The path to the presidency doesn’t normally begin with a stint as a state legislator and then a failed gubernatorial run, but Stacey Abrams is looking to change that.
The ascendance of Abrams, whose name remained largely unknown nationally until 2017 when she began her gubernatorial campaign in Georgia, offers a prime example of a politician failing upward.
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who has pledged to select a female running mate, is currently eyeing Abrams for the spot. And with Biden being 77 years old, extra attention is being paid to his running mate.
Abrams, 46, has conducted an open audition of sorts, stating openly she wants the vice presidential nomination, a stark departure from would-be candidates playing coy about their political ambitions.
Still, nobody has gone from a state legislator to vice president since the 19th century. Additionally, her political origin story has some holes. Abrams earned notoriety following her 2018 run, and subsequent loss, for the Georgia governorship. In that race against Republican Brian Kemp, then Georgia’s secretary of state, Abrams lost by over 54,000 votes.
Abrams quickly blamed the defeat on voter suppression. She argued that if it weren’t for voter discrimination, including voter roll purges ahead of Election Day, she would have pulled out a victory.
The Georgia secretary of state’s office, though, has released figures showing voter participation dramatically increased under Kemp’s tenure as secretary of state. Voter turnout in Georgia in 2018 was 55%, relatively high among the states. And no news outlet found evidence of voters being wrongly denied access to the ballot.
“By blaming voter suppression for Abrams’s loss, Democrats ignore other factors in her uphill battle,” Politifact reported in November. “She ran in a state where Republicans have dominated statewide races for decades while calling for more gun control, expanding healthcare, and decriminalizing certain drug offenses. Her messages appealed to minorities and infrequent voters, but Kemp, who boasted that he could ’round up criminal illegals’ in his pickup truck, won more conservative parts of the state.”
Nonetheless, it’s a theme Democrats have readily embraced since. At the Nov. 20 Democratic debate in Atlanta, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said that “right here in this great state of Georgia, it was the voter suppression, particularly of African American communities, that prevented us from having a Gov. Stacey Abrams right now.”
Two of his opponents, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, made similar claims at the debate.
“There is internal party pressure on Biden to pick a black running mate, but it coincides with a strategic imperative for the Democratic nominee to reclaim the industrial Midwestern states that are key to winning the Electoral College,” said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon, who predicted Biden would go for someone such as California Sen. Kamala Harris over Abrams.
But those kinds of statements have put Democrats in a box. By embracing a false narrative, the party has, in effect, forced itself to abide by a lore of victimhood in which basic facts can be disputed by opponents, something the reelection campaign of President Trump (as well as his allies) is likely to seize on if Biden chooses Abrams as his running mate.
Abrams’s lack of national or even statewide experience may ultimately lead Biden to choose an alternative. Biden is framing his campaign as a referendum on Trump’s governing style and a return to conventional, even boring, politics. The lack of the former vice president’s experience, Biden says, is what’s triggered so many problems in the White House, including the Trump administration’s COVID-19 response.
“I will listen to what she has to say, but given her relative lack of experience, I am not convinced she would be the right way to go,” said Democratic strategist Jim Manley.
Polling also shows that minorities are less concerned with Democrats nominating a white male than whites themselves. A survey released by Pew Research Center this week found that 49% of white Democrats are bothered by their presidential nominee being a white male, while just 28% of blacks and 30% of Hispanics feel the same.
