Article
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Georgia’s Stacey Abrams Is Making Moves for New Election Prospects
Stacey Abrams may have lost the 2018 election for governor of Georgia but the former Democratic state lawmaker is eyeing higher elected offices, including a U.S. Senate seat in 2020. In a Jan. 26 MSNBC interview with activist Al Sharpton, Abrams said she hasn’t decided which office she’ll pursue next, but to expect an announcement by March 31. Sharpton introduced Abrams as “a star of the Democratic Party.” Regarding a Senate bid, Abrams said she is considering “if it’s the right job for the work she wants to do.”
Sharpton then pivoted to voter suppression, an issue at the center of Abrams’s career and what she has blamed for her midterm election loss after current Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, won the seat. “We know we did not have a fair fight in Georgia. That’s why I created Fair Fight Action, which is an organization dedicated to pushing voting rights for everyone,” Abrams said. “The organization we founded is not a partisan organization, it’s a democracy organization,” she said.
But Fair Fight Action has also been identified as a so-called “dark money” organization. Dark money refers to political spending where donors are not disclosed and sources of funding are unknown. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, dark money groups are responsible for a “staggering gap” in tracking how political spending impacts elections—and arguably makes them unfair. A Wall Street Journal investigation, published Jan. 23, found that liberals now outpaced conservatives in dark money midterm election spending, after years of right-leaning nonprofits leading the way.
Documents filed with the Georgia Secretary of State show that Abrams is now expanding her dark money operations. She was listed as Fair Fight Action’s chief executive in December, with the organization itself being created by restructuring and rebranding another Abrams dark money group, as first reported by the Daily Beast. Fair Fight Action was formerly called the Voter Access Initiative but a name change occurred on Dec. 14. The tax-exempt nonprofit’s existing articles of incorporation were also amended to allow for greater political activity. Previously, the Voter Access Initiative was prohibited from “directly or indirectly” participating or intervening in “any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office.” But that is no longer the case.
Among other activities, Fair Fight Action is now able to donate to super PACs that can support or attack specific candidates, potentially paving the way for Abrams to challenge Georgia’s incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue in 2020. Abrams’s 2018 gubernatorial effort would have made her the nation’s first black female governor in the nation’s history. She lost by only 17,000 votes to Kemp, who served as Georgia’s Secretary of State from 2010 until Nov. 8, 2018, or two days after the polls closed.