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Dialuna 9 november 2020

Stacey Abrams credited for boosting Democrats in Georgia

(AP) — Stacey Abrams funded previously.
spent years working to
convince political power “Change doesn’t happen
players that Georgia is a overnight,” Carr said. “We’re
genuine two-party battle- prepared to dig down deeper
ground, a Deep South and invest further in the po-
state where the left could litical possibilities of Black
compete if it organized women’s leadership.” In
Black voters, other spo- one sign of Abrams' grow-
radic voters and stopped ing stature, she's becoming a
apologizing for being frequent target of Republican
Democrats. attacks.
She was right. As GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler
and U.S. Rep. Doug Collins
President-elect Joe Biden is battled for a Senate runoff
on track to become the first spot, each attacked the other
Democratic presidential can- for previous associations with
didate to carry the state in Abrams. And when Republi-
nearly three decades. The cans gathered Friday at state
state's two U.S. Senate seats GOP headquarters to falsely
are heading to a runoff af- insist Democrats were steal-
ter Democratic candidates ing the election from Presi-
mounted strong challenges to dent Donald Trump, Abrams'
Republican incumbents, and name was invoked.
the outcome is likely to de-
termine which party controls experience explosive popula- Brian Kemp in 2022. She didates with centrist identi- “We’re going to fight,” roared
the chamber. tion growth. ended her 2018 campaign ties. Jason Carter, grandson Vernon Jones, a Black state
without explicitly conceding of onetime governor and for- lawmaker who backed the
Abrams, the onetime can- Abrams said she's seen this defeat to Kemp. She alleged mer President Jimmy Carter, president's re-election. “We’ll
didate for Georgia governor moment coming over many systemic voter suppression challenged a Republican in- take on Antifa, Black Lives
who has become perhaps the election cycles. by state elections officials, in- cumbent governor. Michelle Matter, Fair Fight, Stacey
nation's leading voice on vot- “Georgia has had the poten- cluding Kemp, who was then Nunn, daughter of former Abrams and all of them.”
ing rights, is being credited tial for years,” she said in an Georgia’s secretary of state Sen. Sam Nunn, was nomi- Trump himself was an accel-
for paving those inroads. She interview shortly before the overseeing his contest against nated for an open Senate seat. erating variable in Georgia’s
raised millions of dollars to election. “It didn’t just start Abrams. It was a play for white voters shift, pushing some white
organize and register hun- this cycle. This has been who’d drifted to Republicans suburbanites toward Demo-
dreds of thousands of voters work that’s been ongoing for Kemp steadfastly denied any in the decades since the elder crats.
and used her high profile to nearly a decade, and I’m just wrongdoing, but the dispute Carter and elder Nunn were In 2018, even as Abrams lost,
keep the party focused on the proud to see it come to frui- resulted in a sharper focus on Georgia's dominant political Democrat Lucy McBath won
state. tion and for it to finally re- the state’s election system and figures. It failed miserably, an Atlanta-area congressional
ceive the level of investment intensified Democrats’ atten- with Republicans winning by seat once held by Republican
“There’s a lot of work that’s it deserves.” tion on voter registration, the same wide margins they'd Newt Gingrich, the former
gone into this, but Stacey re- education and turnout. Af- secured previously to take House Speaker. McBath was
ally is the architect of what’s That success is fueling ter her loss, Abrams formed complete control of Geor- re-elected Tuesday. Demo-
been built in Georgia,” said speculation about her fu- Fair Fight to raise money to gia's state and federal offices. crat Carolyn Bourdeaux
Dubose Porter, the former ture prospects. Some of her organize voters. The 2018 Amid the fallout, Abrams as- flipped the neighboring sub-
Georgia Democratic Party cheerleaders envision her as campaign marked a notable serted herself. Democrats, urban congressional district
chairman and an Abrams Democratic National Com- shift in Georgia Democrats’ she said, wouldn’t close a gap Tuesday after a narrow defeat
mentor. This week’s election mittee chairwoman or tak- overall approach. In 2014, measured in the hundreds of two years ago.
is the culmination of a politi- ing a prominent post in the when Porter first insisted to thousands by changing the
cal shift decades in the mak- Biden administration. Those the national party that his minds of white perennial vot- Notably, whatever damage
ing. The GOP’s advantage close to Abrams suggest her state should be financed as ers. They’d do it by reshaping Trump did to the Republi-
has slowly eroded as Atlanta likeliest next move is a re- an emerging battleground, the electorate, by exciting the can brand in the suburbs,
and its surrounding suburbs match with Republican Gov. Democrats nominated can- expanding universe of po- he maximized GOP turnout
tentially Democratic voters: beyond urban footprints. It
the youngest native white remains to be seen whether
Georgians; whites from be- that non-metro spike for Re-
yond Georgia; Black voters publicans or the shift of sub-
who cast ballots sporadically; urban whites toward Demo-
Black voters moving to Geor- crats can last beyond Trump.
gia from other regions; and a But Democrats like Atlanta
growing Latino and Asian- resident Celeste Hackett, a
American population. Black, 44-year-old Ohio na-
tive, see the rest of their co-
“Stacey had the vision for alition as a new, hardening
getting to new voters, regis- baseline.
tering them, talking to them
-- and then giving them a “We’ve been coming on for
reason to vote,” Porter said. 10 years now,” Hackett said
Glynda Carr, the president Saturday, as she joined hun-
and CEO of Higher Heights, dreds of others celebrating
an organization focused on Biden’s victory in Atlanta's
electing Black women, said Freedom Park, near the Cart-
Democratic success in Geor- er Presidential Library. “Stac-
gia is the result of work led ey was the signal that it could
by Black women organiz- happen. Well, it’s happened.
ers whose efforts have been And we’re going to make it
impactful but largely under- happen again in January.”