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By The Washington Post 
2h ago
Vanessa Williams and Reis Thebault
Atlanta, Georgia – Stacey Abrams did not deny her anger when Republican Brian Kemp was declared the winner of Georgia’s gubernatorial race two years ago, following a bitter race marred by widespread wrongdoing and allegations of voter suppression.
Instead, he channeled that anger into work that he had started years earlier to organize and mobilize an army of voters to break the GOP’s block on state politics and create a government that was more like the new Georgia.
That army, anchored in the Atlanta metro area and in smaller areas of predominantly black cities and counties, helped propel former Vice President Joe Biden several thousand votes ahead of President Donald Trump in the state this week. Now Democrats are on the verge of achieving a long-standing dream: to change Georgia, which has not voted for a presidential candidate for that party since 1992.
That optimism gives the party more hope that its Senate candidates will have a chance to fight in two runoff elections expected to take place in January.
Abrams, 46, who was the first black woman to win a gubernatorial nomination from a major party, was roundly applauded by Democratic political leaders and activists on social media and elsewhere on Friday after Biden surpassed Trump. on ballots written in Georgia. The state continues to count overseas, provisional and military votes, and plans to conduct a recount.
The accolades often cited the overall work of black women, among the most engaged and active segments of the Democratic electorate, both as voters and as activists like Abrams, registering voters, rallying them at the polls, and increasingly meeting voters. they are running for public office. .
During the 2018 gubernatorial race, Abrams criticized Kemp for refusing to resign as secretary of state, whose office oversees elections, while he was running for governor. He also called him the “architect of voter suppression.”
When the contest ended with Abrams losing by 55,000 votes, he refused to yield to Kemp, a decision that conservatives and Republicans have criticized. Instead, he filed a lawsuit against the state for “gross negligence” in managing the elections and formed a political group called Fair Fight Action, focused on fighting restrictive laws and educating people on how to protect their right to vote.
Abrams has said that he thought it important not to walk away from the 1.9 million voters who backed his candidacy, many of them new voters or those who had not cast their vote in recent elections because they did not believe it would make a difference.
National party leaders lobbied her to run for Senate this year, and Biden considered her during his search for a running mate. She became a sought-after speaker at political and issue conferences, on news shows and late-night talk shows, sounding the alarm about what she said was an assault on the rights of young, liberal, and multiracial voters by of the Republican Party. Fair Fight Action raised tens of millions of dollars to fund voter education and protection initiatives in battle states across the country.
On Friday morning, Abrams posted a tweet thanking the organizations and activists who have also worked to increase the number and turnout of Liberal voters. Dozens responded with praise for Abrams, including Hillary Clinton, actress Viola Davis and basketball star LeBron James.
Georgia, thank you. Together, we have changed the course of our state for the better. But our work is not done.
Join me to support @Reverendos Y @ossoff so we can keep fighting and win the United States Senate️https: //t.co/JTyH1UVEtd #LetsGetItDoneAgain #gapol pic.twitter.com/qH5ZfmsgI7
– Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) November 7, 2020
Abrams’ spokesman said he had no further comment on Friday, but speaking to a coalition of liberal activists on Wednesday, he spoke about his approach to change, which he said is based on hard work, patience and recovery after setbacks. .
“What matters is that we tried and made progress. That’s what we’ve done in Georgia. Election after election, year after year, when people compared us to Lucy and football to Charlie Brown. Why bother because it never goes to happen? ”Abrams said. “Well, we made what possible happen, and we can do it throughout the country, we can do it in all communities, and we can do it in all issues because we will not stop. We will not give in, we will not give up, but most importantly, we will dream bigger of what they think our imagination can contain. “
Since 2018, Abrams said, 800,000 new voters have been added to Georgia’s voter rolls, 49 percent of whom are under 30 and 45 percent are people of color, both groups more likely to vote for the democrats.
On Friday, Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff held a rally praising Abrams for leading the effort to register and obtain voters, without which Ossoff would not lead a runoff against Republican Senator David Perdue. Georgia’s other Republican senator, Kelly Loeffler, will face Democrat Raphael Warnock in a separate runoff, who won the most votes in a special election also held on Tuesday. Abrams has said he will work to elect both Democrats.
“Now we are seeing that change has come to Georgia, and Georgia is part of the change that is coming to America,” Ossoff said. Abrams and his fellow organizers took advantage of the state’s changing demographics, he said, and transformed Georgia into one of the most competitive battle states in the country.
“Georgia has gotten younger and more diverse every day for the past decade,” Ossoff said. “The effort that has been made to register voters and empower voters is unmatched anywhere in the country.”
Lauren Groh-Wargo, who led the Abrams gubernatorial campaign and is now executive director of Fair Fight, said it wasn’t just demographics that put Georgia within the reach of Democrats. “I’m sure you’ve heard Stacey say, ‘Demographics isn’t destiny, it’s just opportunity.'” People of color, the young, the poor, and people in remote rural communities are often ignored and should be courted, just like white voters.
“Georgia is really the spearhead. It’s what is happening to our country, in terms of demographics,” Groh-Wargo said in an interview a week before Election Day. “In general, the party that is building the multiracial and multiethnic coalition will be the party that rises in Georgia.”
Stefanie Brown James, co-founder of the Colectivo, a political action committee that works to elect liberal black candidates, was one of the first to endorse Abrams when he began putting together his campaign for governor. She said she respected Abrams’ roots as an organizer and state legislator.
“Stacey is really the standard bearer when it comes to what a leader looks like. I think she [gubernatorial] run was also able to show a lot of people, especially black women, that you can be of service to your community and run for office. Some of the best public servants are those who work in the PTA or have been community organizers or school teachers. “
“I’m so glad to see her receiving her flowers now. I’m so used to seeing photos of people on social media because they have passed away,” but Abrams’ images celebrate her political leadership. “Yes, give your lady flowers now and help her keep building.”
Deborah Scott, who has been working to register and mobilize voters through the Black Women’s Roundtable, a national civic engagement group, said many of Abrams’ supporters thought they had scammed her in the governorship. Critics of Abrams say she has stoked that impression, and some have used it to defend Trump’s refusal to say he will budge if Biden wins.
But Scott said the hurdles Abrams and voters faced in the elections were a reminder of Georgia’s racist history of slavery and segregation by Jim Crow, which openly denied the vote to blacks.
“It made people understand that this was still happening in 2020,” he said. “Stacey was very brave. She didn’t stand by. Instead, she got involved and said, ‘This will never happen again. I think it galvanized people. “
Scott, who is also the CEO of a group called Georgia Stand-Up, said dozens of social change groups have begun working together to educate and motivate residents to be more active in voting, focusing on issues important to them. your daily life. He also said that young people had become more involved as a result of the racial justice protests over the summer. All of those factors converged to create a climate for change, Scott said.
And even if the Democrats don’t change the state this time, Scott said, “I can’t say we didn’t try.”
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