Georgia is poised to elect the nation’s first black female governor, but only if she can boost the state’s typically stagnant midterm election turnout.
Stacey Abrams has invigorated her Democratic base enough to land in a statistical dead heat with her Republican opponent, Brian Kemp, in the race to become the Peach State’s next governor.
A RealClearPolitics polling average shows Kemp, who is Georgia’s secretary of state, with a mere two-point advantage over Abrams, the former minority leader of the state’s House of Representatives and successful romantic novelist.
Abrams is employing an unprecedented midterm ground game to try to bring out voters who typically stay home in non-presidential election years, particularly black voters. Jennifer Duffy, senior editor for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, told the Washington Examiner Abrams will need every bit of that effort, and will have a chance at winning if she can turn out those minority voters.
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“Can she do something that Democrats have been trying to do for a while, but haven’t been able to do, which is harness a very strong turnout among African American voters in a midterm election?” Duffy said. “They are putting a lot of effort into it.”
A late fight with Kemp over voter registration could help. In his current elected role, Kemp has delayed the approval of more than 53,000 voter registrations because of documentation irregularities, such as mismatched addresses and names. Voters will not be turned away at the polls, but must provide identification in order to cast ballots on Nov. 6.
The majority of the delayed registrations belong to black voters, according to an analysis by the Associated Press. That has prompted Abrams to argue that Kemp is working to suppress the black vote, a charge he vigorously denies.
A Kemp campaign aide called Abrams’ claim “a manufactured issue” that she is exploiting to increase Democratic voter turnout.
Kemp and Abrams have been battling over voter registration validity for years, after she tried to to register tens of thousands of minority voters, some of which he declared fraudulent.
Overall, the Kemp camp is confident in polling that shows he has always maintained a lead over Abrams, however small, and will stay ahead on Nov. 6.
The Kemp campaign contends Georgia remains a center-right state where most voters are not receptive to Abrams’ progressive campaign promises. The Abrams agenda includes “Medicare for all” and some gun control provisions, such as universal background checks and a ban on allowing guns on campuses.
“Georgia voters know that extremist Stacey Abrams will take our state in the wrong direction,” Kemp campaign spokesman Cody Hall told the Washington Examiner.
Abrams’ strategy centers on creating a new coalition of Georgia voters who prefer her more progressive platform. Her campaign has opened more offices in typically neglected regions around the state and has intensified efforts to register and bring out young and minority voters who typically favor Democrats.
Kristin Oblander, president of an Atlanta-based Democratic fundraising firm, told the Washington Examiner that Democrats “have never had a ground game before comparable to what’s being done this year.”
Abrams campaign officials told the Washington Examiner it is operating 17 field offices and employing more than 100 field staff working in all 159 counties, in addition to running television, digital, and radio advertisements.
“Since the beginning of this campaign, I have been invested in traveling to every part of the state to reach out to communities that do not feel seen or heard by their leaders, and talking to them about critical issues like access to public education, healthcare, and good paying jobs in all 159 counties,” Abrams said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner.
Shifting demographics is another factor that will help Abrams. Georgia is among the southern states benefiting from so-called reverse migration of urban minority residents. The Atlanta suburbs are a top destination for blacks leaving northern suburbs and heading south, according to demographers.
“I don’t know if Georgia is capable of becoming a blue state,” Duffy said. “But it’s certainly capable of becoming a purple one.”
“Along with the dispersion of Hispanics from other parts of the country, the demographics of Georgia are making it much more open to Democratic candidates such as Stacey Abrams,” Brookings Institution demographics scholar William Frey told the Washington Examiner.
The Kemp-Abrams battle may not be over on Election Day. A libertarian candidate, Ted Metz, is picking up a couple of percentage points in the polls, while Kemp and Abrams are garnering an average of 48 percent and 46 percent of the vote, respectively.
Georgia is one of two states (Louisiana is the other) that require a runoff election if neither candidate receives a majority of the votes cast. If neither Kemp nor Abrams wins more than half the vote, the race will continue until a runoff election is held in December.
If that happens, more money and more national attention would pour into the race. “It would be the center of the universe,” Duffy said.
