Star Metro - Harris targets battleground Georgia with rapper's help

Vice President Harris's trip to Atlanta comes as reenergized Democrats regard the swing state as being in play again, after it looked beyond hope under President Joe Biden before his shock withdrawal from the 2024 election.

With the White House race now turned on its head, 59-year-old Harris Tuesday released her first television ad since replacing Biden, while the Trump camp released a dueling ad attacking her on the crucial election issue of immigration.

"We do view Georgia as very competitive," Harris campaign battleground states director Dan Kanninen said in a call with reporters on Monday.

"It's clear the vice president is energizing and mobilizing our base."

In a sign that the southern state will be bitterly fought over, Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance announced that they would hold their own rally in Atlanta on Saturday.

"Kamala Harris and her complicit cronies have made the great people of Georgia pay a hefty price for their woke policies," the Trump campaign said in a statement on Tuesday.

Harris took over a bleak electoral map from the faltering Biden, with Democrats' hopes entirely based on the three "rustbelt" post-industrial states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

But they are now looking hopefully again at other "sunbelt" states such as Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, all of which Democrats narrowly won in the 2020 election, her campaign said.

Adding some glitz for younger voters will be Megan Thee Stallion, the latest in a series of celebrity backers for Harris.

- 'Sucker punch' -

"ATL HOTTIES SEE YOU TOMORROW," the rapper posted on her Instagram, along with a picture of her and the word "Kamala."

Harris's first campaign ad features footage of the "fearless" candidate, playing up her record as a former prosecutor and attacking Trump as wanting to "take the country backwards".

By contrast, Trump's new ad targets the "failed, weak, dangerously liberal" Harris for having failed to stop illegal immigration.

Harris has admitted that Democrats are the "underdogs" in the race. The question is now whether a vice president who recorded historically low approval ratings -- but seeing a rapid improvement as a candidate -- can keep up the momentum until November.

Republican vice presidential candidate Vance -- himself facing a bumpy first week amid reports that his party has buyer's remorse over his naming to the ticket -- admitted that Harris's last-minute entry was a "sucker punch".

The race had seemed set to feature former president Trump, 78, against incumbent Biden, 81, but the Democrat's withdrawal due to concerns over his age now leaves Trump as the oldest candidate in US history.

Vance told donors at a weekend fundraiser that "all of us were hit with a little bit of a political sucker punch," the Washington Post reported, citing a recording of his comments.

Harris is set to announce her own pick for vice presidential candidate later this week, with Democrats increasingly focusing on Vance as a political weak spot.

The "Hillbilly Elegy" author's popularity has taken a hit in recent weeks from damaging old videos, including one in which he disparaged prominent Democratic women as "childless cat ladies."

L.Mitchell--SMC