©  Charles Rex Arbogast, Associated Press

The campaigns for former President Trump and Vice President Harris are honing in on Georgia as a major battleground, with its 16 Electoral College votes making it the biggest prize among the Sun Belt swing states.

• Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) set out Wednesday on a bus tour across the southern part of the state, as they seek to cut into Trump’s margins among rural voters. 

• Harris is hoping she can consolidate Black voters in Georgia, who make up nearly one-third of the state’s population.

• Harris and Walz will end up in Savannah on Thursday, where they’ll hold a campaign rally. Their first interview, a pre-recorded sit-down with CNN’s Dana Bash conducted in Georgia, will air Thursday night.

Trump, meanwhile, is looking to right his wrongs from 2020, patching things up with Georgia’s popular Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.

• Kemp will host a fundraiser Thursday for Trump in Atlanta, the latest sign the two are putting past tensions aside with the shared goal of helping Trump and down ballot Republicans win in Georgia in November.

Georgia Republicans watched in horror in 2020 as Trump refused to concede his election loss to President Biden and instead urged officials in the state to change the outcome.

• Trump’s moves were a major turnoff to voters ahead of the Senate run-off elections in Georgia, helping Democrats scoop up two additional Senate seats and giving them a majority in the upper chamber.

• The efforts to overturn the election in Georgia have haunted Trump ever since, as he faces state and federal election interference charges.

• Trump has complained incessantly that Kemp did not do enough to challenge the results in Georgia, but the former president has recently been singing a different tune, as polls show Harris running strong in the Peach State.

After Kemp went on Fox News last week to reiterate his support for Trump to win the White House, the former president tweeted:

“Thank you to Brian Kemp for all of your help and support in Georgia, where a win is so important to the success of our party and, most importantly, our country. I look forward to working with you, your team, and all of my friends in Georgia to help make America great again!”

Kemp is seen as having a top-notch voter turnout operation in Georgia, which could help Trump if the two remain on good terms.

Every vote will matter:

• Biden carried Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020, a margin of only 0.23 percent, making him the first Democratic presidential candidate to win there since 1992.

• Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in Georgia by roughly 5 points in 2016.

• The Hill/Decision Desk HQ polling index finds Trump ahead by 2.7 points. Trump had led Biden there by as many as 10 points.

Read more:

• Harris to barnstorm Georgia.
• Trump, Kemp look to present a united front in must-win Georgia.
• Harris campaign launches Project 2025 ad blitz.
• Trump campaign seeks to blunt Harris momentum.
• RFK may be unable to withdraw name in some swing-states.
• Trump says he’d win California if Jesus “was the vote counter.”
• Harris gains on Trump on economy, crime.
• Election forecast deems North Carolina a “toss up.”

Perspectives:

• The Hill: Harris has united her party, now she must transcend it.
• The Hill: If you back Trump the Kennedys will disown you.
• The Guardian: Dems can win by championing the Middle Class.
• The Wall Street Journal: Dems up but could be headed back for Earth.
• The American Mind: What do voters actually care about?

Welcome to Evening Report! I’m Jonathan Easley, catching you up from the afternoon and what’s coming tomorrow. Not on the list? Subscribe here.

• The Surgeon General warns parents are facing dangerous levels of stress.

• The American dream feels out of reach for most. A Wall Street Journal poll shows people want a home, a family and a comfortable retirement, but voters say those goals are tough to achieve even with hard work.

   

• A top U.S. general says the near-term risk for war in the Middle East has eased, although a new Israeli raid on Tuesday of the West Bank killed at least nine people.

• President Biden approved a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza to distribute aide, despite internal pushback, a watchdog found. The pier, which cost $230 million, operated for about 20 days before it had to be dismantled.

• Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, was formally indicted by a French judge Wednesday over allegations that he was complicit in criminal activity that took place on the messaging app. The case has become a flashpoint in the debate over free speech.

©  Jacquelyn Martin, Associated Press

New details are coming out about how Special Counsel Jack Smith refined his election interference case against former President Trump to comply with the Supreme Court ruling that gave sitting presidents broad criminal immunity.

Smith brought the superseding indictment in front of an all new grand jury of at least 16 citizens, with the panel ultimately deciding charges were warranted.

Smith’s prosecution will now focus on Trump’s alleged election interference actions outside of his official capacity as president.

• The indictment accuses Trump of acting in his capacity as a candidate, rather than as president, to organize a false slate of electors to submit to Congress. The indictment says Trump “had no official responsibilities related to any state’s certification of the election results” but instead had “personal interest as a candidate.”

• Some previous charges failed to make the cut in the new indictment. The special counsel is no longer including charges that stemmed from Trump’s conversations with the House minority leader during the Capitol riot, or allegations that Trump sought to use the Justice Department to convince state officials to overturn the election.

• The new indictment puts a tough decision in front of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who must weigh whether it meets the standards set by the Supreme Court immunity ruling. Chutkan will hold a hearing on Sept. 5 to decide how to move forward. 

The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch and Ella Lee have the takeaways here.

More from the courts:

• The Supreme Court won’t reinstate Biden’s new student debt plan.

• Democrats are challenging election certification rules in Georgia, while Republicans are targeting registration procedures in Arizona and North Carolina. The lawsuits are flying across the battleground states as the parties fight over who gets to vote and how, The Wall Street Journal reports.

• Democrats launched a new super PAC to counter the GOP’s legal election challenges, NBC News reports. The group, called Democracy Defenders, is chaired by former President Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina. Former Biden campaign spokesman TJ Ducklo will serve as chief strategist.

The bipartisan task force investigating the security failures that led to the assassination attempt on former President Trump has requested interviews and records from the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Secret Service as part of the inquiry into the July 13 shooting, according to Politico.

The request for documents and interviews comes after members of the task force visited the Butler, Pa., rally site where 20-year-old gunman Thomas Crooks scaled a building and grazed Trump with a bullet before being shot dead.

• The FBI said in a Wednesday briefing it still doesn’t have a motive for Crooks, but that he viewed the rally as a “target of opportunity.”

• NBC News reports the shooter used the air-conditioning unit on the building to get on the roof, where he had a clear shot from within 170 yards of Trump.

• Lawyers representing two other people who were injured in the shooting told Fox News their clients may sue, but they’ll wait to see what kind of answers the bipartisan task force delivers.

More from Congress:

• Former Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), once a rising GOP star, told the Washington Post he left Congress after his family had been “swatted.” Gallagher trashed the incentives for lawmakers in Washington, saying nothing meaningful gets done because lawmakers are too concerned with raising their profiles on cable news.

• House Republicans are demanding to speak with President Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Trump and his campaign have made the chaotic withdrawal a centerpiece of their campaign against Vice President Harris.

• House Republicans are taking a victory lap over Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), in which he detailed Biden administration efforts to censor information shared on social media platforms during the pandemic and 2020 election.

• A conservative push to enforce stricter proof-of-citizenship requirements for voting could complicate budget negotiations and increase the possibility of a government shutdown.

• Democratic lawmakers are calling for a crackdown on artificial intelligence deepfakes after the release of Elon Musk’s new chatbot Grok on X.

©  Eric Gay / The Associated Press

A roundup from the states…

• Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said in an interview with NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas that the border issue in Texas has been “solved,” but that illegal immigration still remains an emergency in other states. Abbott, who has clashed with the Biden administration over how to limit border crossings, credited the buoys floating in the Rio Grande River with dissuading new migrants.

• California Democrats want to help undocumented immigrants buy a house in an election year.

• An artificial intelligence (AI) bill in California is dividing Silicon Valley and has drawn national policy makers into the debate. Elon Musk supports the bill requiring safety tests on AI models.

• A federal appeals court blocked Tennessee’s efforts to collect millions of dollars in family planning funds, saying the state has refused to comply with federal rules requiring clinics to provide abortion referrals.

• Red states petitioned the Supreme Court to halt the EPA’s methane rule.

“Zuckerberg exposed Biden’s contempt for free speech,” by Brad Polumbo for Newsweek.

“There’s no freedom without government,” by William Galston for The Wall Street Journal.

13 days until the first presidential debate between Harris and Trump.

23 days until early in-person voting begins in Minnesota and South Dakota.

34 days until the vice presidential debate between Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Walz.

69 days until the 2024 general election.

145 days until Inauguration Day 2025.

Wednesday

• Biden is on vacation in Rehoboth Beach, Del.
• Harris and Walz embark on a campaign trip across Southern Georgia.
• Vance holds a campaign event in De Pere, Wis., at 6:30 p.m.

Thursday

• Trump delivers remarks at a steel factory in Potterville, Mich. He’ll then conduct a town hall event in La Crosse, Wis.
• Harris and Walz hold a campaign rally in Savannah, Ga. They’ll sit for a joint interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, which will air at 9 p.m. EDT.

There a story you think should be getting more attention? Something people should be talking about? Drop me a line: jeasley@thehill.com

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