Georgia is increasingly becoming a swing state thanks to the work that former gubernatorial candidate, Stacey Abrams, has done in the state.
As the counting continues in Georgia, as of Thursday night, former Vice President Joe Biden is narrowing in on President Trump’s lead. As of 8 pm eastern, a little less than 4,000 votes separate the two candidates. A democratic candidate has not won the state of Georgia since Bill Clinton.
Two senate seats were also up for grabs in Georgia. Republican Senator, David Perdue, dropped below 50%, against Democratic challenger, Jon Ossof, Wednesday afternoon. If Perdue does not have 50% when all the votes are counted, Ossof and Perdue would compete in a runoff in January. In the other Senate race, Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler and Democratic challenger, Rev. Raphael Warnock are already scheduled for a runoff since no candidate received 50% of the vote.
The results seem to conclude that Republicans can no longer count on Georgia to safely remain red in presidential, and congressional races. The state is trending blue, and is now arguably purple. The changing demographics in Georgia can contribute to the states’ changing political nature, but progressive activists, such as Stacey Abrams, have also helped the state change.
Abrams founded The New Georgia Project in 2013. This project focused on registering minority voters. During 2018, when she was the first Black woman to run for governor in Georgia, Abrams created a strategy to increase voter turnout among groups from minority communities.
Abrams lost the governor’s race by only 1.5% of the vote to Republican, Brian Kemp. Abrams refused to concede in that election. She accused Kemp, who was the Secretary of the State at the time and oversaw the results of the election, of creating voter suppression. She claimed that the state of Georgia failed it’s voters.
Abrams founded Fair Fight after her loss of the governor’s race. This group had the goal of registering minority and young voters and fighting voter suppression in Georgia.
In November 2018, Fair Fight filed a lawsuit in the federal court against the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, and Georgia Board of Elections. Abrams challenged the mismanagement of the 2018 election that discouraged voters and created suppression. Fair fight also works to to create grassroots activists and strengthen voting rights
Her work continued during the 2020 election. Abrams and the team at Fair Fight registered about 800,000 voters since 2018. The team also ended voter suppression policies such as matching signature laws, which had required registrations to precisely match voters’ licenses down to the hyphen, or else risk being tossed out.
Abrams said to NPR on November 2, “45% of those new voters are under the age of 30. 49% are people of color. And all 800,000 came on the rolls after November ’18, which means these are voters who weren’t eligible to vote for me but are eligible to participate in this upcoming election.”
These new voters that have been added to Georgia have brought the state onto the brink of becoming blue.
Amelia Morel 