Stacey Abrams

Stacey Abrams
Abrams in 2021
Minority Leader of the Georgia House of Representatives
In office
January 10, 2011 – July 1, 2017
Preceded byDuBose Porter
Succeeded byBob Trammell
Member of the Georgia House of Representatives
In office
January 8, 2007 – August 25, 2017
Preceded byJoAnn McClinton
Succeeded byBee Nguyen
Constituency84th district (2007–2013)
89th district (2013–2017)
Personal details
Born
Stacey Yvonne Abrams

(1973-12-09) December 9, 1973 (age 50)
Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
RelativesLeslie Abrams Gardner (sister)
Residence(s)Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.
Education
WebsiteOfficial website

Stacey Yvonne Abrams (/ˈbrəmz/;[1] born December 9, 1973) is an American politician, lawyer, voting rights activist, and author who served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017, serving as minority leader from 2011 to 2017.[2] A member of the Democratic Party, Abrams founded Fair Fight Action, an organization to address voter suppression, in 2018.[3] Her efforts have been widely credited with boosting voter turnout in Georgia, including in the 2020 presidential election, when Joe Biden narrowly won the state, and in Georgia's 2020–21 regularly scheduled and special U.S. Senate elections, which gave Democrats control of the Senate.[4][5][6]

Abrams was the Democratic nominee in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, becoming the first African-American female major-party gubernatorial nominee in the United States.[7] She narrowly lost the election to Republican candidate Brian Kemp, but refused to concede, accusing Kemp of engaging in voter suppression as Georgia Secretary of State.[8][9] News outlets and political science experts have been unable to determine whether voter suppression affected its result.[10][11] In February 2019, Abrams became the first African-American woman to deliver a response to the State of the Union address. She was the Democratic nominee in the 2022 Georgia gubernatorial election, and lost again to Kemp, this time by a much larger margin; she conceded on the night of the election.[12]

Abrams is an author of both fiction and nonfiction. Her nonfiction books, Our Time Is Now and Lead from the Outside, were New York Times best sellers. Abrams wrote eight fiction books under the pen name Selena Montgomery before 2021. While Justice Sleeps was released on May 11, 2021, under her real name. Abrams also wrote a children's book, Stacey's Extraordinary Words, released in December 2021.

  1. ^ Darrisaw, Michelle; Vincenty, Samantha (November 6, 2020). Stacey Abrams in Conversation with Janelle Monáe (video). Harper's Bazaar. Event occurs at 01:28. Archived from the original on November 13, 2021. Retrieved November 13, 2021.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference spelman_hd was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Kindelan, Katie (September 11, 2019). "Will Stacey Abrams have more of an impact on the 2020 election from the sidelines?". ABC News. Archived from the original on August 20, 2020. Retrieved December 3, 2019.
  4. ^ Rodriguez, Sabrina (October 10, 2022). "Stacey Abrams faces challenges in governor's race. Is Black voter turnout one of them?". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on October 24, 2022. Retrieved November 4, 2022. Abrams has been widely credited with working to build the base of voters who helped deliver the White House and Senate majority for Democrats.
  5. ^ Megía, Elena; Samuels, Alex (September 26, 2022). "How Black Americans Reshaped Politics In Georgia". FiveThirtyEight. Archived from the original on October 31, 2022. Retrieved October 31, 2022. [T]he wheels for a Democratic takeover were already set in motion when the party's gubernatorial nominee, Stacey Abrams, pioneered a new playbook focused on Black voters in 2018, something that nearly won her the governorship that year and motivated more Georgians to vote blue in 2020 and 2021...Abrams's close election in 2018, [Perry added], also might encourage Black Democrats to go out and vote, even in a midterm year.
  6. ^ Hakim, Danny; Saul, Stephanie; Thrush, Glenn (November 7, 2020). "As Biden Inches Ahead in Georgia, Stacey Abrams Draws Recognition and Praise". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on May 22, 2021. Retrieved January 15, 2021. Celebrities, activists and voters across Georgia credited Ms. Abrams with moving past her loss — she came within 55,000 votes of the governor's mansion — and building a well-funded network of organizations that highlighted voter suppression in the state and inspired an estimated 800,000 residents to register to vote.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference bradner was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Multiple sources state that Abrams did not concede:
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference nytstill was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ * Judd, Alan (November 9, 2018). "Did voting problems influence outcome in Georgia election?". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Archived from the original on November 10, 2018. Retrieved March 26, 2022.
  11. ^ Hasen, Richard L. (2020). Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust, and the Threat to American Democracy. Yale University Press. p. 116. ISBN 978-0300248197. As Ari Berman put it, 'We don't know – and may never know – how many people were disenfranchised or dissuaded from voting in the state. But it's clear that Kemp did everything in his power to put in place restrictive voting policies that would help his candidacy and hurt his opponent, all while overseeing his own election.'
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference WSBTV was invoked but never defined (see the help page).