Mayor Dickens on election: ‘I want Atlantans to remember’

The 90-minute debate between Biden and Republican Donald J. Trump brought flocks of national media, campaign staff and political junkies to Atlanta. But despite the national scale of the debate, Dickens directed a poignant message to his constituents alone.

“I want Atlantans to remember,” he said on Tuesday.

“In Atlanta, we must show up to vote,” he said. “We understand that Georgia did a thing in 2020 when we — by some 11,000 votes — elected Biden, over Trump.”

“I want Georgians to have a real good memory of how we felt four years ago,” he continued. “I want Atlantans, our residents here, our small businesses to think back.”

Following Biden’s win in 2020, some residents in the Democratic stronghold toasted glasses of champagne toward the John Lewis mural downtown, while others celebrated in the streets over the city’s iconic rainbow crosswalks at 10th and Piedmont.

But with support for Biden waning after four years in office and election fatigue a concern for mobilization groups — particularly in swing states like Georgia — the city’s top leader is already urging residents to take to the polls in November.

“Four years is enough time for you to still be able to look back and say I remember the lies that we’re told, the deception, the broken promises, the hate, the vitriol,” Dickens said during a passionate response to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution question at a Biden campaign event.

“I want Atlantans to remember that and go to the polls like they’ve never gone before — that’s my message to Atlanta,” he said.

There’s reason for concern. An AJC poll released the same day as Dickens’ remarks shows Trump leads Biden 43% to 38%, just outside the margin of error of 3.1 percentage points. Another 8% identified as undecided in the poll.