Stacey Abrams may be doing more to help Republican Senate candidates in Georgia than her fellow Democrats.
Not on purpose, of course, as the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial nominee is pushing hard for Senate hopefuls Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. But Abrams, a former state House minority leader, is also a Republican lightning rod. Abrams’s refusal to concede in her 2018 failed gubernatorial bid against GOP Gov. Brian Kemp agitated Republicans in Georgia and across the country.
Warnock, who’s hoping to oust appointed Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler in one of Georgia’s two Jan. 5 runoffs, was asked about it during the pair’s debate.
Warnock on Sunday claimed Abrams acknowledging that Kemp would eventually become governor, even if she didn’t admit defeat, differentiated her from President Trump.
Abrams questioned her race’s results, alleging voter suppression. Trump has, so far, not accepted his contest’s outcome against President-elect Joe Biden, insisting there was electoral fraud.
“Listen, suppression is something that happens all across our country. It’s happened here in the state of Georgia,” Warnock said.
The winners of the Warnock-Loeffler runoff and the contest between Republican Sen. David Perdue and Democratic challenger Ossoff could shift the Senate’s balance of power in the next Congress. Republicans will hold a 50-48 seat advantage when the 117th Congress convenes in early January, with the pair of Senate seats deciding which party claims the majority for the next two years.
Democratic success in Georgia hinges on turnout, specifically in the state’s expanding suburbs.
And that’s where Abrams enters the political calculation.
Abrams has rehabilitated her image among Democrats after she damaged it by openly lobbying to become Biden’s running mate. She’s recovered her popularity, in part, by focusing on organizing to register voters and encouraging them to return a ballot before Nov. 3.
And her efforts have been largely credited with Georgia turning blue for Biden, the first time the state’s supported a Democratic presidential nominee since 1992.
But while Abrams has reemerged as a unifying Democratic persona, she’s also a mobilizing figure for Republicans.
University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock agreed there was “a great deal of similarity” between Abrams and Trump in how they initially reacted to their respective elections, though Trump had taken his complaints further than Abrams.
Although it is normal to “fight as hard as you can during the campaign,” he said both of their post-contest statements undermined a political norm: the peaceful transfer of power.
“My first thought was that Trump might want to contact Abrams and say, ‘Hey, can I borrow your speech?'” Bullock quipped.
Warnock’s reliance on Abrams, too, limits how he can criticize Loeffler during this cycle’s unusual transition between the Trump and Biden administrations.
“One of the things that struck me was, back in the spring, some of the Democratic presidential contenders, maybe even most of them, were saying, ‘Of course, Stacey Abrams won that election. It was stolen from her,'” Bullock said. “So it sounds an awful lot like the same to me.”
Abrams and Warnock met 15 years ago when Warnock joined Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta as senior pastor. But the pair worked more closely after 2014 through Abrams’s The New Georgia Project. That project was an earlier iteration of her newer Fair Fight Action group, registering minority voters in the state, with Warnock concentrating on the New Georgia Project until January. The New Georgia Project is under scrutiny for a COVID-19 stimulus loan it received and for sending ballots to non-Georgia voters.
Abrams hosted a joint “get-out-the-vote” rally for Warnock and Ossoff with former President Barack Obama last week, referring to Warnock as her “friend.”
“I have enjoyed over the years getting into good trouble, as John Lewis used to put it, with you,” he said in response.
Bullock described the Abrams-Warnock relationship as “close.” Abrams endorsed Warnock over fellow Democrat Matt Lieberman, the former teacher and businessman son of 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman. Her decision rendered Warnock as the “establishment candidate” before their Nov. 3 21-contender free-for-all.
Bullock, though, noted Abrams hasn’t featured heavily in Republican attack ads aired against Warnock.
Instead, Republicans have tied Warnock to national Democrats, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and ‘squad’ ringleader New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, according to Bullock. He said the spots showcased a “rogue’s gallery of liberal Democrats.”
“A non-Georgia liberal maybe is seen, through Republican eyes, as scarier than a Georgia liberal,” he guessed. “The notion that the real liberals are from up north, especially somewhere like New York or California. The notion that those are the real seats of liberalism and progressivism.”
The high-profile Georgia Senate runoffs do have one positive run-on effect for Abrams: They’ve afforded her the political spotlight ahead of a likely 2022 gubernatorial rematch.
“She’s done a remarkable job of keeping her name in not just the Georgia media, but the national media,” Bullock said.
