Once again, Georgia is a battleground — that much Democrats and Republicans seem to agree on.

“The path to the White House runs right through this state,” Vice President Kamala Harris said at a July 30 rally in Atlanta.

Former President Trump echoed her sentiment four days later, with his trademark gloom: “If we lose Georgia, we lose the whole thing, and our country goes to hell.”

A month ago, the prospect of a close presidential race seemed unlikely in this once-conservative Southern stronghold, where President Biden delivered a historic victory for Democrats in 2020.

This time, he was lagging in the polls, and his performance in an Atlanta debate against Trump in June raised troubling questions about his age and mental competence.

But when he stepped aside on July 21 and endorsed Harris, Democrats encountered a groundswell of grassroots enthusiasm.

Denise Hollingsworth says she’s phone banking for Kamala Harris and is “just so encouraged seeing America come alive.”

(Jenny Jarvie / Los Angeles Times)

“Georgia is in play!” said Denise Hollingsworth, a retired attorney who moved to Georgia from New Jersey last year, and started phone banking for Harris when a new campaign office opened in East Point, Ga.

Statewide, more than 35,000 new volunteers have joined the campaign in the last few weeks to take part in “Kallin’ for Kamala” phone banks, “Harris for the People” letter-writing parties and “Kamala Coconut Canvassing,” according to a campaign spokesperson.

Hollingsworth said the experience had been so overwhelmingly positive that she thinks Harris has a chance at winning.

“I don’t know if I’m too caught up in the mix or have drunk the Kool-Aid,” she said, laughing. “I’m just so encouraged seeing America come alive and be so excited that she’s offering something different.”

Of course, many conservatives are equally inspired by Donald Trump. And a small but significant chunk of left-leaning and independent voters have not been won over by Harris’ broad themes of “freedom” and “We’re not going back!” or by the framing of her and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as “joyful warriors.” They want to know more about Harris’ agenda.

In Alpharetta, a rapidly developing and diversifying stretch of exurbia about 30 miles north of Atlanta where Democrats have gained traction in recent years, many voters interviewed by The Times — even those who have voted for Democrats — voiced hesitation about Harris and said they did not know enough about her.

Tonycia Coe says she’s hoping to learn more about Harris’ positions.

(
Jenny Jarvie / Los Angeles Times)

Thomas Lee says he checked Harris’ campaign website but found little on her views.

(Jenny Jarvie / Los Angeles Times)

“I know, like, the memes, but I don’t know her political stances,” said Tonycia Coe, a 22-year-old student and retail worker, noting she had seen clips of Harris laughing on TikTok and references to coconut trees.

“Why hasn’t she done any interviews?” asked Shakil Ahmed, an IT project manager formerly of Bangladesh, who voted for Biden in 2020 but is leaning toward Trump.

“It is a little odd that Kamala doesn’t have a lot of [her] views on her website,” said Thomas Lee, a 43-year-old manager for a tech company. “You’re running for president and you can’t just state some clear opinions about where you stand on things?”

Harris is slowly unveiling more details about her agenda. On Friday, she outlined more specifics of her economic policy at a rally in North Carolina, pledging to push for the construction of 3 million new housing units and for a federal ban on price gouging on groceries.

Persuading undecided voters is key for Democrats in a tight race. In polling averages compiled by FiveThirtyEight.com, Harris leads in Georgia by a fraction of a percentage point — a significant turnaround considering Trump’s comfortable lead of 5.9 percentage points against Biden, but well within the margin of error.

Four years ago, Biden won Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes — the closest margin of any state.

Biden’s victory here in 2020 — the first time Georgia had voted for a Democratic president in nearly three decades — followed a decade of outreach from grassroots voter mobilization groups seeking to capitalize on shifting demographics as a growing number of Asian Americans, Latino and Black people moved to the state.

But the result also relied on deep-seated frustration with Trump among affluent, college-educated and older voters in Atlanta’s suburbs and exurbs.

“There are people in Georgia who aren’t locked into a partisan way of thinking,” said Jason Carter, an attorney, former Democratic gubernatorial candidate and grandson of Jimmy Carter, the former president and governor. In 2022, the younger Carter noted, Georgia reelected Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock.

“The key challenge is to have people get to know her and really earn the votes,” he said of Harris.

With just 2½ months left to make their case, Trump and Harris are scrambling to connect with Georgia voters and claim the state’s 16 electoral votes.

The Harris campaign has said it has 170 staff and 24 field offices, making it the largest in-state operation of any Democratic presidential campaign in Georgia history. In the first weekend after Biden withdrew, 2,500 volunteers took part in over 174 events. And that momentum hasn’t ebbed: Over the weekend, more than 4,000 volunteers turned out across the state.

Donald Trump upset many Georgia Republicans on Aug. 3 when he ranted against GOP Gov. Brian Kemp at this Atlanta rally.

(John Bazemore / Associated Press)

Trump has more than 12 field offices in Georgia, a spokesperson for his campaign said. The campaign has eschewed a large network of staff in favor of a new system it calls “Trump Force 47,” in which regional field directors marshal volunteers to knock on doors in their neighborhoods. More than 10,000 volunteers have signed up for the effort in the last month, according to the campaign.

Gloria Barker, a retired school guidance counselor in her 70s in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, started knocking on doors for Republicans for the first time when she joined in June.

At first, she said, she was frightened to knock on her neighbors’ doors, but as she ventured out after dinner each evening, she was heartened by the excitement Trump was generating, particularly among some voters who had considered themselves Democrats or had voted for Biden in 2020.

“People want Trump back,” she said.

Still, Jason Shepherd, an assistant professor of political science at Kennesaw State University and former chair of the Cobb County GOP, said that the party was lacking in voter outreach. Trump’s baseless complaints of election fraud had made Republicans focus more on training poll workers than knocking on doors.

“They think the election was lost at the ballot box because of fraud, not because they didn’t do enough to get people to the ballot box,” Shepherd said. “I’m getting emails about signing up to be a poll watcher and going down to state board of elections meetings, and that’s it. Compare that to four years ago, when the emails were about training on door knocking.”

Both campaigns are investing heavily in television ads.

On July 30, the Harris campaign launched a $50-million paid-media blitz, and last week followed up with an additional $90 million in ads aimed at undecided voters in Georgia and other battlegrounds.

On Saturday, her campaign said it had reserved $370 million in TV and digital ads for the fall, with some of that targeted for Georgia.

Trump’s campaign reserved $37.2 million in new ads in seven states last week, the most he has spent in this campaign cycle, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. The bulk of the ad money — $23.8 million — went to Georgia.

Harris greets voters last month at Paschal’s, a historic Atlanta restaurant in the battleground state.

(John Bazemore / Associated Press)

But as Democrats rally around Harris, her Republican rival is facing the ire of many conservatives in Georgia for lashing out at Gov. Kemp.

At his Atlanta rally two weeks ago, Trump went on an 11-minute rant, rebuking “little Brian” for his refusal to overturn Georgia’s election results in 2020. He called Kemp a “bad guy” and said that under his leadership, the state had “gone to hell” and Atlanta had become a “killing field.”

His outburst prompted a revolt in the state party, with many Georgia Republicans uniting against Trump in support of Kemp — who had trounced a Trump-endorsed challenger in the 2022 GOP primary before comfortably beating Democrat Stacey Abrams.

“History has taught us this type of message doesn’t sell well here in Georgia, sir,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The governor refused to take Trump’s bait.

“We’re going to use our political operation to win Georgia despite past grievances,” Kemp said at a recent gathering of GOP activists. “This is still a state we can win if we have all the mechanics and the things you need to do to win an election.”

But not all Republicans are on board.

Among them are Geoff Duncan, a former lieutenant governor. He has appeared frequently on CNN in recent weeks, attempting to persuade moderate Republicans that the former president is a threat to democracy and that it’s OK, even patriotic, to vote for a Democrat on Nov. 5.

Harris’ background as a prosecutor made her the perfect person to take on Trump, Duncan said, even though she‘s from California and has advocated in the past for what he called a “hard left” agenda. He said he was gratified she had moved away from positions she had taken in the 2020 primary on issues such as support for universal healthcare and a ban on fracking.

“I think it’s going to pay dividends in November,” he said. “The 10% in the middle will decide who the next president of the United States is.”