From basketball courts to the rodeo – how the state of Georgia could shape the US election
It’s been a mad few months, even by American political standards.
After Donald Trump’s criminal conviction in New York came Joe Biden’s blunders at that debate, then Trump’s brush with an assassin’s bullet and then that dramatic switch for the Democrats from Biden to Harris.
Events have jolted politics here and the Democratic Party’s remarkably smooth ‘switcheroo’ has upended the race for the White House.
Harris’s entry has turned the race into a neck-and-neck fight. In a few weeks, she has – polls suggest – won back voters who should have been in the bag but were put off by ageing Biden.
But beyond what promises to be a star-spangled crowning convention for Harris this week in Chicago, what’s the vibe in the states where it really matters?
I’m just back from Georgia. It is one of those ‘must-win’ swing states.
So starkly diverse and so close electorally, every vote really does matter in Georgia. Biden won here in 2020 by a margin of 0.23% – just 11,779 votes.
It’s been revealing in so many ways. Yes, Harris has shaken up the race, but the fundamentals of this election are unchanged.
The economy, the southern border, abortion and the character of the candidates remain the key factors. And it will come down to a narrow portion of the electorate – probably just over 10% of persuadables.
Here’s a snapshot of a journey through Georgia.
The barbecue joint
No visit to America’s south is complete without a good barbecue.
The Emerald’s Touch in the southwestern Georgian city of Columbus is new and it is the perfect product of the American dream.
Three generations of the same family run the place.
Jayden is taking the orders, his father is in the kitchen and his grandfather is the master griller out at the back. And Sandy, the matriarch, is the creator of the best mac-n-cheese I’ve had in a long time.
It is a business born in COVID under a Trump presidency as a food truck, it expanded under Biden’s term to the take-away it now is. In the next few months, they will expand again to become a full eat-in restaurant.
It’s the perfect reflection of what’s achievable in America. Trump’s low taxes and then Biden’s bottom-up economics have made it possible.
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Jayden is going to be voting for the first time in November and he is undecided – just the type of person both parties will need to target.
He represents a significant group of so-called “low information” voters. It’s an inelegant phrase, but essentially means he hasn’t yet tuned into it all. He doesn’t know what the two candidates represent.
Conversations with the customers are revealing.
Reflecting on the prospect of a female black president, young black mum Erica says: “It’s something that I would like to tell my daughter about… but I don’t let something that’s so close to me be the blindside of a vote just because it could be so historical.”
Vince Allan is a local pastor.
“To me, it’s a disturbing race,” he says. “We hear a lot of bashing and negative rhetoric instead of the candidates sticking to their policies… it’s pretty toxic.”
Then, away from the microphone, he whispered his candidate in my ear. I will not divulge, but it was a surprise.
The basketball court
This election will be all about targeting different demographics and young black men are key. On the basketball court, as the southern sun set, the perfect group agreed to talk politics.
All under 50 and all black or Latino, they are just the people Harris needs if she’s to win the state.
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‘Trump and who?’
“I’m voting for Trump,” one man says. “He’s our best choice.” Two others pile into the conversation, excited. “I’m Trump too… we’re with the Trump!”
“He’s got 34 felony counts! Hell, he’s more black than me!” another player says with a laugh.
This sort of self-deprecating humour speaks volumes for a certain portion of the electorate.
It’s not the first time I have heard it; the idea that it’s kind of cool that their street fighter has been put through the legal wringer and could still rise to the top.
But on this basketball court, it was clear too that beyond the machismo there are simple back-pocket motivations drawing people to Trump rather than Harris.
“Trump is real bro. He doesn’t care what you think about him. He’s going to speak his opinion,” another man says.
But like Jayden in the barbecue restaurant, here too I found many are just not tuned into it all, not yet, maybe they’ll never be, but their vote – if they vote – will count the same as any other.
Trump and Harris both need to swing them just enough to secure their vote.
The rodeo
In the far north of Georgia is the picturesque town of Blue Ridge.
It sits at the bottom end of the Blue Ridge mountain range which stretches hundreds of miles north through Tennessee and into Virginia. Much of this part of Appalachian America is deeply Trump country.
The annual rodeo is a wonderful snapshot of Americana and felt a million miles from the basketball court a hundred miles or so to the south.
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Young voters divided over Trump and Harris
It’s a country of such extraordinary diversity yet they must coalesce around one of two choices in November.
The first conversation ended any temptation I had to stereotype.
Three young friends, all first-time voters, all in their cowboy hats and all with a different view. One for Trump, one for Harris, and one undecided.
The Trump supporter was motivated mostly by his rough-and-ready character, the Harris supporter was concerned about the situation in Gaza, and the undecided person was worried about petrol prices.
For so many, this election will come down to single issues.
Abortion is another. A debate often framed as choice versus life. And in deeply religious Georgia the issue cuts both ways. A libertarian ‘mind your own business’ attitude intersects with fundamentalist religious beliefs.
For many, religion trumps choice. “I’m a devoted catholic,” one young woman told me. She confirmed that she would be voting Republican because of their abortion-restricting policies.
Another local then suggested, intriguingly, that a significant proportion of female voters may claim to support Trump but would, in the end, quietly vote for Kamala because of what she represents.
It is another dynamic to consider in this fascinating race.
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Remember how dramatically wrong the polls were in the past two presidential elections.
Trump has a tendency to poll lower than he actually performs.
How accurate are the polls on Harris? It’s hard to know because she is, for now, hard to define.
In one sense she represents something entirely new and fresh, certainly in terms of race and gender.
But she is also fully attached to the last four years of Biden.
That’s the challenge for team Harris: are they selling ‘continuity Kamala’ or does she represent change? Will she build on Biden’s legacy or is she distinct from it.
Different voters want different things. It feels like it’s a tricky balance in a campaign where all’s to play for.
A person has been killed and several others injured after a mass shooting and fire at a Mormon church in Michigan, police have said.
Authorities said at a news conference that the suspect was shot dead by police officers, and that nine others were injured.
Two of those were said to be in critical condition, Grand Blanc Township Chief William Renye told reporters.
Flames and smoke rising from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc. Pic: Julie J, @Malkowski6April / AP
He added that the suspect was a 40-year-old man from Burton, who drove his vehicle into the church and began firing rounds at the hundreds of people attending Sunday service.
The suspect used an assault rifle and deliberately started the blaze, Chief Renye said, before adding that officers believe they will find additional victims in the fire.
Pics: AP
The incident took place at around 11am local time at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc, about 50 miles north of Detroit.
In a statement on Sunday morning, Grand Blanc Township Police Department added that the church was “actively on fire” and urged the public to avoid the area.
Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer said in a statement that “my heart is breaking for the Grand Blanc community” after the shooting.
She added: “Violence anywhere, especially in a place of worship, is unacceptable. I am grateful to the first responders who took action quickly.”
Sheriff: ‘Entire church is on fire’
Genesee County sheriff Christopher Swanson said at around 12.20pm (5.20pm in the UK) that the “entire church is on fire”, and confirmed that people who were at the church have been evacuated.
Around 20 minutes later, the police department said the fire had been contained.
The incident took place at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc
US attorney general Pam Bondi also confirmed the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are responding to the incident.
US President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that “the suspect is dead, but there is still a lot to learn”, before saying the shooting “appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians in the United States of America”.
He added: “PRAY for the victims, and their families. THIS EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE IN OUR COUNTRY MUST END, IMMEDIATELY!”
In the wake of the shooting and fire, the New York Police Department said it would deploy officers to religious institutions across the city “out of an abundance of caution”.
The incident occurred the morning after Russell M Nelson, the oldest-ever president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died at 101.
Shootings reported in North Carolina, New Orleans, Texas
Meanwhile, authorities responded to a mass shooting at a coastal town in North Carolina late on Saturday, where three people were killed.
At least eight others were injured in that incident, where someone opened fire from a boat into a crowd at a bar.
Another shooting took place at a south Texas casino early on Sunday, with seven people shot and two killed.
A woman was also killed, and three others were injured in Bourbon Street, New Orleans, early on Sunday after a shooting.
It was one sentence among the many words Donald Trump spoke this week that caught my attention.
Midway through a jaw-dropping news conference where he sensationally claimed to have “found an answer on autism”, he said: “Bobby (Kennedy) wants to be very careful with what he says, but I’m not so careful with what I say.”
The US president has gone from pushing the envelope to completely unfiltered.
Last Sunday, moments after Charlie Kirk‘s widow Erika had publicly forgiven her husband’s killer, Mr Trump told the congregation at his memorial service that he “hates his opponents”.
President Donald Trump embraces Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika. Pic: AP
Twenty-four hours later, he drew fierce rebuke from medical experts by linking the use of Tylenol (paracetamol) during pregnancy to increased risk of autism.
The president treats professional disapproval not as a liability but as evidence of authenticity, fuelling the aura that he is a challenger of conventions.
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‘Paracetamol use in pregnancy perfectly safe’
On Tuesday, he went to the United Nations, where his frustrations over a stalled escalator and teleprompter failure were the prelude to the most combative address.
“I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell,” he told his audience, deriding Europe’s approach to immigration as a “failed experiment of open borders”.
Mr Trump addresses the UN General Assembly in New York. Pic: Reuters
Then came a U-turn on Ukraine, suggesting the country could win back all the land it has lost to Russia.
Most politicians would be punished for inconsistency, but Mr Trump recasts this as strategic genius – framing himself as dictating the terms.
It is hard to keep track when his expressed hopes for peace in Ukraine and Gaza are peppered with social media posts condemning the return of Jimmy Kimmel to late-night television.
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Trump’s major shift in Ukraine policy
Perhaps most striking of all is his reaction to the indictment of James Comey, the FBI director he fired during his first term.
In theory, this should raise questions about the president’s past conflicts with law enforcement, but he frames it as vindication, proof that his enemies fall while he survives.
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Ex-FBI chief: ‘Costs to standing up to Trump’
Mr Trump has spent much of his political career cultivating an image of a man above the normal consequences of politics, law or diplomacy, but he appears to feel more invincible than ever.
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From funerals to world summits, world peace to public health, he projects the same image: rules are for others.
It is the politics of the untouchable.
Donald Trump has ordered the deployment of US troops to “war-ravaged Portland” in the state of Oregon, authorising the use of “full force” if needed.
The US president said he was directing US defence secretary Pete Hegseth to make the move in order to protect the city “and any of our ICE facilities under siege from attack by Antifa and other domestic terrorists”.
Mr Trump did not specify whether he would send in National Guard troops or the US military.
The move comes after a gunman opened fire on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office in Dallas on Wednesday, wounding two detainees and killing another.
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Fatal shooting at ICE facility in Dallas
The ICE facility in Portland has been targeted by protesters since June, sometimes leading to violent clashes.
On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said demonstrators had “repeatedly attacked and laid siege to an ICE processing centre” there, adding that several arrests were made.
“Rose City Antifa, a recently designated domestic terrorist organization, illegally doxed ICE officers. They published their home address online and on public flyers. Individuals associated with Antifa also sent death threats to DHS personnel,” DHS wrote on X.
Speaking in the Oval Office on Thursday, Mr Trump said “anarchy” was taking place in Portland.
He said: “You go out to Portland, people die out there. Many people have died over the years in Portland. Portland is, I don’t know how anybody lives there. It’s amazing, but it’s, it’s anarchy out there. That’s what they want. They want anarchy.”
In separate comments, Mr Trump said people were “out of control” in Portland and pledged to “stop that very soon”.
People protest against the Trump’s immigration policies in Portland. Pic: Reuters
ICE agents charge towards protesters in Portland. Pic: Reuters
After Mr Trump’s announcement, Oregon’s Democratic governor Tina Kotek said she was reaching out to the White House for more information.
“We have been provided no information on the reason or purpose of any military mission. There is no national security threat in Portland. Our communities are safe and calm,” she said.
Read more: Trump threatens to move World Cup games from ‘unsafe’ host cities
Portland’s mayor Keith Wilson said in a statement that the “number of necessary troops is zero, in Portland and any other American city”.
But Republicans supported the move. US labour secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who previously served as a Republican house representative for an Oregon district, said she had seen how “lawlessness” had turned Portland into a “crime-ridden war zone”.
In a post on X, she thanked Mr Trump “for taking action to keep our ICE facilities protected and Make America Great Again”.
Trump has sent military troops to the Democratic-controlled cities of Los Angeles and Washington DC so far in his second presidency. He has also discussed doing the same in Memphis and New Orleans, which are also Democratic strongholds.
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