Twice-defeated candidate Stacey Abrams (D.) is eyeing another run for governor of Georgia, even as state Democratic leaders warn that her opportunity has passed and urge fresh contenders to step forward.
“She’s run twice, and that’s enough to convince me she won’t win,” Jimmy Johnson, the former chairman of the Appling County Democratic Committee, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Johnson said that “some other Democrat” could topple GOP dominance in Georgia.
“Abrams is great, but she missed the train,” said Marilyn Langford, a vice chair of the group Georgia 9th District Democrats.
The perpetual candidate’s potential third bid follows her back-to-back defeats to Gov. Brian Kemp (R.)—and, this time, she would likely face a competitive primary. State senator Jason Esteves has already launched a campaign, while former Atlanta mayor Keisha Bottoms, former DeKalb County chief executive Michael Thurmond, and others could enter the race soon, according to the Journal-Constitution. Kemp is term-limited.
Abrams, who served in Georgia’s House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017, has been no stranger to controversy over the years.
A voting rights group Abrams founded, the New Georgia Project, agreed in January to pay a record $300,000 fine after it admitted to more than a dozen campaign finance violations, including failing to disclose $4.2 million in campaign contributions and $3.2 million in expenditures. The Georgia Senate in late February introduced a resolution to probe Abrams’s ties to the beleaguered nonprofit.
“The people of Georgia were defrauded by Stacey Abrams,” Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones (R.), who leads the State Senate, said at the time, adding that “in Georgia, nobody is above the law, even if they were a darling of MSNBC.”
Pete Fuller, the chairman of the Jackson County Democratic Party, said he wants a new wave of Democratic contenders. “Iron sharpens iron,” Fuller said. “And primaries can expose weaknesses, build name recognition and put candidates into shape long before the general.”
Cody Hall, an adviser to Kemp, has mockingly urged Abrams to join the gubernatorial race, saying that the “third time is the charm.”
“Every Georgia Democrat is scared to death Abrams runs again because they know they can’t beat her in the primary,” Hall added. “But she’s also probably their worst candidate in the general.”
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