Christina Greer has a new piece up on The Daily Beast that explains why former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams (D. GA) is destined to make history as the first black, female Governor this year:
I argue that a path is possible. Her primary opponent is a white female largely self-funded former state legislator who also shares the same first name. Stacey Evans has the money, but does not have the grassroots foundation. Even with a large number of Georgia primary voters still undecided, most polls show Abrams with a sizeable lead over Evans in the May 22 primary.
However, many voters are mindful of the power of the Bradley effect, that is, what happened when Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley ran for governor and discovered the discrepancy between opinion polls and the election outcome—that is, white voters saying they will vote for the black candidate but not doing so at the polls. The most significant case Evans has been able to make to some voters is that she is the more electable nominee against the presumed Republican candidate, the current Lt. Governor Casey Cagle.
Abrams has had to convince voters that her vision, leadership style, and past legislative successes will reach the hearts and minds of voters across Georgia, despite being a black woman. If Abrams is victorious on May 22, she will likely face an opponent with a near perfect grade from the NRA as compared to her proud F-rating. In an era of increased gun violence, social issues that once seemed clearly partisan and uncomplicated are being brought to the fore and thrusting voters to specify and even rank their policy preferences and concerns.
Most voters look at Georgia and see a bright red state. However, when we look a bit closer, Georgia emerges as a purple-ish state, and one that in this particular national political climate may be poised to turn blue. Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by just five points in the state. The supply of affordable housing, along with corporate job creation and eastward migration after Hurricane Katrina, has bolstered the black middle class in Atlanta and the surrounding suburbs. In addition to this growth, the retirements and subsequent reverse migration of many black middle class Baby Boomers back to various counties in Georgia has created a new and robust voting bloc.
I care about this race because it’s an opportunity to be a part of history with an abundantly qualified candidate. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Shirley Chisholm being elected to Congress. She began as a member of the New York legislature and served two terms before running for Congress. Similar to Chisholm, Barbara Jordan was the second African American woman elected to Congress in 1972, but the first from the South.
If you need more proof, Mother Jones highlights how Abrams’ candidacy highlights how black women can really have a huge impact on this race:
Abrams is tapping into a moment when Democrats are finally realizing how much they owe to the black women who have long been intensely loyal to the party. In 2012, black women voted at higher rates nationally than any other demographic group. In 2016, 94 percent of them voted for Hillary Clinton. (Less than half of white women did.) And in a fiercely contested special election in Alabama in December 2017, black women supported the Democratic winner, Doug Jones, by a 98-2 margin. After Jones’ slim victory, Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez tweeted, “Black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party, and we can’t take that for granted. Period.”
But black women’s clout at the ballot box has not translated into representation. Nationwide, only 12 black women have ever been elected to statewide executive positions such as attorney general or lieutenant governor. Research shows that women candidates have to work harder than men to raise money, and black women who run for office face the additional burden of representing areas with less money to pull from. Some feel their fundraising is unfairly scrutinized because they are seen as not raising enough cash—or raising too much. Sarah Bryner, the research director at the Center for Responsive Politics, says black women candidates “face the same kinds of intersectional problems that they face in all sorts of areas—they have difficulty raising money because they’re women and because they’re black.”
On the one hand, Abrams is quick to tout the significance of being a black woman seeking higher office. But she’s also aware she has to beat her main opponent in the May 22 Democratic primary, Stacey Evans, a white state Assembly member. To do that, she’ll need white voters, and white women in particular, to rally to her side. “I do not disparage anyone based on race. I do not isolate any community based on religion. I want everybody,” Abrams says. “But I am going to focus on progressive voters who run the cross section of racial and economic and regional geography but who share core values that I have.”
Georgia is changing, and Abrams’ campaign is a bet on the future—though it’s not clear if the rainbow coalition she hopes to assemble is in place yet. People of color are predicted to be a minority of Georgia’s eligible voting population until 2036. Trump won the state by 5 percentage points in 2016, and it has been nearly two decades since a Democrat has been elected governor there.
So far, however, Abrams’ burgeoning national profile has helped get her fundraising off to a good start. By the end of March, she had out-fundraised Evans, bringing in nearly $3.3 million. A Democratic donor in San Francisco has said she’ll raise another $2.5 million for Abrams, including shelling out $1 million of her own fortune. Yet Abrams has already burned through $1.8 million, as of last month, opening field offices and building her get-out-the-vote operation, stoking fears about how much cash she has on hand. “Any businessperson will tell you it’s not who has the biggest bank account when you start a business, it’s who gets the most customers,” she says at her campaign headquarters. Whoever wins the primary will likely face Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, a Republican who made headlines when he got the state to revoke a tax benefit for Delta Air Lines, a major employer, after it announced it would cancel its discounts for National Rifle Association members. He has already raised nearly $6.8 million.
Back at Old Lady Gang, Abrams told the room of supportive black women another war story. In 2014, she recalled, 800,000 eligible Georgians weren’t registered to vote—a group equal to the population of South Dakota. Three-fourths were black. Abrams took action, registering 200,000 people of color in less than three years through her $7 million New Georgia Project. “But I’ll tell you a dirty little secret: Some of the folks who fought against me looked like the folks in this room,” she said, seeming to refer to the former Atlanta mayor and other black politicians who questioned the need for her project and challenged her financial transparency. But she persevered.
Abrams then pulled back to make her broader pitch. After traveling to 155 of Georgia’s 159 counties and talking to voters who don’t look anything like her—”my hair’s a little different and I’m a little taller”—Abrams said she is more certain than ever that her job is not politics, but service. “I grew up working poor in Mississippi. And I’ll tell you this: I’ve never met a poor person who hates rich people. We hate being poor.” The crowd erupted in cheers as Abrams explained that Georgia needs a governor who understands the difference. “It’s not about begrudging anyone else. It’s about wanting something for yourself, and being willing to work for it if the systems will work with you and not against you.”
Let’s make history this year. Click here to donate and get involved with Abrams’ campaign.