Georgia passes controversial election law to hand count ballots
The vote passed 3-2 by the Georgia State Election Board. The board also passed two more election rules in August.
With only six weeks left until Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are flooding voters with ads and rallies in several battleground states, including Georgia – which Trump lost to President Joe Biden by fewer than 12,000 votes in the 2020 election.
Before Biden dropped out on July 21, Trump’s campaign was so confident of victory in Georgia that it had spent less than $3 million on ad buys, according to Reuters. Since Harris’s emergence, the campaign and an affiliated group responded by sinking more than $30 million into advertising in the state, outspending the Harris campaign through August.
“ATTENTION GEORGIA: I’m humbly asking you to stop what you’re doing and check your voter registration status,” read one Trump ad circulated online in the Peach State. “Only a handful of votes will decide this election. We can stop inflation, secure our borders, lower taxes, and make America Great Again!”
More: Trump leading in three battleground Sun Belt states, according to New York Times poll
The backdrop of the ad showed a beautiful mountain range with fields of white flowers and low-hanging clouds.
The only problem? The photo in the ad features Georgia, a country that borders Russia, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan — not the battleground swing state.
Social media users matched the ad with a stock photo of the Caucasus mountains, which span the northern part of the country. Georgia, a former Soviet Union republic, sits at the intersection of Eastern Europe and Western Asia.
The photo’s caption reads, “Cloudy morning view of the mountain hill in Upper Svanetia, Georgia, Europe.”
According to AdImpact, which tracks political advertising, the ad has been running in Georgia since Sept. 10, but it was quickly removed after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on the gaffe. Trump is currently polling slightly ahead of Harris across the state, though it is expected to be a competitive race.
Ammar Moussa, the director of rapid response for the Harris campaign, also posted about the ad on X, formerly Twitter.
“Yikes,” he wrote, sharing a screenshot of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution article and adding, “Top notch operation.”
Reuters contributed to the reporting of this story. Maya Homan is a 2024 election fellow at USA TODAY who focuses on Georgia politics. She is @MayaHoman on X, formerly Twitter.
Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=66f386cba96b471384a40f5f1c9cebdb&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2Felections%2F2024%2F09%2F24%2Ftrump-ad-georgia-mistakes-country-for-state%2F75359672007%2F&c=6996391422668925280&mkt=en-us
Author :
Publish date : 2024-09-24 10:37:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.