Dueling Harris and Trump rallies in the same Atlanta arena showcase America’s deep divide

ATLANTA (AP) — Two rallies. Two Americas.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump stood in the same arena four days apart, each looking over capacity crowds like concert stars or prizefighters. The competing events were staged three months before Election Day in the state that produced the closest margin of the 2020 race for the White House. On policy, tone, the types of voters in attendance and even the music playlists, the rallies offered not just opposing visions of the country but starkly different versions of it.

Those dynamics raise questions about how a factionalized citizenry might embrace a Trump comeback or a Harris ascension. On that, at least two people who came to the Georgia State Convocation Center on different days could agree.

“It’s OK to have different ideologies,” said Angela Engram, a 59-year-old Democrat who drove from Stockbridge, Georgia, to hear Harris on Tuesday. “But now it’s just so much about parties and personalities and power, with people not even trying to understand each other.” Tracy Maddux, a 67-year-old retired grocer from Sparta, Georgia, who was at Trump’s rally on Saturday, shared Engram’s lament about politics in 2024.