If you think Stacey Abrams had a hard time accepting her loss in Georgia’s gubernatorial race last year, you should see how difficult she’s finding it now to make up her mind about 2020.
She has announced that she is considering running for president next year after having just said she’d do no such thing until at least 2028. If you can figure that one out, then props to you.
“20 years ago, I never thought I’d be ready to run for POTUS before 2028,” Abrams said Monday on social media. “But life comes at you fast – as I shared in Q&A w [PBS’ Yamiche Alcindor] at [South by Southwest]. Now 2020 is definitely on the table.”
In #LeadFromTheOutside, I explore how to be intentional about plans, but flexible enough to adapt. 20 years ago, I never thought I’d be ready to run for POTUS before 2028. But life comes at you fast – as I shared in Q&A w @Yamiche at @sxsw. Now 2020 is definitely on the table…
— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) March 11, 2019
That’s simple enough. However, a few hours before that tweet, during her South by Southwest interview, she had explained that she relies on a spreadsheet to map out her political career, including the year she might run for president.
“The year in the spreadsheet is 2028,” Abrams told PBS’ Alcindor. “2028 would the earliest I will be ready to stand for president because I would have done the work I thought necessary to be effective in that job.”
Rewind again to last Thursday, when the New York Times reported specifically that Abrams was considering her options for 2020. Abrams “is mulling whether, like so many other Democrats, she wants to run for president in 2020,” the paper reported in an article titled, “Stacey Abrams, Star Trek Nerd, Is Traveling at Warp Speed.”
Rewind the clock even further, and there’s Politico reporting in January that top Senate Democrats are courting Abrams to challenge Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., in 2020.
In summary, Abrams appears to be all over the map, which is sort of a change of pace for her. She was much more decisive last year in the 2018 Georgia governor’s race – back when she refused to concede she had lost. Recall that Abrams fell last year to Georgia’s then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who won 50.2 percent of the vote compared to her 48.8 percent. Abrams didn’t go quietly. Her eventual admission of defeat came only after she called for a new election and only after waited to see whether absentee and provisional ballots triggered a runoff (they didn’t). And even then, after she announced she would end her campaign, she refused to concede to Kemp.
“I acknowledge that former Secretary of State Brian Kemp will be certified as the victor in the 2018 gubernatorial election. But to watch an elected official—who claims to represent the people of this state, baldly pin his hopes for election on the suppression of the people’s democratic right to vote—has been truly appalling,” she said in November 2018.
She added, “So, to be clear, this is not a speech of concession. Concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper. As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede. But my assessment is that the law currently allows no further viable remedy.”
Abrams and her supporters still maintain, without evidence, that Kemp stole the election by suppressing voter turnout. I imagine she’ll be a similarly gracious loser in the end, should she win the Democratic Party nomination in 2020 and lose to the Republican nominee.
