ATLANTA — For much of the past two years, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock took extraordinary steps to steer clear of President Joe Biden as he waged a reelection campaign. On Sunday, a second term safely in hand, the two stood side-by-side at Warnock’s church.
The president’s trip to Atlanta, billed by the White House as more “sermon” than stump speech, serves as a reminder of the political realities of running for office in a battleground state. Aides to both men say their relationship remains close.
But it also underscores Georgia’s relevance in the brewing 2024 race as Biden prepares for a likely quest for a second term and seeks to recreate the political coalition that helped both Democrats win tough election battles.
Biden’s close victory over Donald Trump in 2020 was fueled by soaring Black turnout and strong performance among swing voters and independents who traditionally voted GOP in Georgia. Warnock united the same blocs of voters to win Senate runoffs in 2021 and 2022.
“It speaks to the importance of our state,” said former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, now a senior Biden adviser. “Think about how much time the president and vice president spent as candidates in Georgia and all the attention the state has gotten since 2020. We’re top of mind.”
That’s playing out in ways that could shape Biden’s bid for a second term. The president wants Georgia to jump earlier in the schedule on next year’s Democratic nominating schedule, though state Republicans will have the final say on the calendar overhaul.
And Atlanta is a finalist to win the Democratic National Convention, with city leaders and state Democrats mounting an ambitious effort to win the prestigious event. Officials say Warnock and other state Democrats are expected to bend Biden’s ear on the DNC while he’s here.
To press their case, Atlanta boosters took out a full-page ad in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday that evokes the posters commonly deployed on city streets by activists during the civil rights movement.
In stark bold lettering, the ad reads: “President Biden Cement Your Legacy Choose Atlanta.” It’s signed by Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, former Atlanta mayors Shirley Franklin and Andrew Young, U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, Warnock and U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff.
It’s also endorsed by Bernice King, the daughter of slain civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and one of the nation’s most prominent civil rights advocates.
“Atlanta is symbolic of the progress that has been made in the South by the Democratic Party,” Dickens told the AJC of his plans to personally lobby Biden for the convention. “And we are the center of the political universe.”
‘Rightly deserved’
Biden spoke at Ebenezer Baptist Church, the downtown congregation where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached and Warnock has served as senior pastor for almost two decades. Though many presidents have visited Ebenezer, Biden was the first sitting one to speak at the church’s regular Sunday service.
He invoked his first two years in office and nodded to his agenda for the next two, when he must navigate a closely divided Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate and a U.S. House that narrowly flipped to GOP control in the midterm.
”The battle for the soul of this nation is perennial, it’s a constant struggle,” Biden said, adding: “A battle fought on battlefields and bridges from courthouses and ballot boxes to pulpits and protest. And at our best, the American Promise wins out. … But I don’t need to tell you that we aren’t always at our best.“
His voice lowering, he added: “Nothing is guaranteed in our democracy. Nothing. Every generation is required to keep it, defend it, protect it. To be repairers of the breach.”
Biden consulted with Warnock last week to discuss the Sunday service, the latest in a string of what aides described as “meaningful” conversations. That’s a contrast from the last year, when Warnock took pains to keep Biden at arm’s length.
When asked if he thought Biden should campaign with him in Georgia — or even if he should run again — Warnock regularly replied with a well-worn answer that everyday voters don’t care about “pundit” speculation.
The few times Warnock invoked Biden’s name on the campaign trail, it was in the context of his push to keep open a Savannah-area military installation or his calls for robust student debt relief. And when Biden did hold a fundraiser for Warnock, ahead of the December runoff, it was held in Boston — without Warnock in attendance.
Only after his victory was sealed did Warnock endorse Biden for a second term. The distanced approach appeared to help neutralize Biden’s poor approval ratings in Georgia and boost Warnock’s effort to win crossover voters on his path to defeat Republican Herschel Walker.
It was Warnock who invited Biden to address Ebenezer, officials said.
“It speaks to the solid relationship that they had during the campaign and that they continue to have now,” said Bottoms. “We should all be so proud of the attention our state is getting. It’s so rightly deserved.”
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Washington correspondent Tia Mitchell contributed to this report.
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