Voting rights activist and former state legislator Stacey Abrams has “eclipsed” Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp with her fundraising totals since joining the race to unseat Kemp last December, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution reports. Since then, Abrams has brought in over $9.2 million in donations, and this money apparently came in from over 100,000 donors — so there’s clearly a lot of enthusiasm behind Abrams’s campaign. Across the final six months of last year, Kemp raised $7.4 million, although he closed out the year with some $12.7 million in cash on-hand, while Abrams was recently set to report about $7.2 million in cash on-hand for her campaign.
Stacey Abrams has raised $9.2 million since jumping into the Georgia gubernatorial race in December, outpacing Republican Brian Kemp in the latter half of 2021.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 4, 2022
Abrams ran against Kemp in 2018, when he first won his current role, but she lost by nearly 55,000 votes — out of some 3.9 million votes that were cast, so it was close. In the time since, Joe Biden won Georgia in the 2020 presidential election, securing the first general election victory in the state for a Democratic presidential nominee since the 1990s, and Democrats won both of the state’s U.S. Senate elections the following month. It’s those Senate race victories that have allowed Democrats to control the Senate throughout Biden’s tenure so far.
Reminder: over 150 years after the 15th amendment was ratified, Republicans continue to block legislation that would help protect the right to vote for people of color in the face of Jim Crow 2.0.
Our work on voting rights is far from over.
— Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) February 3, 2022
Although negotiating with the party’s so-called moderate members has made accomplishing certain ambitions difficult, Democratic control of the Senate has allowed for likely easier confirmations of key Biden picks for federal roles, and once confirmed, these nominees have been able to kickstart important policy updates in pressing areas, like environmental protection. The Democratic majority also passed the ambitious COVID-19-tied economic relief package that’s fueled the country’s economic recovery from the onset of the pandemic — although that initiative is slowly fading further into the rearview mirror.
Just in: Stacey Abrams has raised more than $9.2M since entering the race for Georgia governor in December, setting a blistering fundraising pace that eclipsed Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. #gapol https://t.co/OgJJMflt0c
— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) February 2, 2022
Meanwhile, Abrams has occupied herself since 2018 with efforts including the fight to protect voting rights. She founded the organization known as Fair Fight, which “brings awareness to the public on election reform, advocates for election reform at all levels, and engages in other voter education programs and communications,” as explained on its website. Elsewhere in Georgia, Democratic candidates who’ll be on the ballot this year are also bringing in large amounts of money. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), who’ll have to go before voters again this year in order to win a full, six-year term, has some $23 million in cash on-hand — several times higher than the amount on-hand that’s held by Republican contender and former football player Herschel Walker. Every Senate race could be critical to deciding which party controls the chamber for the following two years. The Cook Political Report rates three currently GOP-held Senate seats as toss-ups heading into the midterms — and they rate three currently Democratic-held seats in the Senate the same way.
Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has raised raised more than $9.2 million since entering the race. https://t.co/J1C5MFMXE5
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) February 2, 2022
