Former first lady Michelle Obama will appear at a rally on Kamala Harris‘s behalf for the first time since endorsing her in July.
With three weeks left until the election, the Harris campaign is focused on garnering votes from swing states, including Georgia. The state elected President Joe Biden in 2020 after voting for the Republican candidate since 1996. With its 16 electoral votes, it could give either candidate a significant lead.
Obama will appear at an Atlanta rally hosted by When We All Vote, a group dedicated to voter turnout that she founded in 2018. While Obama attended and spoke at the Democratic National Convention in August to again voice her support for Harris, the former first lady has largely been missing from the campaign trail until this event.
The former first lady’s absence on the campaign trail had grown conspicuous, with NBC News running a report Tuesday night about her sparse public support since her DNC speech that received rave reviews.
Obama was reportedly lying low out of concern for her safety, and people familiar with her thinking told the outlet.
“After the two assassination attempts against former President Trump, the staffs of all the former presidents and first ladies recognized the new reality and so does the Secret Service,” a person familiar with the matter said.
Former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, and narrowly avoided another injury when a gunman was arrested after apparently camping out on the edges of his golf course.
The Oct. 29 rally comes two weeks after early voting began in Georgia and three weeks after the voter registration deadline. After that, there will only be a week left until Election Day.
Former President Barack Obama went on the campaign trail on Harris’s behalf last week to speak to a crowd of black men in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The state has a black population of more than 1.4 million and has become the focus of the Harris campaign to fight for its 19 electoral votes.
The former president suggested black men “just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president.”
A New York Times/Sienna poll shows 71% of black registered voters choosing Harris as president. That statistic would be a historically low majority of black voters to pick the Democratic presidential candidate.
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Meanwhile, the same poll showed that Trump had 18% of black registered voters’ support. That high of approval rating would be a massive swing from the 2020 election, in which Biden won 92% of the black vote.
In 2020, black voters made up 13.5% of all eligible voters. According to the Pew Research Center, they are expected to make up 14% in 2024.