President Biden and former President Trump are set to hold dueling campaign events this weekend in Georgia, a state that was critical to Democrats winning the White House and Senate in 2020.
Biden’s campaign event will be in the Atlanta area Saturday and is part of his travel to battleground states following his State of the Union address Thursday. The president’s reelection team sees March — after Super Tuesday and his address to Congress — as a pivotal time to fully turn toward the general election against Trump.
Also Saturday, Trump will hold out a “Get Out the Vote Rally” in Rome, Ga., more than 60 miles northwest of Atlanta and toward the Alabama border. His rally will take place at 5 p.m. EST.
Biden narrowly won Georgia by tight margins in 2020, with 49.5 percent of the vote compared to Trump’s 49.2 percent.
Trump then pushed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to overturn his defeat in the state and “find” more than 11,000 ballots needed to overcome the gap between him and Biden, an ask that was made during a phone call later released in January 2021.
He also called for Gov. Brian Kemp (R) to call a special legislative session to overturn the state’s results and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani spread falsehoods that a duo of election workers engaged in mass voter fraud, a move that led to a jury in February ordering him to pay $148 million to the workers for defaming them.
Trump was arraigned alongside 18 other defendants in Georgia last year and is facing 13 charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act for his alleged attempt to overturn the election results.
Biden and the former president also made dueling trips to the U.S. southern border last week, when they both traveled to Texas towns.