MACON, Ga. — First lady Jill Biden made her first campaign visit back to Macon on Saturday since 2020.
The Central Georgia city was along her route on the campaign trail, as she continued to campaign and rally for Vice President Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to campaign volunteers and supporters. Biden recalled her last visit to Macon and was just happy to see people without masks on.
"As we were preparing for today, we were thinking back to four years ago," Biden said. "We gathered just before election day outside of the Tubman Museum, but we were in masks and we were seated six feet apart. It's sort of a good memory I guess. The pandemic was raging, schools were closed, Donald Trump (was) creating chaos at every turn. That was four years ago. So today, it's so nice to be here with all of you to see your faces."
Biden flew into Macon after a trip to Atlanta. She's traveling to Savannah to continue on the campaign trail with just three days left until the election.
This was Biden's main point to the crowd gathered for the rally. She encouraged each person there to get out and make their voices heard, a message former president Donald Trump will likely issue to his supporters on Sunday when he makes his visit.
"We have to work harder than we've ever worked before," Biden said. "We have to push further than we've pushed in the past. We have to meet this moment as if our democracy is on the line because it is if our freedoms are at stake because they are."
Biden and other representatives at the event encouraged people to vote on Tuesday, Nov. 5 but celebrated the early voting numbers across the state.
According to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Georgians smashed 2020 and 2022 early vote totals, with more than 4 million early and absentee ballots returned as of Saturday morning. Ninety-two counties have reported more than 50% turnout so far as Election Day draws closer.
Biden asked the audience to think back to 2016. She asked those in the audience to recall how they were feeling when the Democrats lost to the Republican party and Trump. She told them to use that feeling to make a final push for their party and that they "can't let that happen again."
"Remember that feeling, thinking, 'oh, if we only had made more calls or knocked on more doors,'" Biden said.
She stressed that, in her eyes, it's time for a "new generation of leadership," which Biden said is Harris and Walz. Biden called Harris a "calm, decisive, strong leader. She asked those in attendance to help keep Georgia blue a year longer.
She said that Harris plans on lowering the costs of housing, groceries and prescriptions, strengthening social security and Medicare and protecting women's rights.
Biden, to close out her rally, asked her audience to flash forward, something she did at rallies back in 2020.
"You wake up and you grab your morning coffee and you start to scroll through your favorite news feed you think, thank God, the chaos of late-night tweet-storms is gone," Biden said. "You read about bipartisan legislation to lower the cost of prescription drugs because Democrats and Republicans can come together to get reasonable things done for the American people."
Biden continued to speak that, under Harris, she believes that the American people can move on from "the mega extremism of hate and vulgarity." She closed by making a final plea for those at the rally to come together and help Democrats win.
"We will elect a new generation of leaders. We will choose a new way forward. So let's elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz," Biden said.
Trump will make one of his final pushes this election cycle on Sunday, Nov. 3 at the Atrium Health Amphitheatre. The former president will likely urge many voters to get out to the polls to flip the state red, like when Trump won in 2016.