Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens was the 550th voter to cast their ballot early at Evelyn Lowery Library in southwest Atlanta last week.
The first-term mayor did a flurry of news interviews outside of the polling location and filmed social media videos encouraging Atlantans to beat the lines and vote ahead of Election Day.
“I feel a lot of the pressure to make sure that Georgia, metro Atlanta, turns up the vote as they should,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “With so much going on in the world, there’s so many distractions, we’re telling people that this is important.”
It wasn’t his only role in a weekend packed with political events. As a surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris presidential bid, Dickens spent Saturday cruising around the city encouraging Black men to turn out big this election cycle.
He also addressed criticism that Harris’ support from Black men hasn’t been as strong as expected.
“I’m a Black man and I’m voting for Harris,” he said. “And to my knowledge, Black men are the second largest population that votes for Democrats — Black women and Black men.”