Georgia’s battle of the “Staceys” barely qualified as a minor skirmish, as Stacey Abrams cruised to an historic landslide victory over Stacey Evans in the Democratic primary, becoming the first black woman nominated by her party for governor.
Abrams, a former state house minority leader, crushed Evans, a sitting state lawmaker, winning nearly 76 percent of the vote. She rolled out to a commanding early lead and never looked back. While Abrams will have a more difficult time against the eventual Republican nominee — that race is headed toward a runoff, with front-runner Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle failing to break 50 percent in a multi-candidate field — it shows that Democrats are trying new paths to win.
Not long ago, a white, relatively centrist woman like Stacey Evans might have been seen as the past way forward for Democrats in a state like Georgia. As recently as 2014, for example, the party nominated Michelle Nunn for Senate against Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss (she lost). Her father, longtime Sen. Sam Nunn, was fairly conservative by national party standards.
Evans suggested she would make a pitch to the rural whites who have abandoned the Democratic Party in droves. Abrams meanwhile saw promising opportunities among other demographics in a changing Georgia.
Democrats have since increasingly embraced the diverse “coalition of the ascendant” as a path to electoral success. “Tonight, communities that are so often overlooked — whose values are never voiced — stood with us to say: Ours is the Georgia of tomorrow,” Abrams wrote in a Facebook post declaring victory Tuesday night. “A state where diversity is a strength. A state where progress is more than possible.”
One report noted the lack of racial rancor in the Abrams versus Evans contest, contrasting it with last year’s race for mayor of Atlanta between a white woman and a black woman.
Outside liberal groups were ecstatic. “Stacey Abrams’ accomplishment tonight is nothing less than a signpost for the future of the progressive movement,” Rahna Epting of MoveOn.org said in a statement. “By laying out a bold, progressive agenda that unifies and lifts up white, black, and brown working families across Georgia, Abrams’ campaign mobilized an energetic, multi-racial coalition that should serve as a model for the rest of the nation.”
The Republican Governors Association immediately announced a new digital campaign against Abrams accusing her of using Georgia as a stepping stone for an eventual run for president. “With Stacey Abrams, Democrats have chosen a far-left radical committed to imposing an extreme agenda on Georgians,” said RGA communications director Jon Thompson in a statement. “Not only has Abrams spent years promoting reckless tax-and-spend policies that would take Georgia backwards, but her large amount of alarming ethical issues continue to raise serious questions about her record.”
During the 2008 Democratic primaries, longtime Clinton family political operative Paul Begala warned the party could not win with just “eggheads and African-Americans.” Others compared this to the coalition behind failed 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern, who carried just one state and the District of Columbia.
The target of Begala’s barb was former President Barack Obama, who went on to win two terms as president of the U.S. His preferred candidate was Hillary Clinton, who could not replicate Obama’s turnout or level of support among minorities and millennials while losing working-class whites — and the 2016 presidential election — to Donald Trump.
There has been no consistent pattern in this year’s Democratic primaries, other than an uptick in women winning nominations. Outsiders win and lose. Centrists have sometimes prevailed, as have a great many progressives. Tuesday night was a mixed bag for the Democratic establishment, taking out Laura Moser in Texas and losing to Amy McGrath in Kentucky.
Yet in general, Democrats have been willing to take new risks in and discard old strategies for winning that were adopted as far back as the 1980s. Much of Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign for the Democratic nomination was based on criticizing the comparatively centrist policies of Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton.
It remains to be seen whether those risks pay off for Democrats in 2018. They already narrowly failed to flip a congressional seat in the Atlanta suburbs they thought would be hospitable to a backlash against President Trump. The Democrats’ generic ballot lead seems to be eroding.
Abrams is pressing on in an attempt at what only former African-American governors Deval Patrick and Douglas Wilder have done before her, but in the Deep South — and also in a state Trump won by just 5 points.
