CHELSEA — Attendees at the 2024 Democratic National Convention predict that Vice President Kamala Harris can turn the South’s electoral landscape upside down. But not all Democrats agree.
This election cycle is all but guaranteed to be a close contest between the two traditionally Republican states of Georgia and North Carolina. And it is not yet clear whether Harris, buoyed by the renewed enthusiasm of black voters and the abortion debate, can realize the Democrats’ dream of building a “blue wall” in the fastest-growing region in the country.
Some Democrats in Chicago, including Representative Sanford Bishop (D-GA), told the Washington Examiner that Florida, Tennessee and even Texas will be within reach of Harris in November.
In an interview, Bishop said he had not seen such enthusiasm for a Democratic candidate in the South “since Obama.”
“There were African-American men who, for some strange reason, were leaning toward Trump and now say, ‘Well, maybe I’ll take another look,’ because she showed the energy and dynamism that I guess they didn’t feel with President Biden,” Bishop said Monday. “She just brings that excitement and that energy and that community that the country needs.”
Bishop, whose district includes Columbus, Georgia’s second-largest city, as well as large swathes of farmland, applauded Harris’ decision to select Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as her running mate because of his ties to both urban and rural areas.
Beryl Ross, 61, of Chicago, is convinced that Harris’ background – she is the first black woman to be nominated by a major party – and “her black presence alone” will help voters in the South “get on board.”
“The black HBCU colleges down there, like Clark Atlanta, Spelman, Morehouse, where I know people who went to those universities, they’re also going out and canvassing for voters for Kamala,” he said in an interview. Harris attended Howard University, a historically black college.
Representative Jim Clyburn (D-SC), however, told the Washington Examiner to curb speculation that Harris could bring about a turnaround in much of the South, but said she was laying “the groundwork” for future change.
President Joe Biden missed defeating former President Donald Trump in North Carolina by just one point in 2020 and narrowly won Georgia the same year.
“Well, I don’t know if it’s going to be a wave, but maybe a ripple effect,” he said after his DNC speech. “We’ll have to wait and see what happens on November 5, but I have no doubt. We’ve seen the numbers turn around in North Carolina. You see the gap in Georgia narrowed to 2 points, and I even saw a poll that said it’s 3 or 4 points in Florida, of all places. And I have three daughters who tell me, ‘Dad, you have to look at South Carolina. Something is happening in South Carolina.’
“So something has happened,” he added. “Maybe everything won’t happen by November.”
Bakari Sellers, a political strategist and co-chair of Harris’ 2020 White House campaign, told the Washington Examiner Although Georgia and North Carolina are key regions in the election campaign for both parties, it would already be a victory for the Democrats if they could force the Republicans to spend time and money on defending Florida and Texas, where “a few more years of organizational work are needed.”
Florida is one of the states that has gone from a perpetual battleground to a Republican stronghold in recent election cycles, while Texas is trending toward lighter shades of red.
“It always seems like a few hundred thousand votes are out of our reach when we see hundreds of thousands of people sitting at home,” Sellers said in an interview. “I think one of the jobs she has to do over the next 80 days is to meet voters where they are, and the vice president has done that very well. It’s a turnout game, and my analysis of the race hasn’t changed much since she ran against Joe Biden. I’ve always told people this is a three-person race. It’s just that. It’s Kamala Harris versus Donald Trump versus the couch. How many voters stay home is the question.”
Justin Pearson, a Tennessee state legislator who rose to national prominence after being expelled from the state legislature over protests against gun violence and reinstated in 2023, claimed, “The nation will only go as far as the South lets it.”
“There will be justice in the South,” Pearson told the Washington Examiner after the delegate breakfasts on Wednesday. “The litmus test for American democracy is the South. We have to do everything we can to build a new South that listens to the people. We have to organize the South. We have to mobilize the South and we have to activate the South. And we will win this election with the South and also with the young people.”
Republicans generally scoff at the idea that Harris could win states in the South beyond Georgia or North Carolina.
Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, who attended the Trump campaign’s DNC counter-programming on Tuesday, flatly rejected the notion that abortion would make a growing number of southern states eligible for Harris.
“My reaction is, that’s nonsense,” Donalds told Washington Examiner“You can say what you want, but I think the polling numbers have been pretty consistent across all the states we’re talking about. As for Texas, Texas is going to be fine. And as for Florida, I mean, let’s be honest. Seriously? Florida is going to be fine. President Trump is going to feel it.”
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Donalds, who reportedly plans to run for governor of Florida in 2026, acknowledged that winning North Carolina, a hotly contested political center, would be difficult, but said Republicans are “determined to do this job.”
Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance (R-OH), held a rally in the state on Wednesday that focused on foreign policy.
