Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024
Good morning! One week ahead of the General Election, we start today with the scramble for votes in Glynn County. We then look at the race for chairman of the Chatham County Commission in which navigating change is a crucial issue. Finally, we take a worried look at some reaction — or rather lack of it — to some of the remarks at Donald Trump’s rally on Sunday in New York. Questions, comments, or story ideas? You can reach me at craig.thecurrent@gmail.com
NEWS: POLITICS
A scramble for votes in Glynn County
Glynn County Republicans and Democrats on Saturday used the final weekend of early voting for next week’s elections to urge voters to cast ballots in what is expected to be a razor-tight race for Georgia’s 16 electoral votes.
In 2016, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by 29% of the vote in Glynn and four years later beat Joe Biden by 23% of the nearly 42,000 votes cast in the county. The former president is expected to prevail again this year in the heavily Republican county.
But statewide, the race between the former president and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris could be decided by the narrowest of margins. That’s why in even as red a county as Glynn, both campaigns are scrambling for votes, writes The Current’s Glynn County reporter, Jabari Gibbs.
The contrasts couldn’t be sharper. On Saturday morning, the First African Baptist Church, just off Gloucester Street in Brunswick, hosted a “Souls to the Polls” rally, with Brunswick Mayor Cosby Johnson accompanying prospectives to the nearby county elections to cast their ballots.
The following day, a former reality court show judge, Joe Brown, accused Harris of “sleeping her way to the top” and hinted that she suffers from early-onset dementia, repeating baseless allegations and smears that Trump has often voiced during campaign rallies. Brown was on a five-city tour of Georgia organized by a group called Black MAGA Georgia, including stops in Rome, Marietta, Savannah and Thomasville.
NEWS: CHATHAM COUNTY COMMISSION
Who best to manage growth?
Bumper-to-bumper traffic. Sprawling construction sites crawling with dust-belching earth-moving equipment. Empty fields and swaths of towering pines sprouting “For Sale or Lease” signs at their edges.
Evidence of southeastern Georgia’s booming growth is everywhere, and who can best manage that growth is at the heart of the race for chairman of the Chatham County Commission between Democratic incumbent Chester Ellis and his Republican opponent Joel Boblasky The Current’s Craig Nelson and Jake Shore report.
Ellis says he and the commission were caught flat-footed by expansion of the Port of Savannah and the Hyundai Metaplant and what they mean for Georgia’s fifth, most populous county. He faults state officials for keeping county officials out of the loop.
“Are we behind? Yes. Are we catching up? Yes.”
Boblasky, a commercial Realtor, disagrees.
“Chatham needs a vision of what its residents want,” he says. “It needs a leader who will be proactive, see where the county is going to be and try to address it now, as opposed to reacting to the growth. “You’re not going to recognize this area in 15 years.”
For good or ill? “It depends on leadership and planning.”
NEWS: POLITICS
Silence
There was an abundance of vitriol at Donald Trump’s rally on Sunday at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
One speaker called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage” and said Latinos have too many children. Another described Hillary Clinton is “some sick bastard” and a “sick son of a bitch.” The Democrats are “degenerates,’ and Kamala Harris is the “devil” and the “antichrist” said still another.
Trump himself riffed on the “enemy within,” including journalists, political dissenters and an “amorphous” group of people that control the government through “vessels.” Adding to the toxic mood, the rally’s organizers played Elvis Presley’s cover of “Dixie” ahead remarks by Byron Donalds, a Black congressman from Florida.
As of late Monday afternoon, none of the nine Republican members of Georgia’s congressional delegation on their social media pages had condemned any of the toxic remarks or distanced themselves from them. Only one mentioned the rally at all.
1st District U.S. Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter, whose social media pages feature Trump’s endorsement, noted only that Monday was National First Responder Day and in a separate post, said he was happy to help secure $26.5 million in federal funding for rail improvements at the Port of Brunswick.
Only Carter’s counterpart from Rome, Marjorie Taylor Greene, mentioned the rally at all. She rejected MSNBC’s any comparisons between Sunday’s rally and a pro-Nazi gathering held at the same arena in 1939, saying that the network was “lying about ALL of us” who attended the rally.
Among Georgia GOP officials, state chairman Josh McKoon only posted a photo reposted a photo of Trump at the Garden arm-wrestling backstage with Hulk Hogan, along with the caption, “President Trump will Make America Strong Again.”
Kandiss Taylor, head of the 1st District GOP, was more expansive.
Less than a day after saying that her husband thought that the Trump-Hogan photo was “awesome,” she wrote Monday: “Let’s vote for testosterone. Let’s vote for an Alpha Male. Let’s vote for Jesus, Guns, & Babies. Let’s vote for our sanity and common sense. Let’s vote to ensure we have a Constitutional Republic. No one wants a First Lady with a penis. Makes no sense. @realDonaldTrump.”
ICYMI
- In this week’s Coastal Navigator podcast, The Current’s Gillian Goodman American looks at how the campaigns of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have courted Christian voters in Georgia, and what those voters think about the candidates. She also explores the idea that has become a central question to some of these voters: the desire to return to a “Christian nation.” Tune in.
- “Stopping Sapelo zoning referendum costs McIntosh County more than holding it” (The Current, Oct. 22, 2024) “Last month, when a Superior Court judge halted a McIntosh County referendum meant to protect Sapelo Island’s Gullah Geechee community, he sided with local officials who believe that the vote’s $20,000 price tag was a waste of taxpayer money. Yet in July and August this year, the county commissioners spent nearly double that amount in legal fees fighting the civic action backed by thousands of county residents, according to public records reviewed by The Current.”
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As Nov. 5 approaches, a scramble for votes in Glynn County
In deeply red Glynn County, a group called Black MAGA GA stumped for Trump. The crowd, however, was mostly white.
Harris, Trump offer worlds-apart contrasts on 10 top issues in presidential race
The outcome will affect how the country sees itself and how it’s viewed across the world, with repercussions that could echo for decades.
Georgia Democrats try to get closer to a majority as they contest legislative seats
Democrats are campaigning on overturning Georgia’s abortion restrictions, doing more to limit guns, and expanding the Medicaid program to more low-income adults. Republicans tout their support for low taxes, police and school vouchers.
Chatham Commission chair: Who best to manage growth?
The candidates competing to lead Chatham County differ on their vision of how economic development should be balanced with population growth.
Q&A: Chatham County Commission chair candidates
Boblasky, Ellis get same questions on issues, stands in run for Chatham County Commission Chairman..
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