Obama to campaign for Biden in Florida, Georgia on Monday

Former President Obama will head to Florida and Georgia on Monday to stump for Joe Biden and down-ballot Democrats on the eve of Election Day, the former vice president’s campaign announced. 

Obama will campaign on behalf of Biden and Georgia Democratic Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in Atlanta. He will also travel to South Florida, a key Democratic stronghold in the Sunshine State to rally support for Biden’s presidential bid.

The former president has taken a more active role in campaigning for Biden in recent weeks. He is set to appear alongside his former vice president at events in Detroit and Flint, Mich., on Saturday.

That Biden’s campaign is dispatching one of the Democratic Party’s most influential and popular figures to two Southern battlegrounds ahead of Election Day is the latest sign of the campaign’s increasing bullishness about states that President Trump won in 2016.

Trump will almost certainly need to win both again to secure a second term in the White House.

Florida is a perennial swing state, where elections are often decided by ultranarrow margins, so it’s not unusual that Biden’s campaign is scheduling events in the state so close to the election. 

Georgia, however, is a newer battleground for Democrats. The state has traditionally been a safe haven for Republican candidates, who have carried it in every presidential election since 1996. But the state’s rapidly growing population and changing demographics have put it in play for Democrats, with recent polls showing Biden with narrow single-digit leads over Trump.

If he hopes to win Georgia on Tuesday, Biden will have to maximize turnout among Black voters and suburban white voters in the Atlanta area. But in a sign that he may see some opportunity beyond the state’s Democratic stronghold, the former vice president held an event in Warm Springs, Ga., a rural town roughly 70 miles south of Atlanta, this week.