Republicans have derided Stacey Abrams as a tax cheat and enabler of illegal immigrants, and dubbed her the “most radical liberal to ever run for governor” in Georgia.
Yet GOP nominee Brian Kemp has been unable to shake Ms. Abrams, who has energized the Democratic base by running unapologetically from the party’s left wing and could make history as the nation’s first female black governor.
“I think the race is tighter than Republicans want to let on,” said Jay Williams, a Georgia-based GOP strategist.
Mr. Williams says he still predicts a Kemp victory, but the polls do show an excruciatingly tight contest.
The Real Clear Politics average gives Mr. Kemp, Georgia’s secretary of state since 2010, a 2 percentage-point lead over Ms. Abrams, with both candidates appearing to have consolidated their base vote.
It’s been 20 years since a Democrat won the governorship, and Democrats have thought they were on the cusp of victory in several governor’s and statewide Senate races only to see their hopes dashed.
The last time came in 2014, when Republican Gov. Nathan Deal overcame a much-hyped challenge from Democrat Jason Carter, the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter, a former governor himself.
But the state’s shifting demographics make Democrats optimistic about their chances, and there’s a sense that if anyone can change the party’s fortunes, it’s Ms. Abrams, a Yale law graduate and former minority leader of the Georgia House.
She has spent the last five years focused on expanding the voter rolls by getting more women, minorities and young people registered to vote, and now she’s hoping for a payoff.
“What she has engaged in is an intensive voter mobilization campaign,” said Andra Gillespie, professor of political science at Emory University in Atlanta. “It started years ago when she tried to identify unregistered voters who were disproportionately single women and people of color.”
Ms. Abrams’ quest to break the color barrier has made her a household name across the country and helped her on the fundraising front.
Liberals adore her vows to expand Medicaid through Obamacare, to increase the state’s minimum wage, and to ban sales of military-style semiautomatic “assault” weapons.
There are also signs that her get get-out-the-vote efforts are paying off, with black turnout spiking during the Democratic primary. Activists are also enthusiastic about early tallies from mail-in votes.
“We are seeing a massive increase in turnout during the early voting period which is historically where Democrats have been particularly strong,” said Neil Sroka, spokesman for Democracy for America, which endorsed Ms. Abrams. “The kind of numbers we are seeing in early votes is what we need to win a very tight election.”
Republicans, though, point out that Mr. Deal, who is term-limited, held a slim lead in the polls in 2014, but won by a relatively easy 8 percentage points.
“You still have an amount of voters who claim they are undecided, but in a red state, usually 75 to 80 percent of those voters break Republican in the final days,” said Jon Thompson, spokesman for the Republican Governors Association. “That is what happened in 2014.”
Mr. Kemp and Ms. Abrams are both focused on turning out their supporters and have become embroiled in a battle over voting rights.
The fight flared up after the Associated Press reported recently that Mr. Kemp, as secretary of state, put 53,000 voter registration applications on hold because they ran afoul of the state’s “exact match” law meant to weed out voter fraud.
The law mandates that the information provided on a voter registration application be identical to information on file with the government.
Mrs. Abrams has accused Mr. Kemp of trying to disenfranchise minority voters and called on him to resign.
“It’s part of a pattern of behavior where he tries to tilt the playing field in his favor or in the favor of his party,” she said over the weekend on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Mr. Kemp said he is enforcing the law and that those voters will still be able to vote as long as they show up to the polls with a proper ID.
He said Mrs. Abrams and her allies are manufacturing a “crisis” to spur turnout and turn attention away from her liberal views that are out of step with most voters.
“Clearly, Stacey Abrams is too extreme for Georgia,” said Kemp spokesman Ryan Mahoney.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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