Stacey Abrams shifted the center of the political universe last week when she announced her second bid for Georgia’s governorship. She will almost definitely be the Democratic nominee in a campaign that could prove historic – a win would make Abrams the first Black woman in the country to be elected governor and reaffirm Georgia’s leftward slide after turning blue in 2020, reports NBC News.
Of equal importance will be the race for the U.S. Senate, which Abrams’ efforts once helped secure. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., will seek re-election to the seat he won in January’s special election. The contest could decide the balance of the Senate in 2023
Both races assure that Georgia will be a major focus in the year to come. But Abrams’ recent bid for governor opens up room for another possibility that would’ve seemed inconceivable throughout most of the state’s history: Come Election Day, all four major party candidates for these races could be Black.
The picture is clear on the Democratic side. Warnock and Abrams will be their party’s nominees. The Republican Senate primary is equally clear, as former NFL star Herschel Walker holds a commanding lead in polls with conservative voters. And in the governor’s race, Vernon Jones is challenging the Republican incumbent, Brian Kemp, in the primary, though Jones’ chances of success are uncertain.
Taken together, these four candidacies embody the fraught nature of our current racial politics, and their campaigns imagine opposing visions for Blacks in American life.
