How Biden?s support for the All-Star Game boycott divided Democrats in Georgia

“I think he probably should not have weighed in,” said Jacquelyn Bettadapur, chair of the Cobb County Democrats. “As push came to shove, I know some of the local elected officials were disappointed that he weighed in.”

Influential Georgia Democrats reached out to the White House shortly after Biden’s remarks to indicate it was not their preferred message, according to three people with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the interactions. The conversations reached high levels of the White House, involving deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon.

The White House heard from the political teams of voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams, a potential candidate for governor, and Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), according to the people with knowledge of the situation. Their goal was to make the White House aware that both politicians planned to release statements opposing the boycott.

At the White House, press secretary Jen Psaki has spent days trying to clarify Biden’s answer — asserting that he was not explicitly calling for a boycott but was voicing support for voting rights and for the MLB if it chose to move the game.

“He was simply conveying that he would support that decision if that decision was made by Major League Baseball, just like he would support decisions made by private-sector companies,” Psaki told reporters Tuesday. “We’re not standing here and calling for companies to boycott. That’s not what our focus is on from the White House.”

But Biden’s remarks were widely seen as encouraging the move, and Psaki has since been pressed on whether the president supports other boycotts as well — including the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and the Masters, which began Thursday at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia.

To many advisers and longtime allies, the president’s answer reflected his deeply held conviction that voting is a fundamental right and that Georgia’s new law — which Democrats say makes voting more difficult, particularly for minority voters — is abhorrent.

“This issue of voting is fundamental to democracy, and the president — the leader of the free world — is of course interested in the success of democracy, has views on it, is a leader on it, and was asked about it,” said Catherine Lhamon, the deputy director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council for Racial Justice and Equity. “The president was not calling for any particular action. His view is that making voting hard is reprehensible, and he expressed that view.”

But to others, Biden went too far with his comments to ESPN, wading into a tense local debate and adding fuel to calls for a boycott that many fear will be counterproductive. The move also gives Republicans a sharp new line of attack, casting Democrats as causing economic and reputational damage to Georgia.

After Biden’s remarks, representatives of Abrams, Ossoff and other Georgia Democrats made contact with the White House officials to highlight their opposition, according to the people familiar with the situation. The point of the conversations was not to fault Biden but to get on the same page and stress that many Democrats in Georgia were still eager to keep the game in the state, the people familiar with the talks said.

The economic repercussions of the move are significant. In Cobb County, where the game was to be held, tourism officials estimated the move to Colorado could cost the area $100 million, including the revenue from some 8,000 hotel rooms that had been booked for the game. The impact is likely to fall hardest on low-income and minority residents who work in the service sector.