Southern swing about to begin in Democratic presidential race

As Tuesday’s Georgia primary grows nearer, presidential candidates are making plans to visit the state.

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As Hillary Clinton wrapped up her rally to a boisterous crowd of more than 400 at Atlanta City Hall, one of her highest-profile supporters in the state stood beside her on stage and made a promise.

“Don’t worry about Georgia,” Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said.

South Carolina is a more immediate concern for Clinton and rival Bernie Sanders, who will face off Saturday in the state’s Democratic primary.

The contest comes with significant stakes as the first contest with a large chunk of black voters. More than half of the Democratic electorate in 2008 was black, mirroring the voting blocs in Georgia, Alabama and other Deep South states.

Clinton, the Democratic front-runner is trying to run up the score in the South — and send a message to supporters worried about Sanders — by rallying voters across the region on the eve of the primary in South Carolina.

She hopes a strong showing Saturday in South Carolina and Tuesday in Georgia and other states that vote in the SEC primary will halt Sanders’ advances. She’s long seen the diverse Southern states that cast ballots over the next week as a bastion of support and a defense against the Vermont senator’s gains in less diverse states in the Northeast and Midwest.

At her get-out-the-vote rally in Atlanta on Friday, she cast herself as the heir apparent to President Barack Obama’s policies and a pragmatic hedge against pie-in-the-sky idealism that she said could threaten his greatest achievements.

“We need to tear down the economic barriers,” she said. “They are still too many and too high for folks who want to get ahead. We need to be sure we’re making investments here in Georgia and across America that will make us more prosperous and stronger.”

A win in South Carolina would also be a dose of redemption for Clinton after her nearly 30-point loss to Obama in 2008 set the stage for his eventual nomination. That fight got testy after former President Bill Clinton called Obama’s stance on the Iraq war “the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen” and compared his presidential campaign to Jesse Jackson’s failed bid.

Some prominent black leaders saw the remarks as insulting to Obama, and U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, South Carolina's most influential Democrat, advised the former president to tone down the rhetoric. This cycle, though, Clyburn has embraced the Clinton campaign, calling her the most prepared for the White House. And polls show her with commanding leads.

In Georgia, several surveys also show she has an undisputed edge over Sanders. A poll this week commissioned by Channel 2 Action News showed her with 72 percent of voter support, while another poll by WABE 90.1 gave her a 2-1 advantage over her rival.

Sanders and his supporters insist they are closing the gap in South Carolina and other states, but a packed schedule of Sanders trips this weekend to Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma and other Midwest states shows where the campaign is focusing its attention.

“This, from Day One, was going to be a very difficult state for us,” he said this week. “We’re not writing off South Carolina, but you all know there are a dozen states voting on March 1.”

Clinton’s event in Atlanta was initially supposed to be at Georgia State University’s bustling student center, but it was shifted late Thursday night to a smaller and more tightly controlled venue at City Hall. The campaign said last-minute changes are typical, but it also suggested the Clinton camp was worried about interruptions at the event.

Clinton's last public visit to Georgia was hijacked by Black Lives Matter demonstrators who interrupted her speech at Clark Atlanta University for about 10 minutes. And a protester in Charleston, S.C., made headlines this week by questioning a remark she made in a 1996 speech.

It also meant she would campaign on Reed’s home turf. The mayor is one of Clinton’s fiercest advocates in Georgia, and he’s repeatedly promised that Sanders is “not going to be the nominee.”

“There was never a doubt in my mind about who I was going to stand shoulder and shoulder with,” Reed said. “We know that all she has to do is win this election and she’s going to be an amazing president.”

Many of the people who packed City Hall had already decided to support Clinton — and had already cast their ballot for her in early voting that ended Friday.

“She’s the only one qualified. I’m terrified of Donald Trump. I don’t even want to talk about it,” said Page Rast, a Smyrna freelance writer. “But she’s the only one with any worthwhile experience in the race. That debate would be such a smackdown.”

Marcus Jenkins, a graduate assistant at Emory University, said he’s drawn to Clinton because of her “pragmatic” stances.

“Bernie is much more limited. But to beat Trump, she’s going to need him to get the more liberal and youthful vote,” Jenkins said. “She realizes that with Republican control of both the House and Senate, and a vacant Supreme Court seat, any nonmoderate view is not an electable strategy.”