Lakin Riley’s murder becomes a ‘flashpoint’ for presidential campaign in Georgia

COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — Tuesday, Georgia voters will go to the polls to vote in the presidential primaries.

This comes as the top of the Democratic and Republican tickets are all but set after the results of earlier state primaries.

WRBL talked to a key national Democrat and a Georgia Republican operative about the rematch that is shaping up between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Georgia played an important role in the 2020 Biden-Trump race. Biden won by less than 12,000 votes.

This year the stakes in the Peach State are just as high.

On Saturday, both Biden and Trump campaigned in Georgia as they seek to make their respective party nominations official.

The immigration issue at the Southern border has become central in this campaign. And the murder of University of Georgia student Lakin Riley has added a new dimension to the race.

The man accused of killing Riley is someone who was in this country illegally.

“Her death is not just  unfortunate, it’s tragic,” said Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D), who was in Columbus Sunday campaigning for Biden. “And, you know, I think it’s tragic also to the point that the president spoke about it  during the State of the Union. You know, as a father who’s lost one of his own children, he talked about it with not just with a sense of sympathy  for the family, but a real sense of empathy. This touches him deeply, personally.  And I think what it did was it highlighted  that we have to be able to get an immigration policy and a border policy  that actually works.”

Republican strategist, Brian Robinson, president of Robinson Republic Communications in Atlanta, said all you have to do is look how Trump campaigned in

“Lakin Riley’s death in and of itself as an individual tragedy, something that we all mourn, but it’s also a flashpoint in national politics and an issue that is a major dividing line in the 2024 election,” Robinson said. “You saw President Trump seizing upon this during his Rome rally on Saturday. He had the Lakin Riley family there and was able to point out that President Biden got her name wrong, calling her Lincoln Riley, who of course, is a football coach. And then he didn’t apologize for that.  President Biden apologized for calling the alleged killer illegal.”

oth Moore and Robinson know that Georgia could play an outsized role in the November General Election.

“And I do think it is important when understanding the importance of Georgia in this race to remember what both candidates were doing (Saturday),” Moore said. “While the president was in Georgia campaigning with small business owner and minority owned businesses, black-owned businesses, Latino-owned businesses, AAPI-owned businesses, Donald Trump was campaigning with Marjorie Taylor Greene. So, I think it’s important that people are seeing that both camps care deeply about Georgia. Both camps also just have very different ways of approaching why it matters so much.”

Robinson said that Trump’s road back to the White House must include a Georgia victory in November.

“Beyond tomorrow, Georgia begins to take much more importance in the national scene,” Robinson said. “We’re one of six, maybe seven, swing states that are on the map right now. We know how most states are going to vote. And this state is particularly important for former President Donald Trump. There’s really no pathway to the White House for him outside of winning Georgia. Georgia is essential. Now is really important for Joe Biden, too. There are other pathways, however, for Biden, but for both candidates, he’s winning. Georgia will be part of a winning formula.”

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