Stacey
Abrams
urges
people
to vote
during a
visit to
a
Piccadilly
Cafeteria
at the
Gallery
at South
DeKalb
in
Decatur,
Ga.,
in
2016.
(Photo:
Kevin D.
Liles/The
New York
Times/Redux) |
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Abrams
is more
well-known
than she
was in
2018.
And
unlike
back
then,
when
Kemp was
secretary
of
state,
Abrams
will be
able to
challenge
the
governor
on his
record
in
office.
(Jessica
McGowan/Getty
Images) |
|
As
Stacey
Abrams
enters
governor’s
race,
Georgia
becomes
a key
2022
battleground
By
Tim
Craig,
and
Vanessa
Williams
washingtonpost
ATLANTA
- Sen.
Raphael
G.
Warnock
(D-Ga.)
is also
fighting
to hang
onto the
seat he
won 11
months
ago in a
special
election,
becoming
Georgia’s
first
Black
senator.
And a
handful
of other
competitive
congressional
and
state
races
could
reshape
politics
in
Georgia
and
control
of
Washington.
Taken
together,
these
high-profile
2022
races
will
offer
the
third
recent
test of
whether
Democrats’
dominance
among
Black
and
Hispanic
voters
can
blunt
Trump-era
Republican
gains
with
rural
White
voters
in this
state.
The
results
could
offer
the best
indication
of
whether
Democrats
can have
lasting
success
in the
state.
“We
will be
at the
center
of the
political
universe
again,”
said
M.V.
Trey
Hood, a
professor
of
political
science
and
director
of the
Survey
Research
Center
at the
University
of
Georgia.
“Stacey
Abrams
will be
able to
motivate
a
substantial
number
of
voters,
especially
minorities,
to the
polls,
so I am
looking
at
turnout
again
being
very
high
here.”
Abrams,
who is
Black,
registered
tens of
thousands
of
first-time
voters
in 2018.
But she
lost to
Kemp by
55,000
votes —
about
1.4
percentage
points —
after a
tough
campaign
that
included
charges
that
Republicans
failed
to count
thousands
of
ballots.
After
her
loss,
Abrams,
47,
launched
Fair
Fight
Action
with a
goal of
pushing
back
against
restrictive
voting
laws
that
Republicans
have
passed
at a
frenetic
pace in
recent
years.
She
continued
to
organize
in
Georgia,
along
with
several
other
Democratic
groups.
Two
years
later,
President
Biden
became
the
first
Democrat
in
nearly
30 years
to carry
Georgia.
A few
months
later,
both
Warnock
and
Democrat
Jon
Ossoff
(D)
narrowly
won
their
Senate
races,
handing
Democrats
control
of
Congress.
Those
Democratic
victories,
anchored
in high
turnout
among
Black
residents
and
growing
Democratic
strength
in
Atlanta’s
vote-rich
suburbs,
were
widely
viewed
as a
sign
that the
state is
trending
away
from the
GOP as
it grows
wealthier
and more
diverse.
But
as
Abrams
begins
her
campaign,
considerable
questions
remain
about
whether
she can
replicate
her
success
in 2022,
which
even
Democrats
admit
could be
a tough
year for
their
party.
Republicans
performed
well in
battleground
states
across
the
country
in
November.
Glenn
Youngkin,
for
example,
scored a
close
gubernatorial
victory
in
Virginia,
another
state
where
Black
voters
and
suburbanites
form the
backbone
of the
Democratic
Party.
Youngkin’s
victory
was all
the more
surprising
since
Biden
carried
the
state by
nearly
10
percentage
points
last
year.
And
the
Republican
Party
says it
has
learned
some
lessons
from its
2020
defeat
in
Georgia,
and that
it can
do a
better
job of
attracting
voters
of color
in 2022.
The
front-runner
for GOP
nomination
against
Warnock,
for
example,
is
former
NFL
player
Herschel
Walker,
who is
Black
and a
close
Trump
ally.
'A
very
competitive
race'
Lauren
Groh-Wargo,
who is
Abrams’s
campaign
manager,
said she
expects
a “very
competitive
race,”
but
believes
Abrams
will
have the
advantage
in a
state
that has
added
nearly
1.3
million
registered
voters
since
2018,
nearly
half of
whom are
voters
of
color.
“The
state is
just
continuing
to grow,
and the
voter
registration
is
continuing
to grow
in ways
that
should
be
favorable
to the
incumbent
Sen.
Warnock
and
Stacey
Abrams
and
everybody
down
ballot,”
Groh-Wargo
said.
Abrams
is also
more
well-known
than she
was in
2018,
Groh-Wargo
said.
And
unlike
in 2018,
when
Kemp was
secretary
of
state,
Groh-Wargo
said,
Abrams
will be
able to
challenge
the
governor
on his
record
in
office.
“We’re
going up
against
an
incumbent
governor
who’s
had a
failed
response
to a
global
pandemic
that has
whipsawed
our
state in
terms of
the
infection
rates of
children,
the
death
rates,
the
vaccination
rates,
hospital
closures
and
economic
inequality,
racial
inequality,”
Groh-Wargo
said.
“By
every
single
metric,
he has
failed
the
state.”
In a
statement,
the Kemp
campaign
previewed
its
strategy,
saying
it was
“in the
fight”
against
Abrams
and her
“woke
allies.”
The
campaign
also
said it
would
focus on
Kemp’s
vision
for “how
to keep
Georgia
the best
place to
live,
work,
and
raise a
family.”
But
Kemp,
58, also
faces a
challenge
from
within
his
party.
Robert
Cahaly,
a
Republican
pollster
who
heads
the
Atlanta-based
Trafalgar
Group,
said
Kemp
could
have
trouble
securing
the
Republican
nomination.
After
Kemp
refused
to
support
Trump’s
false
claim
that
Biden’s
2020
Georgia
win was
fraudulent,
the
former
president
has
become a
vocal
critic
of the
governor
and has
been
urging
other
Republicans
to
challenge
him in
the
state’s
May
primary.
One
Trump
ally,
former
state
representative
Vernon
Jones,
has
already
entered
the
race.
But the
president
continues
to nudge
other,
more
high-profile
Republicans
to
compete
as well.
Former
senator
David
Perdue
(R-Ga.),
who lost
to
Ossoff,
is
reportedly
considering
a run.
“The
MAGA
base
will
just not
vote for
[Kemp]
after
what he
did with
respect
to
election
integrity,”
Trump
said in
a
statement
Wednesday
in
response
to
Abrams’s
announcement.
Cahaly
said he
thinks
Trump’s
efforts
to
torpedo
Kemp
could be
successful
in
denying
him the
GOP
nomination.
And even
if Kemp
does
prevail
during
the
primary,
Cahaly
thinks 3
to 7
percent
of
Republican
voters
would
refuse
to
support
him in
the
general
election,
leading
to an
Abrams
victory.
“The
problem
for Kemp
is there
is a
segment
of the
Republicans
who are
still
very
upset
with
him,
rightly
or
wrongly,
and they
are not
forgiving,”
Cahaly
said. “I
don’t
think he
can turn
out
Republican
voters
at full
strength.”
But
Republicans
allied
with
Kemp’s
campaign
dismiss
suggestions
that the
governor
is
vulnerable
in the
GOP
primary.
GOP
officials
noted
that
Kemp in
2019
signed
one of
the most
restrictive
abortion
laws in
the
country,
which
essentially
bans
abortion
after
the
sixth
week of
pregnancy.
A
federal
judge
has
blocked
the
legislation
from
taking
effect,
pending
ongoing
Supreme
Court
deliberations
over the
future
of Roe
vs.
Wade.
The
governor
also
signed
legislation
that
bans
local
governments
from
cutting
police
funding.
And
Kemp’s
campaign
believes
he will
find
success
running
on his
economic
record,
including
his
decision
to keep
Georgia
businesses
relatively
open and
free of
restrictions
during
the
pandemic.
Georgia’s
unemployment
rate
stands
at 3.1
percent,
more
than a
percentage
point
lower
than the
national
rate.
“The
governor
has been
where a
lot of
Republican
voters
are on
these
issues,
and he
has been
leading
the
fight,”
said
Tate
Mitchell,
a
spokesman
for the
Kemp
campaign.
“We have
no
reason
to
expect
that the
Republican
ticket
won’t be
unified
coming
out of
the
primary.”
Republicans
also
believe
that the
GOP has
halted,
at least
for now,
Democrats’
gains in
Atlanta’s
suburbs.
They
note
that
Republicans
have won
several
contested
races in
suburban
Atlanta
this
year,
including
keeping
a state
legislative
seat in
Cobb
County
in a
district
that
Biden
carried
last
year.
“We
have a
lot of
stories
to tell
on the
economic
front,
and a
long
list of
accomplishments
for
conservative
and
middle-of-the-road
folks,
including
fighting
crime
and
standing
with law
enforcement,”
Mitchell
said,
noting
that
crime
and gun
violence
continues
to
dominate
the
headlines
in the
Atlanta
media
market.
'Demographics
are not
complete
destiny'
Nsé
Ufot,
CEO of
the New
Georgia
Project,
which
Abrams
started
in 2013
to
educate
and
register
voters
of
color,
said
Abrams
and her
allies
realize
the
campaign
ahead
won’t be
easy.
“The
battle
for the
future
of
Georgia
will be
a
bare-knuckle
brawl,”
Ufot
said.
Hood,
the
pollster
from the
University
of
Georgia,
has a
couple
of ideas
why.
Although
Georgia
continues
to
diversify,
Hood is
skeptical
that
Abrams
will be
able to
broaden
the
electorate
more
than she
already
has.
And
he said
the
recent
Atlanta
mayor’s
race,
which
fewer
than 3
out of
10
registered
voters
participated
in,
shows
some
Democrats
are
experiencing
election
“fatigue.”
Hood
said
Democrats
will
also
have to
maintain
high
levels
of
support
among
Hispanic
voters,
who
shifted
to the
right in
Texas
and
Florida
last
year.
“The
state
has been
changing
for
quite
some
time
demographically,
but
demographics
are not
complete
destiny,”
Hood
said.
“There
have to
be a lot
of
assumptions
to be
true,
for that
hypothesis
to pan
out.”
According
to an
analysis
of
Georgia
voter
registration
records
by The
Washington
Post,
the
Georgia
electorate
is now
only
slightly
more
diverse
than it
was in
2018,
highlighting
the
challenge
facing
Democrats.
White
voters
make up
53
percent
of
Georgia’s
active
registered
voters,
down
from
53.4
percent
in 2018.
The
portion
of
registered
voters
who are
Black
also
dipped
slightly,
from
30.3
percent
in 2018
to 29.5
percent
this
month.
The
percentage
of
Hispanic
and
Asian
American
voters
has
grown,
to 3.7
percent
and 2.6
percent,
respectively.
Ralph
Reed,
founder
and
chairman
of the
conservative
Faith
and
Freedom
Coalition,
said GOP
strategists
are
already
working
to make
Georgia
— along
with
North
Carolina
and
Pennsylvania
— the
focus of
Republicans’
nationwide
push to
peel
non-White
voters
away
from
Democrats.
“We’re
going to
make a
very,
very
aggressive
and
ambitious
push to
make
further
inroads
into
communities
of
color,
particularly
among
Latinos
and
African
Americans,”
Reed
said.
But
Hood
said
Republicans
could
have
challenges
too.
The
party
will
have to
work
hard to
turn out
voters
in rural
north
Georgia,
which
could be
complicated
by
Kemp’s
uneasy
relationship
with
Trump.
After
Trump
lost the
presidency,
Hood
noted
some of
those
voters
did not
vote in
the
Senate
runoffs,
which
helped
propel
Warnock
and
Ossoff
to
victory.
“A
majority
of
Republicans
in this
state
still
believe
the 2020
election
was won
by
fraud,”
said
Hood,
who
conducts
many of
his
polls in
conjunction
with the
Atlanta
Journal-Constitution.
“If you
believe
that,
are you
less
likely
to turn
out next
year? I
don’t
know the
answer
to that,
but that
could be
the
linchpin
to
whether
Republicans
can hold
ground.”
'There's
still a
sense of
possibility'
One
thing
political
analysts
and
campaign
staffers
agree on
is that
the next
11
months
will be
an
expensive
slog for
both
parties.
Candidates
and
outside
groups
spent
more
than
$800
million
on the
Senate
seat
races a
year
ago, a
figure
that
most
expect
will be
eclipsed
by the
competition
next
year.
On
the
Democratic
side,
some of
that
money
will be
steered
toward
educating
voters
on
Georgia’s
controversial
voter
law,
which
some
party
strategists
believe
will
make it
harder
for
infrequent
voters
to
participate
in the
election.
The
law,
which
the
state’s
Republican
legislature
and Kemp
approved
earlier
this
year,
shortened
the
amount
of time
that
voters
had to
request
and
return
an
absentee
ballot.
Voters
are also
required
to
submit a
state
identification
or
driver’s
license
number
to
receive
a
ballot.
But
Adrianne
Shropshire,
executive
director
of
BlackPAC,
which
worked
to turn
out
voters
in
Georgia
in 2018,
still
feels
confident
that
Abrams
can be
successful
next
year,
although
she said
it will
take
readjustments
to her
strategy.
She
noted
Abrams’s
2018
campaign
occurred
just one
year
after
Black
voters
powered
former
senator
Doug
Jones
(D) to
victory
in a
special
election
in
neighboring
Alabama.
In
2018,
“you had
hope,
you had
Black
voters
believing
that all
things
were
possible
and that
we could
win
historic
elections,”
Shropshire
said.
This
year,
she
said,
2022
feels
“daunting”
for many
Democrats
after
the loss
of
Virginia’s
governor’s
mansion.
But
Black
voters
in
Georgia
were
still
proud of
having
elected
Warnock
and were
hoping
that
Abrams
would
again
make a
bid to
become
the
nation’s
first
Black
female
governor.
“Even
though
there’s
the
sense of
sort of
dread,
in some
ways, at
the
national
level,
there’s
still
the
sense of
possibility
in
Georgia,”
she
said.
Lenny
Bronner
contributed
to this
report.
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