Republicans left 'sort of confused' by 'surprising' Kamala Harris strategy: report

Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz are kicking off a bus tour in rural Georgia on Wednesday in a move that Politico's Playbook describes as "surprising."

While it may seem counterintuitive for the Democratic presidential ticket to campaign in counties that are heavily Republican, it turns out that there is precedent for this strategy being successful.

Politico notes that the effort to send Harris and Walz to conservative parts of the state is being led by Quinten Fulks, a Georgia political operative who employed the same strategy in his successful bid to get Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) reelected in 2022.

“You have to really stave down margins and go places even when you don’t think you can win it outright,” Fulks explained to Politico. “You know you’re going to lose that county, but just showing up there can sometimes be the difference between 5 to 10 percentage points, or sometimes just putting an office there.”

Pennsylvania is another state that shows how this model can work, as both Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) both campaigned in rural areas in order to ensure that Republicans didn't completely run up the score there.

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Shaving off some of the GOP's advantage in rural areas and winning big in traditional Democratic strongholds can therefore be key to swinging purple states in Democrats' direction.

At least one Georgia Republican operative tells Politico that the strategy makes some sense.

“We see them putting resources in Forsyth County, a heavily Republican county,” GOP operative Brian Robinson told the publication. “[Some] Republicans are sort of confused: 'Why are they wasting this money?' And I’m like, they’re not trying to win Forsyth County. They’re trying to cut the margins.”