Macon -- Democrat Stacey Abrams will share the stage with former President Barack Obama tonight, but she started the final day of advance voting with a rally in Bibb County.
Despite steady rains, hundreds of supporters huddled under the awning at an old Home Depot across the parking lot from an early voting site.
U.S. Rep. John Lewis invoked his sacrifices during the Civil Rights movement during his remarks.
“Many years ago, I gave a little blood for the right to vote,” he said.
Lieutenant governor candidate Sarah Amico served as the opening act, which has become a common occurrence on the campaign trail.
Abrams closed it out with her usual stump speech focused on education, Medicaid expansion, criminal justice reform and a sprinkling of her personal story. Like the others, she focused on the importance of getting out the vote to elect Democrats.
“We cannot do this alone,” Abrams said. “But we can do this together.”
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Sylvania -- With yet another poll showing the race for governor deadlocked, Republican Brian Kemp borrowed a saying from his wife Marty to inject a little levity into the situation on Friday morning.
The pollsters “didn’t ask me” who I plan to vote for, he told a crowd of roughly 50 supporters here. “Did they ask y’all?”
After the crowd responded with a resounding “no,” Kemp launched into his closing salvo, urging his supporters to vote and bring their friends and family to the polls.
“We’re the poll. You’re the poll. Let’s prove these polls who the real poll is, and we’ll do it on Tuesday,” he said.
When we caught up with him after the rally, his second of six sprinkled across Southeast Georgia on Friday, Kemp said he's "not worried about" recent polling, even after a final Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Channel 2 Action News survey showed him and Democrat Stacey Abrams deadlocked.
“We’ve got to get more votes than her. That’s our mission. I believe that we will, so I feel very optimistic,” he said.
Kemp will be in metro Atlanta on Saturday morning, his last announced event before his Macon rally with President Donald Trump on Sunday afternoon.
The secretary of state said he plans to thank the commander-in-chief for his administration’s response to Hurricane Michael, as well as talk up the state’s military bases and the Savannah port.
We also asked about Trump's comment on Thursday afternoon that Abrams was "not qualified" to be governor, which Kemp side-stepped.
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him about that,” he said. “I think I’m better qualified to be governor than she is.”
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Kemp picked up a coveted endorsement on Friday -- particularly for folks connected to his native Athens. University of Georgia football legend Herschel Walker gave the Republican his seal of approval:
The endorsement is not exactly a surprise. Walker is a vocal supporter of Trump and co-chairs his presidential sports and fitness council.
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Beyond Abrams, there was another Democratic candidate getting some attention at Kemp's Sylvania event: John Barrow.
The secretary of state hopeful represented Georgia’s 12th Congressional District, which includes Sylvania, until Evans Republican Rick Allen defeated him in 2014.
Allen was introduced to the crowd as the candidate who toppled Barrow, and Public Service Commission candidate Tricia Pridemore poked fun at Barrow’s recent ad, which closes with, “Yeah, I’m a Democrat. But I won’t bite you.”
Allen said his former opponent stands out in this year’s crop of more liberal Democratic candidates, using the opportunity to slam Democrats for nominating some candidates with socialist tilts.
“I’ll say this: John should have been their candidate for governor,” Allen said. “Obviously John’s a moderate Democrat and where their party’s going, I don’t know how he hangs in. I mean, really…. Men and women in uniform have fought and died to stop socialism, communism around the world and here we are, these folks are openly talking about that and people are buying it.”
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The Human Rights Campaign is dropping more money into the governors race.
The LGBTQ advocacy group's political action committee said it's spending an additional $123,000 for digital ads in the final stretch before Election Day.
The group endorsed Abrams in June and said it has devoted four full-time staffers to help organize for her and Democratic congressional candidates Carolyn Bourdeaux and Lucy McBath.
