President Joe Biden is returning to Georgia on Thursday to celebrate his first 100 days in office, marking the moment in a state where Democratic victories allowed him to pursue a far more ambitious legislative agenda.
The president will headline a drive-in rally in metro Atlanta to highlight his administration’s policies since he was sworn into office in January, the White House said. It comes a day after his Wednesday address to a joint session of Congress, his first remarks to both chambers since taking office.
Biden’s visit coincides with his efforts to speed up coronavirus vaccine distribution and promote a $2.3 trillion infrastructure proposal. It also comes as Democrats step up efforts to pass a federal voting rights expansion, a push that’s intensified in the wake of a new Georgia election rewrite that Biden has criticized. He is set to be joined by his wife, Jill Biden.
It will be the president’s second trip to Georgia since he took office Jan. 20. He visited Atlanta in March for what was initially set to be a celebration of the $1.9 trillion virus aid package that Democrats couldn’t have passed without sweeping the state’s January U.S. Senate runoffs.
But the trip took a somber turn after a white gunman killed eight people at three metro Atlanta spas, six of whom were women of Asian descent. While Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris still touted the relief plan, they focused their remarks on the “skyrocketing spike” of violence against Asian Americans.
Biden carried Georgia by less than 12,000 votes in November, becoming the first Democratic presidential hopeful to win the state since 1992. His victory was upheld repeatedly by state and federal elections officials, who defied then-President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the outcome.
Biden visited Georgia a week before the November election and twice during the runoff period to stump for Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, who promised to vote for his robust economic relief plan and support his agenda in Congress.
Their victories over Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue flipped control of the Senate and allowed Biden and a Democratic-controlled Congress to pursue more expansive policies than they could have under a divided Washington.
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