What did Stacey Abrams do wrong/was she overrated all along?

[Frodo]

The refusal to concede in 2018 has been a major turn off to independents/swing voters and even some softer Democrats as we've seen in some of the qual we've done.

Given their base is a cult of personality, only Republicans can get away with refusing to concede an election they lose, it seems.  Especially if they are Trumpsters. 

[TwinGeeks99]

Definitely it was refusing to officially concede the 2018 race. While she had very valid points (the SoS overseeing his own election to the governor's mansion for one) it's still bad optics and has fueled accusations of hypocrisy from the other side.

[Niemeyerite]

We don't know yet whether she's over or underrated.

[kwabbit]

Definitely it was refusing to officially concede the 2018 race. While she had very valid points (the SoS overseeing his own election to the governor's mansion for one) it's still bad optics and has fueled accusations of hypocrisy from the other side.

Is it customary for someone in Kemp's position to have resigned? I always found this point as grasping at straws. Yeah it's a little uncomfortable for a SOS to run in an election that they oversee but he would've done that if he was running for reelection as SOS anyway. An acting/temp SOS is not ideal for a November general election either. Kemp was elected to oversee a few major elections mainly, so resigning would be a failure to serve his elected duty.

The 'vote suppression' that Kemp committed wasn't unusual, particularly egregious, or enough to swing the election, and any replacement Republican probably would've done the same.

[ModerateRadical]

Definitely it was refusing to officially concede the 2018 race. While she had very valid points (the SoS overseeing his own election to the governor's mansion for one) it's still bad optics and has fueled accusations of hypocrisy from the other side.

Is it customary for someone in Kemp's position to have resigned? I always found this point as grasping at straws. Yeah it's a little uncomfortable for a SOS to run in an election that they oversee but he would've done that if he was running for reelection as SOS anyway. An acting/temp SOS is not ideal for a November general election either. Kemp was elected to oversee a few major elections mainly, so resigning would be a failure to serve his elected duty.

The 'vote suppression' that Kemp committed wasn't unusual, particularly egregious, or enough to swing the election, and any replacement Republican probably would've done the same.

I could be remembering this wrong, but I'm pretty sure Kemp used his position of authority to manufacture an October surprise in his own favor. A few days before the midterm election, Kemp announced something about the voter registration system being tampered with in a failed hack, which he then pinned on the GA Democrats. The whole announcement seemed kinda suspect at the time, and I'm not sure if it was ever established if such a cyberattack ever happened in the first place.

[Chip of the Chop]

I really don't get why Dems thought it was a good idea to just hand the nomination to Abrams.

[Rookie Yinzer]

I really don't get why Dems thought it was a good idea to just hand the nomination to Abrams.

Please inform us who was going to win said primary.

[Mr. Smith]

She decided to run again, despite Biden winning and The Senate flipping, instead of waiting for a Republican President to outright give her the position just by outparty association.

[Calthrina950]

I really don't get why Dems thought it was a good idea to just hand the nomination to Abrams.

Please inform us who was going to win said primary.

Someone like Lucy McBath easily could have, and probably would be a better nominee for Democrats.

[dw93]

I've always found her a bit overrated and her not conceding the 2018 election, even if I agree with her concerns, and her naked ambition for the Presidency (and the vice presidency) despite never holding a statewide office never sat well with me. That said, she is good at organizing and generating turnout and I would say she did have a key role in the Democrat's victories, both for President and in the Senate, in Georgia. I just wish some of the skills she has would translate into a good candidate.

[cinyc]

Denying the 2018 election results and actively advocating to move the All Star Game out of Georgia come with consequences.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Denying the 2018 election results and actively advocating to move the All Star Game out of Georgia come with consequences.

Considering this is GA, I wouldn't be surprised if the latter had more of a negative impact on her than the former.

[cb584968]

I also think she counted on demographic trends delivering her the state and understandably miscalculated Kemp’s position strengthening after the clashes with Trump.

[Senator Incitatus]

Denying the 2018 election results and actively advocating to move the All Star Game out of Georgia come with consequences.

Considering this is GA, I wouldn't be surprised if the latter had more of a negative impact on her than the former.

I'd be surprised if there's any state where this isn't the case. She (not personally, of course) took millions of dollars out of their pockets. And for what?

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

The refusal to concede in 2018 has been a major turn off to independents/swing voters and even some softer Democrats as we've seen in some of the qual we've done.

Kemp also expertly used the primary to solidify his brand going into the general election - you could write a book on how well he played that.

That makes sense.  I mean, I wouldn’t vote for her if I lived in Georgia after the Trump-style crap she pulled in 2018 and I’m probably to the left of the average voter in Georgia.

[Alben Barkley]

The only reason I would vote for Abrams in this election is abortion. Kemp is an extreme right-winger on the issue and that matters now obviously. But Abrams should have conceded and her personality is off-putting. She seemed to think she was entitled to the VP slot if not the presidency itself too. Great work on GOTV, but she might be one of those people who works better in politics behind the scenes than as a public-facing candidate.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Denying the 2018 election results and actively advocating to move the All Star Game out of Georgia come with consequences.

Considering this is GA, I wouldn't be surprised if the latter had more of a negative impact on her than the former.

I'd be surprised if there's any state where this isn't the case. She (not personally, of course) took millions of dollars out of their pockets. And for what?

I was talking about how pro football is pretty big in GA.

[Senator Incitatus]

Denying the 2018 election results and actively advocating to move the All Star Game out of Georgia come with consequences.

Considering this is GA, I wouldn't be surprised if the latter had more of a negative impact on her than the former.

I'd be surprised if there's any state where this isn't the case. She (not personally, of course) took millions of dollars out of their pockets. And for what?

I was talking about how pro football is pretty big in GA.

It was baseball.

[Adam Griffin]

The whole "she didn't concede" narrative is tired and broken. Admittedly, I did initially wonder if it would impact the December 2018 runoffs given that was mere weeks after and the electoral oxygen for Barrow & Miller might be sucked out by court cases for Abrams and the like, but this is literally a non-issue in GA today. Nobody's campaigning on it or discussing it seriously.

I'm not going to be surprised if a huge share of her drop-off relative to 2018 comes from the same types of people (i.e. white metro suburbrons) who we may now know as propelling Biden, Warnock and Ossoff to victory, but who some forget prior to 2016-18 used to pretend to be "Georgia's thoughtful undecideds" - only to predictably break 4:1 in favor of Republicans at the last minute. Even then, we already saw the cracks in some places with them voting for the nice black man for Senate in the runoffs but also exercising their "balanced approach" by voting for Perdue simultaneously.

Perhaps some will say not conceding is why, but these are the same people who historically would just settle on any convenient narrative toward the end to justify voting GOP in every election. I don't buy it.

If anyone's followed my commentary on Abrams for the past 4-5 years, then my opinion (much of it backed up by precinct-level analysis of voter registration trends, participation and shifts) is pretty clear. The vast majority of Abrams' improvement (whether compared to Jason Carter or Hillary Clinton) came from five sources (in order of most impactful to least):

• automatic voter registration
• Donald Trump turning the GOP into a toxic brand among suburbanites
• continued demographic shifts
• a lack of incumbency
• a Republican midterm

Before I go any further, I should say that I think Abrams and her campaign apparatus personally/directly shifted GA anywhere from 1.5-2.0 points in favor of Democrats compared to Jason Carter in 2014 - but her margin was 6.5 points better than Carter's, so you can do the math here: she has bragging rights to around 25-30% of her improvement over Carter at best.

1) Automatic voter registration. AVR's effects are now 5 years in (our AVR is through the DMV, mind you), and for those who don't know, GA offers both 5-year and 8-year licenses. Poorer, younger, non-white and less engaged types typically get 5-year licenses because they are cheaper upfront: the same types who were disproportionately unregistered pre-2017 who have since become registered. Between 2016 and 2020, GA netted 1.5m registered voters (with consistent net growth of 300-400k each year, which tells you from where it came) and saw its presidential turnout increase by 1.0 million: not quite the same net turnout among post-AVR registrants (66-68%) as we saw among the pre-AVR crowd (70-75%), but fairly close. There's no net remaining VR advantage to be had here like there was between 2014-2018 or even between 2018-2020, because well over 90% of eligibles are registered and have been for some time (two-thirds of which were captured via AVR). Georgia had the 9th highest rate of voter registration in the country in 2021.

2) Donald Trump turning the GOP into a toxic brand among suburbanites. Trump is effectively gone: he's not President nor on the ballot, no matter how much certain Democratic messaging strategies may wish to make it so.

3) A lack of incumbency. Lack of incumbency no longer exists, obviously.

4) A Republican midterm. It's not a Republican midterm, obviously.

5) Continued demographic shifts. Demographic shift is the only one of these 5 factors remaining that existed in 2018, and, well...all non-white groups shifted notably toward the GOP in 2020 (and even appeared somewhat in 2018; see: black men, where Abrams did worse than Jason Carter & possibly even Hillary Clinton). Perhaps this is continuing to hold to a large degree - especially among black voters, who as younger post-CRA blocs replace their grandparents, are no longer voting 93-5 or whatever.


End result: take the untrustworthy white suburbrons who are probably shifting 5+ points back to the right in this race because Trump's not around and Brian Kemp is the incumbent who "pushed back against Trump" or whatever, and combine this with no continued net AVR benefits & a potentially right-shifting non-white electorate cancelling out any continued demographic shift, and it's not hard to see why she might do worse than 2018. Much of her erroneously-credited gains in 2018 - which not only continue to get credited to her, but also for the wins of Biden, Warnock and Ossoff - are no longer there for her in this cycle.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

The whole "she didn't concede" narrative is tired and broken. Admittedly, I did initially wonder if it would impact the December 2018 runoffs given that was mere weeks after and the electoral oxygen for Barrow & Miller might be sucked out by court cases for Abrams and the like, but this is literally a non-issue in GA today. Nobody's campaigning on it or discussing it seriously.

I'm not going to be surprised if a huge share of her drop-off relative to 2018 comes from the same types of people (i.e. white metro suburbrons) who we may now know as propelling Biden, Warnock and Ossoff to victory, but who some forget prior to 2016-18 used to pretend to be "Georgia's thoughtful undecideds" - only to predictably break 4:1 in favor of Republicans at the last minute. Even then, we already saw the cracks in some places with them voting for the nice black man for Senate in the runoffs but also exercising their "balanced approach" by voting for Perdue simultaneously.

Perhaps some will say not conceding is why, but these are the same people who historically would just settle on any convenient narrative toward the end to justify voting GOP in every election. I don't buy it.

If anyone's followed my commentary on Abrams for the past 4-5 years, then my opinion (much of it backed up by precinct-level analysis of voter registration trends, participation and shifts) is pretty clear. The vast majority of Abrams' improvement (whether compared to Jason Carter or Hillary Clinton) came from five sources (in order of most impactful to least):

• automatic voter registration
• Donald Trump turning the GOP into a toxic brand among suburbanites
• continued demographic shifts
• a lack of incumbency
• a Republican midterm

Before I go any further, I should say that I think Abrams and her campaign apparatus personally/directly shifted GA anywhere from 1.5-2.0 points in favor of Democrats compared to Jason Carter in 2014 - but her margin was 6.5 points better than Carter's, so you can do the math here: she has bragging rights to around 25-30% of her improvement over Carter at best.

1) Automatic voter registration. AVR's effects are now 5 years in (our AVR is through the DMV, mind you), and for those who don't know, GA offers both 5-year and 8-year licenses. Poorer, younger, non-white and less engaged types typically get 5-year licenses because they are cheaper upfront: the same types who were disproportionately unregistered pre-2017 who have since become registered. Between 2016 and 2020, GA netted 1.5m registered voters (with consistent net growth of 300-400k each year, which tells you from where it came) and saw its presidential turnout increase by 1.0 million: not quite the same net turnout among post-AVR registrants (66-68%) as we saw among the pre-AVR crowd (70-75%), but fairly close. There's no net remaining VR advantage to be had here like there was between 2014-2018 or even between 2018-2020, because well over 90% of eligibles are registered and have been for some time (two-thirds of which were captured via AVR). Georgia had the 9th highest rate of voter registration in the country in 2021.

2) Donald Trump turning the GOP into a toxic brand among suburbanites. Trump is effectively gone: he's not President nor on the ballot, no matter how much certain Democratic messaging strategies may wish to make it so.

3) A lack of incumbency. Lack of incumbency no longer exists, obviously.

4) A Republican midterm. It's not a Republican midterm, obviously.

5) Continued demographic shifts. Demographic shift is the only one of these 5 factors remaining that existed in 2018, and, well...all non-white groups shifted notably toward the GOP in 2020 (and even appeared somewhat in 2018; see: black men, where Abrams did worse than Jason Carter & possibly even Hillary Clinton). Perhaps this is continuing to hold to a large degree - especially among black voters, who as younger post-CRA blocs replace their grandparents, are no longer voting 93-5 or whatever.


End result: take the untrustworthy white suburbrons who are probably shifting 5+ points back to the right in this race because Trump's not around and Brian Kemp is the incumbent who "pushed back against Trump" or whatever, and combine this with no continued net AVR benefits & a potentially right-shifting non-white electorate cancelling out any continued demographic shift, and it's not hard to see why she might do worse than 2018. Much of her erroneously-credited gains in 2018 - which not only continue to get credited to her, but also for the wins of Biden, Warnock and Ossoff - are no longer there for her in this cycle.

I agree with all except No. 2.  While Trump is absolutely toxic to suburban voters, other republicans have done everything they can do to alienate this group. Mastriano, Masters, Walker etc are underperforming what generic r would be getting in this climate. Trump being gone is not going to dramatically cause college Ed whites to jump back into the R column, rather its candidates like Brian Kemp that appeal to suburban voters by their strength or being anti trump/moderate

[Adam Griffin]

I agree with all except No. 2.  While Trump is absolutely toxic to suburban voters, other republicans have done everything they can do to alienate this group. Mastriano, Masters, Walker etc are underperforming what generic r would be getting in this climate. Trump being gone is not going to dramatically cause college Ed whites to jump back into the R column, rather its candidates like Brian Kemp that appeal to suburban voters by their strength or being anti trump/moderate

But my original point was that Trump is gone in Georgia: namely that a candidate like Kemp isn't associating with him or taking cues from him (in fact, he outright bucked him and beat him, which does give him street cred with the aforementioned suburbrons), and also that he is no longer President nor directly on the ballot. The ones you listed are trying to hug him tightly while not having his electoral coat-tails to boost them.

What may apply in other states obviously varies, but this is not of much help to Abrams in 2022 running in GA.

[Reactionary Libertarian]

I view Beto & Stacey as two sides of the same coin and I find it interesting how much the pendulum swings between them over the years.

This time in 2020, Beto was seen as incredibly annoying and 'overrated' while Stacey was receiving praise for her voter outreach in Georgia. Now, Stacey is seen as incredibly annoying and 'overrated' while Beto seems to be winning some folks over again with his gubernatorial run.

Both are overrated, but at least Abrams' can credibly claim to have helped Georgia flip in 2020. What did Beto do?

[dw93]

I view Beto & Stacey as two sides of the same coin and I find it interesting how much the pendulum swings between them over the years.

This time in 2020, Beto was seen as incredibly annoying and 'overrated' while Stacey was receiving praise for her voter outreach in Georgia. Now, Stacey is seen as incredibly annoying and 'overrated' while Beto seems to be winning some folks over again with his gubernatorial run.

This. Beto could've done similar grass roots organizing in Texas but instead he put all his chips on a disaster of a Presidential run.

Both are overrated, but at least Abrams' can credibly claim to have helped Georgia flip in 2020. What did Beto do?