ATLANTA — Former President Barack Obama told a crowd of Georgia Democrats in College Park Friday night that he understands times are difficult and things won’t change overnight. But if they vote for Democrats up and down the ballot, he said, the state of the country will improve.
He said his wife, Michelle, can be a “glass-half-empty” person sometimes.
“I’m the ‘hope and change’ guy, I need you to be a little more optimistic,” he said. “I tell her everything will be OK, and I believe it will, but I also know that things will not be OK on their own.”
The rally packed the Gateway Center Arena to rev up support for U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, Stacey Abrams and other candidates.
Polls show a tight race between Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker during the final stretch of early in-person voting. And Democrats hope Obama's visit will give a boost to Abrams, who trails Gov. Brian Kemp in her gubernatorial rematch.
In what was the theme of the night, Obama urged Democrats not to despair and to head to the polls one more time.
“If enough of us make our voices heard, I promise you things will get better,” he said. “We will heal what ails us. We will build a democracy that is more just and more fair and more equal. Let’s go do it.”
Earlier Friday, while stumping in a rural southern Georgia town, Walker mocked his rival’s campaign rally, dismissing the visit by Obama as a useless distraction.
“Get Obama out of here,” Walker said at a rally in Waycross. “Unless he wants to come down here and run for Senate – and I can beat him, too.”
Obama took swipes at Walker, calling the differences between him and Warnock a “study in contrast.”
“I can tell you what Raphael Warnock cares about,” he said. “As your senator, he hasn’t been off chasing wacky conspiracy theories. He hasn’t been drumming up fear and division.”
Obama praised Walker’s football career, but asked the crowd how that qualifies him for the U.S. Senate.
“It seems to me he’s a celebrity who wants to be a politician, and we’ve seen how that goes,” he said, referring to former President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Walker.
For his part, Warnock made his most pointed criticism of Walker to date, drawing big applause from the crowd as he described his Republican opponent as unprepared and ill-equipped for the job.
After highlighting issues he has championed in Washington, such as passing Medicaid expansion and lowering health care costs, Warnock drew a contrast with Walker. He said while he had worked to lower the cost of insulin, Walker suggested during a debate that the issue can be addressed by “just eating right.”
“You can’t lead the people unless you love the people,” Warnock said. “You can’t love the people unless you walk among the people. You actually have to know stuff to do this job.”
Meanwhile, at the rally, gubernatorial candidate Abrams reminded the crowd of her work to boost turnout after her narrow defeat in 2018 that helped lay the groundwork for President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory and the runoff sweeps by U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff and Warnock that flipped control of the chamber.
“In 2018, I stood for this job and while my application was not fully accepted, I spent the past four years believing in the possibility of Georgia,” she said, her voice hoarse with strain. “And because you believed with me, because you worked with me, we sent Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden to office.”
She also used her remarks to pummel Kemp, the Republican who defeated her in that 2018 contest.
“For the last 20 years, men like Brian Kemp have tried to convince us that we have a poverty of resources. But I know the answer. It’s not a poverty of resources. It’s a poverty of leadership. And we just struck it rich.”
Abrams, who is Black, touted a “diverse ticket that looks like Georgia” on the Democratic ledger and a surplus of more than $6.6 billion that she has proposed using to enact generational changes. Among her vows: She would expand Medicaid, raise teacher salaries and finance new higher education scholarships.
“And I’ll tell y’all a secret. We can do all of this without raising a dime in taxes. All we have to do is raise our expectations and change our leadership.”
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