MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
And I'm Mary Louise Kelly in Atlanta, where we are running around all this week, talking with as many voters as we can, asking, what's on their minds? Georgia is a battleground state, and it is a critical one in this election. Vice President Harris will be back here again tomorrow. And elsewhere on the show today, you will hear a round table of women voters who are all in for her. Right now, though, I want to take us to a different corner of the state. Georgia Public Broadcasting's Sarah Kallis is an hour or so drive from me. She's in eastern Georgia. Hey there, Sarah.
SARAH KALLIS, BYLINE: Hi. How are you?
KELLY: I'm all right. Tell me where you are exactly.
KALLIS: So I'm standing on a park in Rutledge, Ga., and it's a pretty small park in the middle of town. And I can see a gazebo, a metal swing set and a slide near me. There's also a rooster walking around the park that you might have heard earlier and you might hear again on this call.
KELLY: (Laughter) OK, good.
KALLIS: And so on my drive here from Atlanta, I passed miles of cotton fields. Rutledge is a very small town. It's only about 871 people. And I can see several small businesses, like a restaurant, a hardware store and a dentist, near the park. But most of the other storefronts are vacant. Rutledge is near a planned Rivian electric vehicle plant that promised to bring in thousands of jobs, but construction has been paused indefinitely. And I've spoken to a lot of people here who said that small new businesses often struggle to make it.
KELLY: I hear the rooster there. And I also hear you telling me that residents are worried about local business. They are worried about the local economy. What else are they telling you?
KALLIS: Right. So I spoke to one voter here, and she said that she's going to be voting for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump because her investments were doing better when he was in office and the cost of essentials, like groceries and that type of thing, were down. And I spoke to another voter who supports Trump also, Elaine Tannehill. And she said (ph) that she has six adult children, and she's noticed those increasing costs as well.
ELAINE TANNEHILL: And I was thinking, if I was raising six kids in this economy, I don't know how I'd buy their groceries. You would have...
KALLIS: So she's now retired, but if she was raising kids today, she told me that she'd want to try to grow her own food to reduce grocery costs. So like many other small towns in Georgia, a lot of the voters tend to lean Republican. In Morgan County, where I am now, about 70% of voters chose Trump in 2020.
KELLY: Seventy percent - got it. And what are they telling you, Sarah, about why and whether they plan to do so again, vote for Trump again this year?
KALLIS: So one voter that I talked to, Eddie Everett, said that he's going to vote for former President Trump based on his stances on the economy and also immigration.
EDDIE EVERETT: It directly affects me, and mass invasion of illegals is going to threaten my Social Security and health care.
KALLIS: So I think it's worth noting that immigrants across the border illegally can't collect Social Security, but a lot of these voters were so worried about how undocumented immigrants could impact the economy. Most studies are showing an overall benefit and actually some economic growth from immigration. But overall, some cities and counties can find it a little bit difficult to provide basic services for these new residents.
KELLY: Well, and it's so interesting because Georgia, of course, is not a border state, and yet it sounds like immigration, border security, this is top of people's minds.
KALLIS: Right, especially with Republican voters. And also, that message has been pushed pretty heavily by Donald Trump.
KELLY: Have you heard any hesitancy about Trump among Republican voters who you're talking with?
KALLIS: Absolutely. I mean, not every Republican totally agrees with Trump. Tannehill, who we heard from earlier, says that she takes issues especially with Trump's rhetoric, but she overall agrees with his policies.
TANNEHILL: Oh, just calling names. You know, he can - he could have gone through the debate without calling names or go to these speeches that he has to without calling names. I think people are used to it now, but it would just sound better and more presidential if he didn't.
KALLIS: So the voters that I've talked to told me that the town is pretty close-knit, and one person actually told me that she's a Democrat, but she won't go on record supporting Vice President Harris. And she works in a cafe nearby and thinks that that could impact business.
KELLY: Sarah, before I let you go, just situate Rutledge, how it compares, how the people you are meeting there compare, in their views, to other parts of rural Georgia.
KALLIS: Right. So rural counties outside of the major cities in Atlanta tend to vote Republican pretty consistently. But some counties, like Liberty County, which is in southeast Georgia, sort of near Savannah, have pretty large pockets of Black voters, and they tend to lean Democratic. Liberty County ended up voting for Biden in 2020. Overall, rural voters in Georgia voted mostly for Trump in 2020, but both the Harris and the Trump campaigns have opened field offices in these rural areas to try to connect with voters there.
KELLY: That is Georgia Public Broadcasting's Sarah Kallis, out talking with voters in Rutledge, Ga., as our series We, The Voters rolls on. Thank you, Sarah.
KALLIS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.