This state could decide whether Harris or Trump wins the 2024 presidential election

SAVANNAH, GA – Vice President Kamala Harris wakes up Thursday in this historic Georgia coastal city, a crucial presidential election site and one of seven states likely to determine the winner of her 2024 face-off with former President Trump.

On Wednesday, the vice president began a two-day bus tour through southeast Georgia accompanied by her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. She visited high school teachers and students and then stopped at a barbecue restaurant.

On Thursday, Harris and Walz will give their first major interview before the vice president holds what is expected to be a large rally in Savannah.

By choosing the Peach State for her first campaign trip after the Democratic Party convention last week, Harris sent a clear message: Georgia is back in play in the November election.

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Georgia was long a reliably Republican state in White House elections until President Biden narrowly defeated then-President Trump in 2020 to become the first Democrat to win the state in nearly three decades.

Fast forward to this year's election: In Georgia, Trump's narrow lead over Biden in the polls grew to solid single digits after the president's disastrous performance in their only debate, a showdown in Atlanta in late June.

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But in the five and a half weeks since the vice president replaced her boss on the Democratic ticket for 2024, polls suggest the Peach State will once again be a race with some margin of error.

A Fox News poll conducted in Georgia from Aug. 23-26 and released Wednesday found Harris with a razor-thin lead of 50% to 48% over Trump among registered voters. The most recent Fox News poll in Georgia, before Biden dropped out of the race, found Trump six percentage points ahead of the president, 51% to 45%.

Georgia's popular conservative two-term governor agrees that his state is very competitive.

“This is certainly a swing state,” Governor Brian Kemp said in an interview with Fox News Digital on Tuesday.

Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp is interviewed by Fox News Digital in Chalmette, Louisiana, on June 3, 2024. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)

“I've been saying for a long time that the road to the White House will go through Georgia. And without Georgia, there is no way for former President Trump or any of the Republicans to reach the 270-point mark,” Kemp said.

However, he added that “we should win Georgia if we have all the conditions we need. And I'm working hard to create those conditions in many ways, to get Republicans out to the polls and make sure we win this state in November.”

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This also applies to the Democrats.

“The coordinated Democratic campaign in Georgia is conducting the largest nationwide operation of any Democratic presidential campaign, with over 190 coordinated Democratic campaign staff in 24 coordinated offices across the state,” the Harris team announced hours before the vice president's arrival in Savannah.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, poses for a photo with Savannah State University students at Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport in Savannah, Georgia, on August 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

This is Harris' second visit to Georgia since succeeding Biden as party chair, after she previously hosted a large rally in downtown Atlanta.

But this time, Harris is moving through the southern part of the state, far from Atlanta and its growing suburbs, which make up nearly 60 percent of Georgia's population. The traditional way for Democrats to win statewide in Georgia is to focus on the Atlanta metropolitan area.

But Quentin Fulks, who was Biden's deputy campaign manager and held that role for Harris, is following the script from two years ago, when he led Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock to a narrow re-election victory over Republican challenger Hershel Walker. The strategy is not only to score big in Atlanta and its suburbs, but also to remain competitive in the rest of the state.

“We have to make sure we're competitive across the state,” Fulks said in an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday. “We're going to continue to compete in rural counties. … We have to have a statewide presence and even compete in counties where Democrats don't traditionally run. That's how you win statewide in Georgia.”

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The Harris team noted that “the campaign in Southeast Georgia is critical because it represents a diverse coalition of voters that includes Georgians from rural, suburban and urban areas – with a large proportion of black voters and working-class families.”

Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to members of a marching band at Liberty County High School in Hinesville, Georgia, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

The first stop for Harris and Walz was Liberty County High School in Hinesville, where they met with the school's administration, faculty and students and attended the school's marching band rehearsal.

“We just wanted to stop by and let you know that our country is counting on you. All of you,” Harris told the students. “We are so proud of you. Your generation, everything you stand for … is what will lead our country into the next era of what we can do and be.”

According to a pool report, the vice president told students that she played in a band during her high school years.

The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee targeted Harris as her bus tour began.

“The Trump campaign is fighting and winning in Georgia by building a broad coalition of those who are fed up with their four years of failure in the White House,” Trump senior adviser Brian Hughes told Fox News.

And RNC spokesman Morgan Ackley argued: “While our extremely committed and energetic effort in Georgia is focused on mobilizing voters across the state, Georgia Democrats are finally learning an important lesson: There is more to Georgia than just Atlanta.”

Ackley stressed, “Republicans from Catoosa to Camden County and everywhere in between are highly motivated and ready to re-elect President Donald J. Trump because his message of putting America first again resonates with Americans of all backgrounds.”

But Harris' campaign appears to have a major organizational advantage over Trump's team in Georgia. And Republican strategists agreed that to retake Georgia, Trump needs the support of Kemp's well-oiled and funded political machine to mobilize Republican voters.

Former President Trump (right) is joined by his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, during a campaign rally at Georgia State University in Atlanta on August 3, 2024. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Two years after his 2020 election loss to Biden, which included a narrow defeat in Georgia, Trump attacked Kemp for failing to overturn the election results in his state.

Trump toned down his criticism in 2022 after Kemp soundly defeated Trump-backed former Senator David Perdue in the state's Republican primary for governor.

Then, earlier this month, Trump launched a 10-minute tirade against Kemp at a rally in Atlanta, just blocks from the Georgia State Capitol. Trump accused the governor not only of failing to overturn the 2020 vote count, but also of failing to stop a district attorney from charging the former president for his attempts to overturn the results.

But there was a marked shift in sentiment last week when Trump attempted to settle his differences with Kemp by praising the governor in a social media post.

Kemp told Fox News Digital: “I have consistently maintained over the last few years that I will support the slate of candidates in Georgia, whoever our nominee is. That's exactly what I'm doing, what I've always done.”

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Kemp will be the keynote speaker at a fundraiser for the former president in Atlanta on Thursday, along with his wife, Georgia First Lady Marty Kemp, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who served in the Trump administration.

“I am convinced that we cannot afford four more years of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris or Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. That would probably be worse than the Biden-Harris term in office, in my opinion,” the governor argued.

“I think Republicans need to continue to focus on addressing the record of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. … We need to tell people why they should vote for us and what we are going to do to make things better than they are now.”

Another sign of how important Georgia is in deciding the race for the White House is the enormous amounts of money that both the Harris and Trump campaigns are spending on advertising in the state.

The Trump team spends nearly $33 million to secure advertising time on Georgia radio for the final stretch; the Harris team spends over $42 million.

Veteran Georgia Republican consultant Stephen Lawson made clear what is at stake, pointing out that “from the détente between Trump and Kemp to Harris' campaign in rural Georgia to the enormous spending, it only becomes clear again and again that the road to the White House goes through Georgia.”

“That was true in 2020. That’s why Joe Biden is in office now,” Lawson stressed.

And looking ahead to the presidential election this fall, he added: “I think it's going to be very, very difficult for Harris or Trump to win the White House without winning Georgia.”

Get the latest updates on the 2024 election, exclusive interviews and more in our digital election hub, Fox News.