Stacey Abrams’s new campaign means our democracy is on the line in Georgia

Stacey Abrams’s new campaign means our democracy is on the line in Georgia

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Raphael G. Warnock and Stacey Abrams speak to voters on Nov. 3, 2020, in Atlanta. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

Image without a caption

By Paul Waldman

Columnist

Today at 12:24 p.m. EST

It’s not exactly a surprise that Stacey Abrams has announced she’ll be running for governor of Georgia in 2022, but given how things usually go in midterm election years — where the president’s party is almost always at a disadvantage — Abrams faces a difficult task after losing the governor’s race narrowly in 2018.

One thing her entry guarantees, however, is that Georgia will be the center of the political universe next year.

Nearly all of the conflicts that make our politics so intense and disturbing will play out there. In fact, it’s hard to recall a time when so much of national importance was going on in one state in one election.

To begin with, the Republican primary races will test Donald Trump’s power to dictate who is on his party’s ballot. For instance, Gov. Brian Kemp may be challenged by former senator David Perdue, an empty suit who would be little more than a vessel for Trump to take revenge on Kemp for not stealing the Georgia 2020 election for him.

Story continues below advertisement

Trump has encouraged Perdue to run, and takes any opportunity to blast Kemp for not being true to the lost cause of the 2020 election. Sean Hannity, a close Trump friend, has used his Fox News show to urge Kemp to drop out of the race.

Also running for reelection is Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a conservative Republican who became famous for refusing to steal the election after Trump pressured him on Jan. 2 to “find 11,780 votes” to make Trump the winner.

Trump has endorsed far-right Rep. Jody Hice, who is running against Raffensperger on what is essentially a “big lie” platform. So the Republican primaries will be a referendum on the idea that all Democratic election wins are fraudulent by definition, and worse, that future elections must be manipulated to guarantee Republican victory.

Story continues below advertisement

It isn’t as though Kemp (or even Raffensperger) is a squish when it comes to voter suppression. The governor signed a draconian suppression law earlier this year, and Republicans in the state are moving toward seizing control of local election boards in heavily Democratic counties.

If Kemp and Raffensperger lose in their primaries, they’ll be replaced by “big lie”-touting Trumpists. If they win, they’ll inevitably campaign by touting their own commitment to voter suppression in order to keep Trumpist GOP base voters energized. That’s particularly true given the presence of Abrams, who arouses fear and hatred from Republicans and will run a campaign based on registering and mobilizing large numbers of voters.

So what we’ll see is a Democratic mobilization drive greeted at every step by bogus Republican charges of fraud, tinged with subtle or not-so-subtle race-baiting.

Story continues below advertisement

Then there’s the Senate campaign, in which Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) will have to defend the seat he won in a January runoff of a special election. The likely Republican nominee is Herschel Walker, who has no political experience but is a personal friend of Trump. Control of the Senate could rest on that race, just as it did in the runoffs when Warnock and Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) both won Republican seats.

Taken together, those two races added up to the most expensive congressional election in history, with half a billion dollars spent by the candidates and outside groups. That’s going to be nothing compared with the river of cash that will flood into Georgia in 2022.

As they did in 2020, Democrats are likely to outspend Republicans, even if the Republicans spend hundreds of millions of dollars. In the past few years we’ve seen that liberal small-dollar donors from around the country will donate again and again to high-profile races featuring a charismatic Democrat trying to unseat a reviled Republican.

Story continues below advertisement

Sometimes that means a spectacular waste of money that could have gone to down-ballot races, but in this case, the contests will be close and the stakes are tremendously high. One reason Joe Biden won Georgia, and Warnock and Ossoff won their races, is that Abrams’s 2018 campaign built a grass-roots infrastructure Democrats tapped into two years later. If her 2022 campaign expands and fortifies that infrastructure, it becomes more likely that Biden will win the state in 2024.

So here’s what’s at play in Georgia next year: Trump’s hold on the GOP. Republican voter suppression and election manipulation. Democratic multiracial coalition building vs. Republican White backlash. Control of the U.S. Senate. The 2024 presidential election.

And one more thing: If Abrams wins this race, she will instantly become the front-runner for the next contested Democratic presidential primary, whether it happens in 2024 if Biden decides not to run again, or in 2028.

There will be many important races around the country in 2022. But we may never have seen anything like what will happen in Georgia.