Trump has kept up a running feud with Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) that has subsided in recent weeks with the state on the line. Kemp is vastly more popular than Trump there, and while the former president might not be talking about the delta in their vote share, he appears to have acknowledged that picking a fight with a popular governor in a must-win state isn’t going to help him win. 

For years, Georgia was a Republican stronghold, only casting its Electoral College votes for a Democratic president once, for President Bill Clinton in 1992, after 1984. It has moved firmly into swing-state territory since 2020 and, like Pennsylvania for Vice President Kamala Harris, is a virtual requirement for Trump in any likely scenario to pick up 270 Electoral College votes. 

We are wrapping up our Battleground Ballots series this week with early voting starting and the highly anticipated presidential debate between Trump and Harris laying the marker for the last leg of the marathon-turned-sprint contest. This morning, White House Reporter Haisten Willis had a walkthrough of everything you need to know about the increasingly important and controversial battleground of Georgia. 

Four years of fights over voting laws hasn’t been enough for Republicans in Georgia. They overcame Democratic protests to put a handful of restrictions on mail-in voting laws that were expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those changes in 2021 resulted in Biden complaining about Republicans instituting “Jim Eagle” and “Jim Crow 2.0” and MLB pulling its All-Star Game from Atlanta in favor of moving it to Denver. 

“The governor signed another set of overhauls into law in May of this year, which clarifies under what circumstances a voter can be removed from eligibility rolls and makes other tweaks to voting laws,” Haisten wrote. “Opponents dubbed the new rules a ‘voter suppression bill’ and a ‘gift to MAGA election deniers.’”

Most recently, the Georgia State Election Board passed new election regulations governing the counting of votes. The board, by a 3-2 vote, approved a rule that allows for a “reasonable inquiry that the tabulation and canvassing of the election are complete and accurate and that the results are a true and accurate accounting of all votes cast in that election” before certifying the results.

The three board members who supported the extra level of scrutiny are known allies of Trump, and their support for the measure drew ethics complaints and a lawsuit from Democrats. 

“These novel requirements introduce substantial uncertainty in the postelection process and — if interpreted as their drafters have suggested — invite chaos by establishing new processes at odds with existing statutory duties,” the lawsuit said about the proposed electoral changes.

Click here to get caught up on everything you need to know about Georgia in 2024.

And they’re back

Lawmakers are returning to work today, but they won’t be here long. Following the summer recess, House and Senate members are descending on the Capitol to hash out their differences and try to reach an agreement that will continue to fund the government. Preventing a shutdown weeks before a presidential election is a high priority for House members, but that doesn’t mean Republicans aren’t prepared to play hardball. 

Senate Reporter Ramsey Touchberry has a thorough look at the ins and outs of the goings on up on the Hill for us this morning. Here’s a taste of what we should be keeping an eye out for. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and his contingent of firebrands, fiscal hawks, immigration skeptics, and committee brawlers are in charge of drafting the country’s budget. Uniting that disparate group of lawmakers has been a challenge for previous speakers — former Speaker Kevin McCarthy lost his job because he needed to work with Democrats on a budget that had any hope of passing. And Johnson’s job proved difficult before he made it back from his district. 

On the other side of the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has some freedom to keep pushing Biden’s judicial nominees through the approval process, but he is going to have to do some work to bridge the gap with House Republicans. 

“Congress has through Sept. 30 to pass some sort of spending measure before the federal government runs out of money, which is mostly likely to take the form of a stopgap bill known as a continuing resolution, or CR, as work continues on the fiscal 2025 budget,” Ramsey wrote. “Funding expires at midnight on Oct. 1.” 

The impetus is on Johnson and House Republicans to lead the way on budget talks, but Schumer and Senate Democrats aren’t willing to rubber-stamp anything that comes through their chamber just for the sake of avoiding a shutdown. 

“As we have said each time we’ve had a CR, the only way to get things done is in a bipartisan way, and that is what has happened every time,” Schumer said.

The primary sticking point in the latest round of budget talks is Johnson’s insistence on attaching the SAVE Act to the bill. The act would require voters to provide proof of citizenship when they register to vote. Republicans say it is a basic “election integrity” item that no one should have any problem supporting because it is against the law to vote in federal elections if you are not a citizen. Democrats are pointing to that law and saying the SAVE Act is a redundant piece of messaging legislation meant to be wielded as a “scare tactic” by Republicans. 

“Demanding outrageous partisan poison pills is a nonstarter,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-WA) said about the policy rider. “We’ve seen this movie before, and we know how it ends.”

It’s not clear which side is going to budge on what looks like an intractable matter. Lawmakers don’t have much time to hash out a deal — they leave town again on Sept. 27 to round out election season, leaving them with 15 working days to reach a deal. 

Johnson can hardly afford to disappoint the immigration hawks in his caucus who are demanding he get and stay tough on the issue. Killing the rider might earn him enough support from Democrats for the budget to make it out of the chamber, but he’d likely find himself in a McCarthyesque position of having to answer why he caved to the pressure and worked with Democrats to move a spending bill. 

Click here to read more about the tricky politics governing the next spending bill.

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For your radar

Biden will travel to the White House from Delaware at 12:35 p.m. and deliver remarks on the South Lawn to celebrate the Americans with Disabilities Act and mark Disability Pride Month at 5 p.m. 

Harris is still in Pennsylvania, where she is preparing for tomorrow night’s debate with Trump. She will leave Pittsburgh for Philadelphia at 4:40 p.m. She has no public events on her schedule. 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will brief reporters at 1:30 p.m.