Democrat and political activist Stacey Abrams officially launched a 2022 campaign for the governor of Georgia on Wednesday.
Abrams announced her bid on social media, sharing a video in which she declared that she is running “because opportunity in our state shouldn’t be determined by zip code, background or access to power.”
“If our Georgia is going to move to its next and greatest chapter, we’re going to need leadership,” she said.
Abrams is the first Democrat to announce a bid for Georgia’s governorship. Kemp and Vernon Jones, a Democrat-turned-pro-Trump Republican, are seeking the GOP nomination.
In 2018, Abrams’ campaign for Georgia governor was defeated for Gov. Brian Kemp (R). The progressive has since repeatedly blamed the result on so-called “voter suppression” efforts from Kemp, who was Georgia secretary of state at the time of the election. In April, Abrams claimed during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that her election “was stolen from the voters of Georgia,” though conceded “Brian Kemp won under the rules that were in place.” Several high-profile Democrats have even gone as far as to assert that Abrams should be leading the state today.
Following her defeat, Abrams launched a voter protection advocacy group in 20 states — Fair Fight 2020 — and advocated for vote-by-mail schemes in the 2020 presidential election.
“Vote by mail is the safest way to vote,” Abrams told MNSBC ahead of the election. “I would say almost every state has the capacity to vote by mail. The challenge is that in a lot of states you have to have an excuse. In fact, Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama, today or yesterday, said that she wasn’t in favor of removing the excuse. The reality is everyone has an excuse — COVID-19. We need to be certain that even if things have tampered down by then, we have to prepare for it not to be so. That means we have to start planning now for the November election.”