The oldest living former president will be born on Oct. 1, but the Nov. 5 election date appears to have been top of mind for Jimmy Carter, his grandson said this week.
“I’m just trying to come and vote for Kamala Harris,” Jason Carter, 99, told his son, Chip. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:.
The Georgia peanut farmer, who served as president from 1977 to 1981, entered hospice care in February 2023 and was not expected to live long.
Eighteen months later, his grandson said he recently told Chip he was much more concerned about Harris, 59, reaching her 100th birthday than he was about her being elected to the White House over her opponent, former President Donald Trump, 78.
Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jason Carter added, “He’s more cautious and interested in politics and the Gaza war.”
The remarks come just three months after he gave an ominous report about his grandfather’s health.
“I think he was really nearing the end, and like I said before, there was a part of this faith journey that was really important to him, and there was a part of that faith journey that only lived out at the very end, and I think he was in that space,” Jason Carter said at the 28th annual Rosalynn Carter Georgia Mental Health Forum in May.
Carter will be able to vote just two weeks after his 100th birthday, as Georgia’s early voting period begins on October 15.
Carter’s wife, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, died in November 2023 at the age of 96.
According to the Journal Constitution, a concert to raise funds for Carter’s nonprofit organization, the Carter Center, which promotes human rights and democracy, will be held at Atlanta’s Fox Theater on September 17 ahead of what would have been Carter’s 100th birthday.
