Kamala Harris is coming to Georgia. Here’s why her visit is so remarkable.

On Oct. 30, former Vice President Kamala Harris will come to Atlanta to headline the Fulton County Democratic Party’s Fulton Forward fundraising dinner. Four days later, Georgians will vote in the midterm elections.

There is an obvious political story here. A former vice president and former Democratic presidential nominee is returning to Georgia just before a consequential midterm election. She will headline a fundraiser. And because this is Kamala Harris, there will inevitably be another story attached to the visit: 2028.

I, however, have been thinking about something else. Harris has not just been showing up for candidates, but she has also been showing up for Democratic organizations. More specifically, she’s showing up for some of the parts of the Democratic ecosystem that I think we too often take for granted: county parties.

County parties occupy a peculiar place in our political ecosystem. They are close enough to the ground that candidates expect them to know the voters, the volunteers, the community leaders, the activists and the political history of a place.

Find, fund and elect a candidate. Repeat. Politics itself is structured around elections, and election cycles create incentives for people to focus their attention where the next contest is happening. County parties exist in the space between election cycles. Between elections, county parties do the quieter work that keeps local political infrastructure alive.

Work at the county party level is not particularly sexy

The Democratic Party of Georgia describes county parties as the “primary point of contact between the Democratic Electorate and the Democratic Party.”

Most elections are municipal elections, county races, special elections, primaries and runoffs. They are the elections that rarely command national attention but determine who runs our communities. County parties are the people trying to make sure voters know about an election, understand what is on their ballot and have volunteers knocking doors, dropping campaign signs and making calls.

County parties get plenty of attention when somebody needs something from them. My question is, who is making sustained investments in county parties when they don’t?

None of this work is particularly sexy. Most of it will never make the news. That is part of why Harris coming to Fulton is remarkable. Someone with Kamala Harris’ political stature would not ordinarily headline a county party fundraiser. And Harris said yes to Fulton County.

The Democratic Party of Georgia describes county parties as the “primary point of contact between the Democratic Electorate and the Democratic Party.”

Most elections are municipal elections, county races, special elections, primaries and runoffs. They are the elections that rarely command national attention but determine who runs our communities. County parties are the people trying to make sure voters know about an election, understand what is on their ballot and have volunteers knocking doors, dropping campaign signs and making calls.

County parties get plenty of attention when somebody needs something from them. My question is, who is making sustained investments in county parties when they don’t?

None of this work is particularly sexy. Most of it will never make the news. That is part of why Harris coming to Fulton is remarkable. Someone with Kamala Harris’ political stature would not ordinarily headline a county party fundraiser. And Harris said yes to Fulton County.

Georgia Democrats have been talking about investment for a long time. In 2019, Stacey Abrams published “The Abrams Playbook: The Strategy and Path to Victory in 2020.” Abrams’ strategy of “invest big and invest early” included continued investment in infrastructure, expansion of the electorate, voter engagement and protection of access to the vote.

Now Georgia in 2026 is not Georgia in 2019. Georgia has since voted for a Democratic presidential ticket, elected two Democratic U.S. senators and reelected one of them to a full term. And in 2025, Democrats Alicia Johnson and Peter Hubbard flipped two seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission, giving Democrats their first state-level office statewide victories in 19 years.

From FBI raid to election rules fight, Fulton carries big burden

And then there is Fulton County. As of Sept. 26, voter data show nearly 872,000 registered voters in Fulton, more than 763,000 of them active. More than 331,000 of those active voters are Black, the largest group in the county’s active electorate.

Fulton County has also been carrying an extraordinary election-related burden. The public sees the FBI raid of the county elections hub, lawsuits, fights over election rules. Everybody sees when Fulton County becomes the story. Very few people see or fund the work required when Fulton County elections and voters become the story.

Fulton County needs investment in the people and infrastructure doing this work to sustain and increase voter education, outreach and protection.

What does investment look like? For a county party, it means being able to train volunteers, educate voters, monitor elections, maintain voter-protection capacity and build relationships that survive the next Election Day. It can also mean someone lending the organization political capital at scale: attention, access and visibility.