Stacey Abrams is the Democratic MVP of 2020
While images of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were flooding newspapers and news feeds in November, there were many faces behind the 2020 U.S. election that warrant credit for their work in securing a Democratic victory last month.
One person who deserves to be known and celebrated is Stacey Abrams. Abrams played an instrumental role in flipping the traditionally red state of Georgia for the Democrats, securing an additional 16 electoral votes for the Democratic presidential ticket. After an official recount, the Democrats won the state by a narrow margin of 49.5 per cent to 49.2 per cent. The state of Georgia had not gone to the Democrats since 1992, making it a daunting task to turn the state blue in 2020. Yet, Abrams made it her personal mission to accomplish this goal.
After losing a tight 2018 race for governor in Georgia by less than 55 000 votes which was marred by significant efforts to suppress Georgia’s African-American voters, Abrams was motivated to increase voter turnout and level the playing field in Georgia’s elections. That year, she founded Fair Fight, an organization promoting voter participation in Georgia and across the United States. Led by Abrams, Fair Fight advocates for the protection of free and fair elections by keeping the public informed on elections, increasing voter registration, and combating voter suppression, especially among the African-American community. Civil rights groups and African-American leaders, including civil rights movement leader John Lewis, have spent decades fighting Georgia’s restrictive voting laws, which have disproportionately affected the African-American community.
Abrams and Fair Fight’s efforts, in addition to years of advocacy from many leaders and organizations, have contributed to more than 800 000 new voter registrations across the state over the past two years. This increase in voter registration translated to a massive rise in voter turnout in 2020, especially among youth and the African-American community. Forbes reported that “the number of young people who voted in Georgia is about equal to the number of eligible young voters, making it the state with the highest youth turnout so far.”
There are many lessons to be learned from Stacey Abrams. First, do not let injustice go unanswered. Abrams used her personal political defeat to inspire her to tackle the many issues that arose during her election campaign for state governor. Instead of turning away from politics, Abrams continued to draw motivation from her passion to address systemic inequalities in the current voting system, to educate, and to engage marginalized groups and youth in the voting process. Abrams became a pillar of strength for the African-American community by continually advocating for their right to vote and demonstrating the impact that minority communities can have in determining election results. Secondly, Abrams reminds us that one person can have a huge impact in election campaigns, emphasizing the point that every vote matters.
These lessons are important to keep in mind as the two Georgia senate seats will be decided in a runoff election in January 2021. If both Democratic candidates win their respective elections, the Senate will be evenly split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, giving the Democrats control of the chamber with Vice-President Harris acting as the tiebreaker. With the House of Representatives and the Presidency in Democratic hands as of January 2021, the Democrats would be able to implement their ambitious legislative agenda. In particular, it would allow the Democrats to pass the For the People Act of 2019—a bill that seeks to improve and expand voting rights across the country, remove partisan gerrymandering, and limit the influence of private donors on election campaigns. This bill would see Abrams’ efforts enshrined into law not just in her home state of Georgia, but nationwide. Thus, the future of the country rides heavily on the Senate result in Georgia. There is still much at stake with the direction of the Senate and the future of voting rights, and, as Abrams said herself, “our work is not done.”