Update: Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams secured the democratic nomination for Georgia's November gubernatorial race on Tuesday reports NBC. Abrams is continuing on her path to become America's first black female governor. The state's gubernatorial election will take place in November. Let's do this.
Original story: Black History Month has come and gone, but that doesn't mean we'll stop making history! Georgia legislator Stacey Abrams announced on Tuesday that she is running for the state's governor seat, USA Today reports. Winning the race would make Adams Georgia's first African-American governor.
Abrams served in her state's House as the minority leader, and recently gained the support of one of Georgia's most powerful teachers' unions, due to her support for keeping the fate of troubled schools in local, rather than state hands, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Democratic San Francisco-based philanthropist Susan Sandler has also recently expressed support of Abrams. She wants to see the former Atlanta representative in the governor's mansion, and plans to help make that happen by personally donating $1 million to the campaign. Sandler is also working to corral other donors (about 100 Democrats) into giving another $1 million.
Abrams, a Yale-educated lawyer and former romance novelist, has yet to win her primary, where she will faces off against Stacey Evans. Should she triumph in that race, she will run against one of the five Republicans who are seeking to take over current Republican Governor Nathan Deal's seat.
Democrats have not held a gubernatorial position in Georgia in over 15 years, but given Doug Jones' surprising victory in Alabama, there is hope among Democrats that that could change.
"The upset election of Doug Jones in the Alabama Senate race in December gave a glimpse of a new electoral equation," wrote Sandler in a memo to potential donors. "If we elect Stacey, we will show that we know how to win in the South without compromising our principles and beliefs."
Approximately 1.2 million potential black voters failed to visit the polls in the last gubernatorial election in 2014, but Sandler is optimistic that her donation can help tap that pool, seeing Abrams to victory. And she is already looking ahead to 2020, believing that getting more black Georgians voting now "will set us up to win Georgia in the 2020 presidential race."
