ATLANTA — President Donald Trump is set to headline a fundraiser in Atlanta next month to bolster Republican efforts to fortify Georgia amid increasing Democratic efforts to flip the state.
The president’s campaign will hold a fundraiser for Trump on Nov. 8, according to several people with direct knowledge of his travel plans who are not authorized to speak publicly.
There’s also discussion of Trump appearing at an event designed to energize black Republican voters, though that event hasn’t been finalized yet.
Trump won Georgia by 5 percentage points in 2016 despite spending little time or resources in the state, and Republicans carried every statewide office in last year’s midterm elections.
But Democrats, buoyed by big gains in metro Atlanta, are eager to cement Georgia as a battleground state in 2020.
U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath won a U.S. House seat straddling Atlanta’s northern suburbs, and Stacey Abrams came within 55,000 of a victory over Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. Down the ticket, Democrats flipped about a dozen state legislative seats.
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Both parties are bracing for a surge of attention with two U.S. Senate races, two competitive U.S. House contests and a presidential election on the 2020 ballot.
State Democrats are demanding that national operatives invest more time and money in Georgia rather than focusing on Rust Belt bastions. And top Republicans warn that last year’s tight races were a blaring “wake up call.”
Trump’s visit to Georgia will be his first since an April trip to Atlanta, where he said his administration would “smash the grip of addiction” at an opioid summit.
It will come less than two weeks before the leading Democratic presidential contenders gather in Georgia for a televised showdown. The Nov. 20 event will be the first time the state has hosted a premier political debate since 1992.
This report was written by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Cox Media Group
