When President Joe Biden won Georgia in 2020, the first Democrat to do so since Bill Clinton in 1992, it was by less than 12,000 votes.

And until recently, polling signaled that the Peach State might return to the Republican fold, favoring former President Donald Trump in a 2020 rematch.

“If Biden had still been the candidate, and those numbers were still looking the same, or if they were looking worse for him, that you would start to see ad buys being pulled from the state, and you would actually start to see personnel being pulled from the state of Georgia,” suggested Andra Gillespie, a professor at Emory University. 

But with Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket, things may have started to shift in Georgia. While polling showed Biden trailing Trump by a few points in the state, surveys are now showing Harris closing the gap with the Republican former president, even tying him in some surveys.

A recent New York Times-Siena poll showed Trump leading Harris by 4 points, a stark difference from the 9 points by which the Republican led Biden in the same survey in May. And the nonpartisan Cook Political Report moved Georgia, along with fellow Sun Belt battleground states Arizona and Nevada, from "lean Republican" to "toss up" earlier this month.

“The race looks competitive, and we've started to see that … reflected not just in the ad buys, but also in how the prognosticators are calling the state," said Gillespie. "So this is moved back from leaning Republican to being a toss up state.”

To that end, Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, embarked Wednesday on a bus tour through rural counties of Georgia, culminating with a rally in Savannah on Thursday. While there, Harris and Walz will also take part in a joint interview with CNN, which comes amid criticism -- largely from Trump and his fellow Republicans -- that the Democratic candidate has not sat for a formal interview since taking the reins from Biden last month.

Harris and Walz arrived in Georgia on Wednesday afternoon, greeted by a number of officials, including Rep. Nikema Williams, the chair of the state's Democratic Party, as well as students from Savannah State University who posed for photos and selfies with the vice president.

The Democratic nominees later stopped at a high school, where they dropped in on band practice.

"We’re so proud of you and we’re counting on you," Harris told the students, adding that their generation "is what is going to propel our country into the next era of what we can do and what we can be."

They also stopped at a barbecue restaurant, where they talked to diners and took photos with some patrons.

As the tour got underway, a new Fox News poll was released showing Harris leading in Georgia by two points (50-48) and closing the gap in other Sun Belt states like North Carolina (50-49 Trump), Arizona (50-49 Harris) and Nevada (50-48 Harris).

It's the second tour Harris and Walz have embarked on by bus since their swing through Pennsylvania ahead of last week's Democratic National Convention.

It’s her seventh trip to the state this year, and second to Savannah – a sign, according to Charles Bullock of the University of Georgia, that the state truly is competitive.

“Perhaps the best possible strategy for a Democrat is – you win at least two of the northern states [Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin] and win at least two of the southern Sun Belt states. And that would be enough.” explained Bullock, who noted that North Carolina, Nevada, and Arizona also fall into the Sun Belt territory.

There’s been a visible effort by the Harris campaign to hold events and have high level surrogates on the trail over the last several weeks in these states. (To that end, the campaign announced a Labor Day weekend blitz of battleground states, both the northern Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and the Sun Belt states of Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada.)

Bullock says perhaps the greatest indication that there is true belief Democrats can keep Georgia blue is that they are sending Harris herself to stump there – not another surrogate.

“[The] most valuable thing a candidate has is the candidate's time. You can raise more money, hire more staff, get more volunteers. You can't get more time," said Bullock. "The fact that she and Tim Walz are coming to Georgia and doing this tour down there indicates that, yeah, they think Georgia is very much a gettable state for them.”

Savannah is a solidly blue city, but visiting the southeastern corner of the state is a conscious choice, he added.

“By going to South Georgia and spending some time there, she'll beef up how well she'll do in Savannah,” Bullock explained. “Most of the rest of South Georgia is very red, so she's not going to win those counties, but if she simply reduces Trump's margins there, that could be critical, because remember, four years ago, the state was decided by fewer than 12,000 votes.”

“Getting some votes in counties you don’t win is still an advantage.”

Black voters, particularly Black women, have long been the backbone of the Democratic Party -- “The general rule of thumb, give or take a few percentage points is that Democratic candidates usually get 90% of the African American vote,” explained Gillespie.

But while Black voters will still be incredibly important in November, both parties are looking to youth voters to be a decisive voting bloc in November.

“Democrats think that they might have an advantage here, and part of that has to do with the increased racial diversity of younger generations compared to their elders, so groups that are already historically more likely to vote Democratic than Republican,” said Gillespie. When Joe Biden was a candidate, it was questionable whether or not he had the confidence of younger voters, and so there was a concern that younger voters might show up at even lower rates than they normally do, because they were turned off by his candidacy, because they didn't necessarily agree with every policy that he had done, because, there were concerns that they might be exposed to misinformation that might distort his record and other things.”

“What the Harris campaign is trying to do is to reset that image of what the Democratic ticket looks like in the hope that they don't lose support from younger voters.”

The Democratic National Convention laid the groundwork last week for it’s appeal to youth voters, credentialing over 200 content creators to try and reach Gen Z voters through TikTok and other social media platforms. Bullock said that while youth voters in that 18-29 year old range have been one of the strongest Democratic voting blocs, that the Harris campaign will need to continue that outreach in the coming weeks.

“They need that vote again, they need to turn out in large numbers, and that's really hard for young voters, young voters of the group least likely to turn out. So Democrats need to have them again, like the black vote, you know, enthusiastic and present.”

Voters in Georgia who spoke to Spectrum News on Wednesday definitely say they feel a shift in enthusiasm since Harris took the top spot on the Democratic ticket.

Chloe Branch says she feels there's more enthusiasm since Biden stepped out the race in favor of Harris, particularly among younger voters.

"There's been a very big shift, especially my friends in Atlanta going to college and things like that," said Branch. "They're more vocal and they're more like, 'hey guys, let's get out and vote."

"Such a change, especially, like, just for America in general," she said.

Grace Perry, 22, said she voted for Trump in 2020 -- her first presidential election -- but said that she's giving Harris a closer look this time around, expressing her belief that the Republican candidate is stronger on economic issues, but the vice president is stronger on issues relating to women, like reproductive rights.

"I voted for Trump last year, but I think this year, having Kamala as a nominee, I've been trying to do my research a lot more," she said. "Trying to figure out, you know, what do I want for my kids? ... Things like that and trying to accept everybody, which Kamala very much so does

Perry said that she, too, is "definitely" seeing more excitement about Harris. So too did Michael Greenbaum, who espressed that "everybody" in his friend group is elated by her candidacy, particularly praising her pick of Walz.

"I know at the beginning we were like, 'who is he?,' but once we finally got to see him, we were like, 'Okay, he's a great pick,' and I think he will definitely help her even in the more rural areas in Georgia as well," said Greenbaum, who expressed that the Minnesota governor shares a similar everyman persona to Joe Biden. "I think a lot of people can relate to him and know somebody that is just like him, I think that will help her out tremendously."

"I think she's actually more competitive than you think," Gerald Chambers, who described himself as an independent, said of her chances in the state. "I mean, women's health, reproductive, health is is a big issue for any, any party, any anybody in any party, whether you're Republican, Independent like myself or Democratic."

Heading into Georgia, the Harris-Walz campaign is touting 190 Democratic staffers in 24 coordinated offices statewide, as well as 35,000 new volunteers in the state since the vice president joined the ticket.

The campaign on Sunday celebrated what it called the most enthusiastic week of the campaign so far, organizing more than 200,000 new volunteer shifts since the first day of the Democratic National Convention, and marking more than $540 million raised in little more than a month of campaigning.

And the convention, they said, was a tremendous success under those metrics.

“We head into September with a virtual army of volunteers ready to do the hard work of talking to their neighbors, friends and colleagues,” Harris-Walz campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a memo from the campaign. According to that memo, the Women for Harris coalition group “engaged” with more than 10,000 women voters; had about 4,000 supporters join the Latinos con Biden-Harris WhatsApp group; and had more than a half-dozen coalition groups running organizing efforts during the convention.

"Not only are our volunteers doing the work, but this week we saw unprecedented grassroots donations," she added. The campaign, O’Malley Dillon said, crossed the mark of $500 million raised soon before Vice President Kamala Harris took the stage to accept her nomination for the presidency on Thursday. "Immediately after her speech, we saw our best fundraising hour since launch day."

All told, the campaign said, it raised $82 million the week of the convention.