With the 2024 presidential election just a little more than four months away, surrogates for both the Biden-Harris administration and for former United States President Donald J. Trump are hitting the campaign trails throughout Georgia. For voters, Democratic and Republican, having respected political figures show their political cards can go a long way to steering certain voter blocs — seniors, small business owners, young voters, Black voters, for example, to the polls in November.
The voice coming over the speakerphone was a familiar one. Inside Rocky’s Barber shop on Piedmont Road in Buckhead and outside the door via a speaker that was set up to accommodate the dozens of media members that were there to cover a roundtable discussion with Trump surrogates and Black small business owners on Wednesday, June 26, former United States President Donald J. Trump began to speak.
“As you know I cut taxes and regulations more than any administration ever,” Trump said. He went on to say that during his time in office his administration say the lowest percentage of Black unemployment in history and they now “have great support from the Black community.”
That support was on display at the barbershop a day before the first presidential debate was set to take place in Midtown at McCamish Pavilion Thursday night. A roundtable discussion about Black voters supporting the Trump campaign was moderated by Republican Congressman Byron Donalds (FL) and attended by fellow Republican Congressman Wesley Hunt (TX), Dr. Ben Carson, the former United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Trump, and a number of local Black small business owners. With media from across the country and the world (there were reporters representing media outlets from Spain and the UK in attendance), Donalds, a strong Trump supporter, kicked things off with a story about how both of his parents attended historically Black colleges (HBCUs) because “that’s all they had.”
“This is all about Black excellence and it’s not confined to one party,” Donalds said. “Black excellence is about everyone.”
The two-hour roundtable was one of the examples of how the Trump campaign is attempting to reach Black voters. During his time on speakerphone, Trump made a couple jokes and was asked about his idea of no longer having tips taxed for wage workers.
“I just came up with it,” he said. “Let the people earn what they earn. [The idea] has been so popular. Vote for Trump, no tax on tips.”
Republican National Committee spokesperson Henry Scavon told The Atlanta Voice that the Trump campaign now has “over a dozen fully staffed field offices in the state right now.” There have been offices opened in remote Georgia cities like Martinez and north Atlanta Republican strongholds like Alpharetta, according to Scavon. There were also offices opened in Fayette, Gwinnett, Cherokee, and Cobb counties, he says.
A number of events featuring Congressman Hunt and hosted by former ESPN host Sage Steele are scheduled for this week around metro Atlanta.
During a Small Business Owners for Biden-Harris event which took place at She Salon in Castleberry Hill on Tuesday, June 25, Senator Jon Ossoff, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and Georgia State Senator Jason Esteves, along with several small business owners. One of those small business owners, Gina Palmer, the owner of She Salon and the event’s host, said she watched a lot of her fellow small business owners close their businesses during COVID. She blamed those closures on the ineptitude of the Trump administration.
“I have seen my friends close their businesses because they were struggling to get by,” Palmer said. “Because of the Biden-Harris administration we are making a comeback.”
Ossoff, who gave Palmer a hug after she was done speaking to the assembled media inside her small salon, added, “I am here to deliver a very simple message: We must reject Donald Trump’s comeback bid.”
Asked if he believes the small business voter block is one that the Biden-Harris should target, Ossoff said, “You are hearing firsthand from small business owners here today just how much they appreciate competent leadership that’s focused not just on the most powerful companies and largest companies with the most lobbyist, but the main street businesses who were left behind during the former president’s botched COVID response and have been the center of this administration’s attention.”
Dickens reiterated Ossoff’s statements and was very clear about how much he believes the Biden-Harris administration has had Georgia on their minds.
“As mayor I’ve seen first hand how the infrastructure bill has helped Atlanta,” said Dickens. Less than a month ago Atlantans had to deal with a major water main break in Midtown, downtown and on the southwest side. “This type of leadership is making a difference on the ground in Atlanta.”
On Saturday, June 22 seniors and veterans from Columbus, Georgia and the surrounding district gathered in a hotel conference room to hear Congressmen Sanford Bishop (D-Ga., 2nd District) and his good friend and colleague Jim Clyburn (D-SC, 6th District) talk about the importance of voting this election season.
Biden-Harris surrogates like Clyburn, a longtime colleague of Biden’s from his Congress days, and Bishop, who is in a race for his seat with Republican challenger
Nearly 155 million Americans voted during the previous presidential election. More than 75% of registered and active voters ages 65-74 voted in that election, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, making the senior voting block crucial to both candidates.
We’ve got a great story to tell,” said Clyburn about Democratic supporters and the party as a whole. “We should not be on the defensive, let’s go out and win this election.”
This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with The Atlanta Voice.
