Donald Trump Expands Georgia Campaign Staff

On the same day that Donald Trump named a new national campaign team, the organization also said it has added two staffers to its Atlanta office.

Former TV producer Jennifer Hazelton will handle communications, according to the AJC, and Billy Kirkland will serve as senior strategist. Kirkland was a staff member during David Perdue's successful U.S. Senate campaign victory over Michelle Nunn.

The Georgia hires also come at the same time that Trump is preparing to air his first TV ads of the general election. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump's ads will begin airing Friday in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Also this week, Trump promoted pollster Kellyanne Conway to campaign manager and named Breitbart co-founder Stephen Bannon as campaign chief executive, according to Fox News.

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After decades as a reliably red state, Georgia may truly be a battleground come November.

A recent poll from WSB-TV shows Hillary Clinton and Trump in a statistical tie for the presidency among Peach State voters. Trump holds a narrow edge over Clinton, the Democrat, in the poll -- 45.5 percent to 44.2 percent. Libertarian Gary Johnson took just over 5 percent of support in the poll and Green Party nominee Jill Stein came in with 2.5 percent.

Democratic Party of Georgia officials also say they've been informed that Clinton's campaign plans to expand its spending and operations in the state.

Democratic Party of Georgia communications director Michael Smith confirmed that state party leaders had conversations with the Clinton campaign earlier this month about expanding its investment in the state.

In 2012, President Barack Obama got more than 45 percent of the vote in Georgia -- compared to 53 percent for Mitt Romney -- without a single campaign stop in the state and with limited advertising and organization.

Analysts look to growing minority populations, which tend to be Democrat friendly, and an influx of voters from other states moving in, particularly in counties in and around Atlanta.

“Numbers don’t lie -- Georgia is a battleground state," said DuBose Porter, chairman of the Democratic Party of Georgia. "We're not taking a single vote for granted, and we’re leaving no stone unturned to use this momentum to mobilize voters on an unprecedented scale. All I can say is that I wouldn’t want to be a Republican on November 8."

Georgia Republicans, meanwhile, predict that any spending by Clinton in the state will be a wasted effort.

"Sending money to the Democrat Party of Georgia to hire some staffers is about the only jobs Hillary will be creating in Georgia," Brandon Phillips, Trump's campaign manager in the state, told WABE. "Georgia will not be in play in November and our campaign is building out an operation to make sure it's not even close."

Photo by Wendy Ann Mitchell