At a barbecue, a high school band rehearsal and other stops in the Savannah area, Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, wanted to send a signal on Wednesday that they want to gain a foothold in Republican-dominated regions outside the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Harris will cap the swing with a rally late Thursday afternoon at Enmarket Arena in Savannah.

“The road to the White House goes through Georgia and the access there goes through Savannah and the Georgia coast,” says Savannah Mayor Van Johnson.

Although surrogates touted the bus tour as an example of the campaign’s commitment to narrowing the majority in heavily Republican, rural and suburban areas of Georgia, the stops ultimately focused on Savannah and the surrounding area, heavily Democratic Chatham County and neighboring Liberty County, which voted 61 percent for Joe Biden in 2020.

Still, Democrats view efforts to campaign outside the Atlanta metropolitan area as a significant development.

According to the University of Georgia’s Russell Library, the last Democratic presidential candidate to campaign in south Georgia with a bus tour was Bill Clinton, making dozens of stops between Columbus and Valdosta in 1992. Before Biden’s victory in Georgia in 2020, that election was the last in which a Democrat won Georgia’s Electoral College votes. Harris last visited Savannah in February.

“I don’t think in our history – and we are 291 years old – we have ever had a president or vice president twice in the same year, let alone in six months,” Johnson says.

Savannah State University students greeted Air Force Two on Wednesday before Harris and Walz boarded a red, white and blue campaign bus to Liberty County High School. The district is about 40% black, with a large proportion of veterans and voters ages 18 to 29 due to the U.S. Army base at Fort Stewart.

The high school students – marching band kids, football players and cheerleaders – gasped and cheered, seemingly shocked, when Harris and Walz showed up at band practice. Walz cited his experience as a high school teacher and coach; Harris revealed that she had played the French horn.

“Sometimes you hit the notes, sometimes you don’t,” Harris told the students. “But through all that practice, beautiful music emerges.”

Harris and Walz also stopped by Sandfly Barbeque in Savannah, known for its Brunswick stew. “Our politics can give hope,” Walz told guests. “It can be beautiful.” The campaign plans to visit more small businesses, thank volunteers and leave a ticket for their first joint interview, which is scheduled to air Thursday night.

The upbeat stops were meant to demonstrate the campaign’s appeal outside of major metropolitan areas and provide a contrast to the Trump campaign’s often more somber tone on the campaign trail. U.S. Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, former President Donald Trump’s vice presidential candidate, campaigned in Valdosta last week. An awkward stop for doughnuts drew heavy criticism on social media. While the Democrats’ stops seemed more natural, they were still brief and took place among friendly supporters in predominantly Democratic communities.

“While our extremely committed and energetic effort in Georgia is focused on mobilizing votes across the state, Georgia Democrats are finally learning an important lesson: There is more to Georgia than just Atlanta,” Morgan Ackley, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, wrote in a statement.

Some Democrats had hoped Harris would cover a broader swath of southern Georgia, particularly heavily black and rural southwest Georgia. In recent years, Democratic candidates such as Stacey Abrams, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock have invested heavily in those regions.

“People are excited and motivated, especially in an area where there is a lot of apathy, which probably stems from people not paying much attention to voters in this area,” said Demetrius Young, an Albany city councilman.

Democrats have opened campaign offices for Harris in communities like Albany and Valdosta, doing door-to-door and phone canvassing. Young says he’s optimistic.

“Because the margins are razor-thin, every single vote has to be won,” says Young. “Here you have to get the votes that are hidden, so to speak.”