will vote for both Trump and Kemp, but many may be more enthusiastic for Kemp than Trump. … I don’t know that it drives those people into the Harris camp, but it hurts Trump if they decide to just skip the presidential ticket.”
Polling in the three weeks since Harris took the mantle from Biden is sparse, but the Real Clear Politics aggregate of polls in Georgia shows Trump clinging to a 0.8-point lead, with one poll showing Harris in the lead.
Click here to read more about Trump’s battles with Georgia Republicans.
Harris on recession watch
Monday wasn’t a good day to check in on your 401(k). Harris might have been fortunate she was cloistered in the Situation Room meeting with Biden and the National Security Council rather than stumping as financial markets were roiled by sell-offs and hair-on-fire concerns about an economic downturn.
Yesterday’s madness was preceded by a concerning jobs report that showed the economy adding just 114,000 jobs in July and unemployment inching up to 4.3%.
Economics and Business Reporter Zachary Halaschak had a good rundown yesterday walking us through the ups and, mostly, downs of the market response to Friday’s jobs report. This morning, he is up with a piece looking at what Monday’s madness could mean for Harris — and it doesn’t look good.
“While most economists still think a recession is unlikely, a lackluster employment report for July, which saw unemployment ticking up for the fourth month in a row, plus a massive stock sell-off on Monday, is raising concerns that the economy may quickly turn south,” he wrote. “Such a downturn would be a political bunker buster for the Harris campaign, which has gained steam in recent days.”
Republicans trying to tie Harris to the losses of the Biden-Harris administration have plenty of ammunition to use. They have gleefully used the vice president’s role as “border czar” to trash the huge spike in illegal immigration and general chaos at the southern border.
But there are fewer concrete ties between Harris and the economy to use than her efforts, or lack thereof, at the border.
In an election year, that might not matter. Voters have been voicing their concerns about the economy under Biden for years, which has been a driver in GOP optimism it can storm back into the White House — and probably win the Senate while expanding its majority in the House.
Harris being in power, and running for more, while the economy roars would be good for her campaign. The same can be said for her in the opposite direction, too.
“If this isn’t just a blip and becomes a broader and more severe economic problem, I think it dooms Harris,” Jason Roe, a veteran Republican consultant, told Zachary on Monday.
Possibly the most concerning item to come out of Friday’s jobs report was an unemployment rate-related recession indicator. No president wants to hear economists or voters talking about recessions, possible recessions, or recession indicators. Presidential candidates attached to the administration in the White House will like those conversations even less.
“The Friday jobs report triggered a major recession indicator, known as the Sahm rule, which is when the three-month moving average of the unemployment rate rises half a percentage point relative to its minimum point over the past year,” Zachary wrote. “The Sahm rule has signaled the start of all post-war recessions.”
While there isn’t a single government entity that will declare a recession, voters having another downturn in their minds could mean Harris is starting and ending her quest for the presidency in the worst-case scenario.
Click here to read more about what Monday’s downturn means for Harris.
Wild, wild, West of maps
In case the rules governing how district maps can be drawn weren’t confusing enough, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown a new wrench in the gears. Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana have all been subjects of questions about how Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has been applied to their district maps in recent years.
Now add Texas to that list.
Supreme Court Reporter Kaelan Deese took a deep dive into the Aug. 1 decision that “curtails what conservative critics argue is the Democrats’ misuse of the Voting Rights Act to create voting districts favoring their party in Galveston, Texas. This ruling has the potential to reshape the political landscape not just in the Lone Star State but also in Louisiana and Mississippi, states within the jurisdiction of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — potentially shifting numerous seats from Democrat to Republican.”
Section 2 of the VRA is relatively straightforward — ”Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in one of the language minority groups identified in Section 4(f)(2) of the Act.”
Where it gets complicated is in situations like the one in Galveston, where a minority-majority district was created using a coalition of minority groups.
“Galveston County, with a population that is 58% white, 22.5% Hispanic, and 12.5% black, had previously drawn a coalition district combining black and Hispanic populations,” Kaelan wrote. “This district was represented by a black Democrat until the 2021 redistricting, which eliminated the coalition district, and prompted lawsuits from the NAACP and the Justice Department, arguing that coalition districts are mandated by the VRA.”
The 5th Circuit’s ruling doesn’t gut the ability for states to create minority-majority districts, which tend to favor Democrats, but it does put restrictions on the way the populations are determined and how the lines are drawn.
“The implications of this ruling are significant,” Kaelan wrote. “It effectively stops the use of the VRA to create coalition districts aimed at bolstering Democratic representation in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and the potential for the Biden administration to appeal now to the Supreme Court has been elevated.”
Click here to read more about what redistricting could look like in the future.
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For your radar
Biden doesn’t have any public events on his schedule.
Harris is set to announce her running mate any time Tuesday ahead of a rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at 5:30 p.m.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will brief reporters at 1:30 p.m.