A group founded by Stacey Abrams has settled long-standing allegations that the group illegally campaigned for Abrams in 2018. Jessica McGowan/Getty Images (2018 file photo)
Back in 2018, Stacey Abrams was one of the hottest political figures in the country, and in some liberal circles was even approaching folk-hero status.
Her talent, then and now, was obvious. She is brighter than hell, she understands policy, she shines in small groups and in front of crowds, she can raise money and she can organize. In 2018, she lost the Georgia governor’s race to Brian Kemp, but the surprisingly narrow margin of her defeat in a state that was still considered deep-red helped to burnish her reputation and raise expectations.
Republicans feared her; Democrats loved her. Both parties saw her as a rising politician who was likely to make a mark on the national scene. And when Joe Biden, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff all carried Georgia in 2020, Abrams got and deserved some of the credit for the voter-registration and turnout operation that she had built.
Five years later, though, that shine has pretty much gone. Republicans no longer see Abrams as a threat to be feared, a lot of Democrats have grown disenchanted with her tendency to over-promise and under-deliver, and her future in electoral politics seems tenuous. The magic she once inspired has vanished, and she’s at least partly to blame.
After losing to Kemp, Abrams had refused to officially concede what had been a hard-fought race. Her refusal was in no way comparable to Donald Trump’s later, violent attempt to overturn a presidential election, but it tarnished her standing and made her seem small. She then spent much of the next four years becoming a national media figure, and as she traveled and built her national visibility she seemed to lose touch with Georgia.
In 2022, she sought and got a rematch with Kemp, to whom she had lost by about 55,000 votes. This time she raised and spent $54 million, twice as much as she had raised four years earlier. This time, she lost by almost 300,000, finishing with fewer votes than three of her fellow Democrats who also ran on the statewide ballot that year.
And now there are other problems.
Last week, two non-profit organizations closely tied to Abrams finally agreed to settle a 16-count ethics complaint, admitting that they had broken multiple state campaign finance laws and had illegally spent more than $3 million aiding Abrams’ 2018 campaign. As part of their admission of guilt, the groups agreed to pay a record fine of $300,000.
Abrams and her allies had fought those charges for years, claiming that the investigation was groundless and motivated by politics. The claim had credibility, because Kemp does have a history of using the levers of government to discredit his political opponents. Indeed, Kemp had done exactly that in the 2018 campaign. Then serving as secretary of state, he had falsely accused Democrats of trying to break into state election computers in an effort to cover up the incompetence of his own office.
In this case, however, it was Abrams and her allies who had broken the law on behalf of her campaign. Major ethics violations and law-breaking no longer carry much weight on the national level, where things have gotten ridiculous and scary. However, they still do at the state level.
A third consecutive run for governor in 2026, when Kemp is term-limited out of office, was already going to be difficult for Abrams, assuming she even wants to try. A candidate who was refreshing and full of promise a decade earlier doesn’t look so shiny after two major losses, some hard feelings among party insiders and ongoing ethics concerns.
In addition, the Democratic Party now has a bench full of strong candidates looking for their own chance at the brass ring, and they’re unlikely to stand aside yet again and allow Abrams to take the nomination. So much of politics is timing, and in Abrams’ case she was a little too early, and then a little too late.
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