RIVERDALE, GA. — When union campaigner Tracey Thornhill walked into a one-story house on a bright, clear day in Riverdale, Georgia, a working-class city of 15,000 south of Atlanta, she found an ear receptive to her pitch on the issue. Be sure to vote for Kamala Harris instead of Donald Trump in the November election.

“Trump made so many mistakes, it’s like he never happened,” a young African-American man said through the crack in his screen door, flagging complaints about the GOP presidential candidate’s first term in office. “I’m not stupid. “I don’t forget some things very easily,” he added.

Thornhill, one of 260 members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), knocked on doors in Georgia this month and urged voters to support Harris; He thanked the man, reminded him that he had a voting plan, and then decided. We headed to the next home in predominantly Democratic and black Clayton County, Georgia’s fifth most populous county.

“People always take the Black community for granted, but now we’re showing them we can be taken seriously,” said the 59-year-old former truck driver from nearby Hampton as he hit the pavement in a white and black outfit. black Nike shoes. “I don’t think it’s as close as they say it is,” he added of polls showing an extremely tight race in the state.

Four years ago, black voters in Georgia helped flip the state blue for the first time in decades. Joe Biden became president and won Senate seats in a pair of upset runoff elections Democrats control US Senate — A resounding rebuke of Trumpism and its handling of COVID-19. As a result, the party was able to pass a historic list of accomplishments, including pandemic relief, lower drug pricing reforms, major investments in green energy and manufacturing, and the appointment of the first Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Two years later, one of those senators, Raphael Warnock, expressed yet another upset that eclipsed Georgia football legend Herschel Walker.

As concerns increase cracks Some polls suggest Trump is making gains with Latino and Black voters, as well as the Democrats’ “blue wall” in the states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Democratic Party He is once again pinning his hopes on the Peach State and its growing minority population, hoping to win the party’s support and turn the page on Trump once and for all.

“In 2021, Georgia literally saved the country. Warnock said Thursday before a crowd of 23,000 people who came to the raucous rally in Clarkston, another crowded suburb east of Atlanta, to hear from Harris and former President Barack Obama. “This is more than an election. It’s a moral moment in America.”

But Democrats face a tougher political environment this time around. Even though the economy is recovering and inflation is falling, Americans still view the cost of living as the top issue, giving the GOP a critical advantage. Trump’s bungled handling of Covid-19, which gave Biden an advantage in 2020, appears to have faded in voters’ minds as he erodes fears about undocumented immigrants, crime and transgender people in the closing days of the race. In Georgia, Trump currently leads by 1.6 percentage points. Based on FiveThirtyEight poll average.

Priorities USA, a leading Democratic super PAC, expects this year’s election to be as close or closer than the last two presidential elections. For example, in 2020, Biden won Georgia by just 12,000 votes. Priorities US projections show a situation where the margin will be less than 1000 voters in 2024; That’s small enough to trigger an automatic recount.

“There are a few persuadable voters left. No matter how you define them, the target audience is clear: young voters, voters of color, and women. How they disengage will shape the election,” Priorities USA told a poll briefing for reporters last week.

Democrats see reproductive rights as a driver of voter turnout in Georgia, which has the most restrictive abortion law on record (a six-week abortion ban) of any battleground state. At a rally in Atlanta earlier this month, Harris cited Roe v., which guarantees the constitutional right to abortion. He emphasized Trump’s role in appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned the Wade case. He also criticized her condescendingly spoke about the grieving family of Amber Thurman, the Georgia mother who died after waiting 20 hours for a hospital to be treated for complications from an abortion pill.

“Where is the mercy?” Harris asked the question in reaction to Trump’s comments at the Fox News town hall. “He belittles their distress and makes it about himself and television ratings. This is cruel. “And listen, I promised Amber’s mother that we would always remember her story and remember her name.”

Getting more young people to vote is another priority for Democratic organizers in Georgia. The New Georgia Project, a nonprofit founded by Stacey Abrams that helped turn the state purple by registering thousands of new voters from marginalized communities, aimed to knock on 1 million doors this election. It is stated that approximately 600,000 houses have been hit so far.

Three brothers, Mudrik McWilliams, 20, Nassir McWilliams, 20, and Egypt McWilliams, 19, are part of the effort. When they’re not playing music or learning to code, they’re knocking on doors together in Fulton County, Atlanta’s largest county; Democrats are counting on turning out in large numbers to counter Trump’s power in large swathes of rural Georgia.

“There are tangible differences we can make in our society with our vote. Obviously, change takes time, but there are things we can do,” Mudrik McWilliams told HuffPost while surveying a low-income neighborhood, talking about abortion rights, child tax credits, funding for HBCUs and lowering prescription drug costs.

“Many of these communities that still have large numbers of Black people in them, lower-income communities, are more affected by propaganda. “They’re much more likely to believe, ‘Oh, Trump is going to bring us money,'” he continued.

Mudrik also said he’s encountered young people in society who are drawn to Trump because of misconceptions that he’s “so out of line that everyone is saying, ‘Hey, I want to vote for Kamala just because she’s black, or just because she’s black.'” “She’s a woman.” Like, that’s not the case.”

Canvassing is not always a rewarding job. The siblings, two of whom are twins, often found no one at home or moved to another address since the last election. The risk of hornet stings while walking in the Georgia heat created additional problems.

Harris made a plea to young voters, who led Trump by a 2-to-1 margin in the closing days of the race: According to the Harvard Institute of Politics questionnaire It was held this week. At a rally attended by Obama and celebrities outside Atlanta on Thursday, the vice president said young Americans are “rightfully impatient for change” and urged them not to lose hope.

“You, who alone know about the climate crisis, are leading the charge to protect our planet and our future,” Harris said. “You, young leaders who grew up with active shooter drills, are fighting to keep our schools safe. You, who now have fewer rights than your mothers and grandmothers, defend reproductive freedom.”

Trump is also making targeted efforts to reach young voters, especially men, by participating in podcasts that are geared toward Gen Z and cryptocurrency adoption. His campaign has delegated much of its voter engagement efforts to various outside groups, including right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point Action and billionaire Elon Musk’s America PAC, rather than having the campaign itself and the Republican National Committee lead the effort. This is a dubious and risky strategy.

On Wednesday, Trump attended a large rally organized by Turning Point Action in Duluth, a battleground suburb north of Atlanta. There were pyrotechnics and flashy concert lighting on stage, where country music star Jason Aldean warmed up the crowd. And three conspiracy-minded supporters of Trump: former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and conservative commentator tucker carlson – joined Trump on stage as a guest to give a speech. Carlson called him America’s “father” and said he would give the country a “fierce spanking” with his victory over Harris.

“Do you know what my father says when he comes home? You’ve been a bad girl,” Carlson said. “You have been a bad little girl and now you are receiving a severe spanking. And no, this won’t hurt me any more than it hurt you.

Trump, meanwhile, highlighted his campaign to get Republicans to vote early, urging his supporters to vote for him “any way you want to do it”; This is something he has repeatedly decried in previous elections. Georgia has shattered voting records so far, with nearly 2.75 million of its 7.25 million registered voters already voting. But it’s too early to tell which party got the most votes and what that means for the overall state of the race.

Walking down a quiet neighborhood street in Riverdale on Friday, Thornhill said she was confident Georgia would reject Trump once again and make Harris the nation’s first Black female president.

“He’s in much more danger now,” he said. “We thought the last election was something because we were going through COVID. Here you are talking about a man who punished his enemies and called in the National Guard, this man literally went crazy.

“We have to do this. “We can’t go home,” he added, walking up the driveway to ring another doorbell.