Tag: Stacey Abrams

A rural Georgia county's Board of Elections is scheduled to vote on a controversial proposal to close seven of the majority-black county's nine polling places ahead of the November midterm election. CNN's Victor Blackwell reports.

A plan to close most polling places in a predominantly black Georgia county ahead of November’s midterm elections is drawing opposition from the state’s gubernatorial candidates and voting rights activists, who claim blatant voter suppression. 'You don’t tell yourself no': Stacey Abrams' bid to be America's first black female governor Read more The two-member local elections board is expected to vote Friday on a proposal to shutter seven of nine polling sites in rural Randolph county, in south-west Georgia, where roughly 60% of the 7,800 residents are black – twice the statewide rate. “You don’t help persons with disabilities by removing the number of locations at which they might possibly be able to vote,” Young said. He added that the Georgia ACLU and the county commissioner’s office offered to work with the county to solve compliance issues and were not taken up on the offer. Both Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee seeking to become the first female African American governor in US history, and Republican Brian Kemp, who is white and is Georgia’s secretary of state, urged county officials to drop the plan. “Consolidation has come highly recommended by the secretary of state and is already being adopted by several counties and is being seriously considered and being worked on by many more,” Mike Malone, a consultant hired by the elections board, said according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Voting while black: the racial injustice that harms our democracy | Carol Anderson Read more Voting rights could become a flashpoint in the governor’s race, as Abrams seeks to turn out African American voters in rural areas, particularly in a series of counties known as the “Black Belt”, mostly south of Atlanta. She has said Kemp is an architect of voter suppression, an accusation he has denied. Why US elections remain 'dangerously vulnerable' to cyber-attacks Read more “We are deeply troubled by this proposal which would impair the ability of African Americans, particularly in low-income areas, to reach the polls,” Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee, said on Monday. “If you live in one of these places where the polling location was closed,” he said, “that’s a three-and-a-half-hour walk to your new polling place, if you don’t have a car.”

The Atlanta Braves franchise is wading into the race for Georgia governor by hosting a high-dollar fundraiser this month for Republican Brian Kemp, though the team said it expects to also chip into Democrat Stacey Abrams’ campaign. The event cost donors $13,200 to host and $1,000 to attend. Braves spokeswoman Beth Marshall said the franchise often donates to candidates from both parties, and noted it gave $1,000 to Abrams in 2015 and 2016 during her state House runs. She said the team’s donation does not amount to “taking a political stance for either gubernatorial candidate.” Marshall added: “As of today, we have yet to be contacted to support Abrams’ campaign, but are expecting to do so.” The Atlanta Braves are one of the better politically-connected businesses in Georgia, and the team regularly hosts powerful politicians, including a recent event held by the Republican Governors Association. It donated $2,500 to Gov. The team did not appear to give to either Democratic candidate in those contests. The franchise was also an early supporter of Lt. Gov. It gave four separate donations to Cagle over the last year totaling $11,000. The Braves were far from alone in that respect. Other hosts of the event include former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, outgoing state Rep. Earl Ehrhart, Cobb District Attorney Vic Reynolds and other Cobb County GOP movers and shakers.

The Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia is the central character in one of the most intriguing political campaigns of 2018, as she bids to become the nation’s first female African American governor. But just as much or more could depend on whether Georgia turns out to be the new Virginia or next Alabama, or instead becomes the latest example of Democrats’ hopes being dashed in a politically changing state. First elected to the legislature in 2006, she rose to become Democratic leader in the state House at a time when Republicans were in control. Kemp is the Georgia secretary of state, a former state senator and a small-business owner. But with provocative television ads and the late support from Trump, he ran away with the runoff, winning with about 69 percent of the vote. Republican strategists say Kemp must make economic issues more prominent in his campaign than they were in the primary. In 2016, those suburban voters backed Clinton over Trump. Female voters will be crucial to Abrams’s hopes of winning. But they see differences between Georgia and those other two elections. Abrams’s hopes could depend on whether she can accelerate the changes underway in Georgia by changing the November electorate dramatically in her favor.

While national Democrats debate pithy slogans, force out tired satires, and generally wonder what exactly they're supposed to be doing, Stacey Abrams has a plan. The Georgia state legislator and Democratic nominee for governor is a compelling speaker and driven public servant, Molly Ball wrote for Time in a profile published Thursday — but more than that, she's not afraid to try strategies that party bigwigs have largely ignored. Georgia is a red state veering purple; in the run-up to the 2016 election, there were several polls that breathed life into the idea that Hillary Clinton could steal the conservative state. President Trump ultimately won the Peach State by 5 points, but Abrams thinks there's a coalition to be built that could nonetheless propel her to the governorship. Abrams, by contrast, has made budget priorities the center of her campaign, pledging to rejuvenate Georgia's public education system and overhaul its safety net. The key, her team believes, is in tweaking its target voters: Ever since Bill Clinton won re-election in 1996 with a strategy of triangulation, Democrats have tried to win in Republican territory by appealing to white centrist voters. [Time] "I am coming for you, Georgia!" Abrams says, speaking to hyped up crowds. Read more about her plan to turn Georgia blue — and how she used to explain Republican lawmakers' bills back to them — at Time. Kimberly Alters

This year, after previous disappointments, they have a historic candidate for governor with enough star power to raise their hopes of an upset again. Abrams is a 44-year-old lawyer and former state legislative leader who is vying to become the first black woman in American history to be elected governor of any state. This year, after previous disappointments, their gubernatorial candidate has already made history as the first black woman to win a major party nomination for governor. Stacey Abrams is a 44-year-old lawyer and former state legislative leader vying to become the first black woman in American history to be elected governor of any state. Abrams' candidacy headlines a year when record numbers of women are running for office. (Only about a fifth of Congress is female and just five out of 50 governors are women; dozens of nominees could push those numbers higher after November.) Campaigns by other black women are drawing national attention. (Read: white women.) She reminds voters it was Republicans, including Cagle, who ran afoul of the business community, pushing anti-gay rights legislation as Amazon considered Atlanta for its second headquarters and chiding Delta when the Atlanta-based airline giant cut ties with the National Rifle Association. ___ Whack reported from Philadelphia.

The Story: Stacey Abrams is the Democratic Party's nominee for Governor in Georgia. If she wins this November, she will be the first African-American women...

The Story: Stacey Abrams is the Democratic Party's nominee for Governor in Georgia. If she wins this November, she will be the first African-American women...

(CNN)In her speech after winning the Democratic primary Tuesday night, Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams expressed a bone-deep understanding of the political moment that so many black women have already grasped -- first in private conversations between one another and now, increasingly, with the Democratic power structure that has struggled to see black women as the capable, ready leaders they are. "And now is a time to defend our values and protect the vulnerable -- to stand in the gap and lead the way." Fifty years after Shirley Chisholm's historic run -- and win -- as the first black woman elected to Congress, Abrams, who received 76% of the Democratic primary vote, is now positioned potentially to become the first black woman to serve as a US governor. Abrams' victory -- as stunning as it may appear to some -- was wholly predictable and part of an emerging pattern: Black women are seizing on this shift and delivering critical wins to progressives as organizers and voters in states such as Virginia and Alabama -- and now as candidates in places such as Georgia and Illinois. Lucy McBath, an activist who lost her son to gun violence, will be on the ballot. McBath came in first in a crowded field, but she will have to face a primary runoff in July. If she wins, she'll be angling to represent a largely white district. Each of these women has the kind of experience to represent the people effectively, and they are prepared, as Abrams said, to stand in the gap and lead the way. 2018 is shaping up to be the year that black women break through and change the face of political leadership in this country. Black women have proven themselves at the polls, on the trail, in office and behind the scenes of democracy -- now it's time to vote, volunteer and donate to support black women who are prepared to lead this country boldly into the future.

Women take over ballots First they marched, now they’re running. Female candidates dominated in the first multi-state Democratic congressional primaries of the 2018 midterms. Out of 20 open primaries with women on the ballot on Tuesday night, voters selected a female nominee in 17 of them. Emily’s List, a women’s candidacy advocacy group reported a more than 20-fold increase in inquiries from women interested in running after Trump’s election. A number of women also stood for Republican nominations on Tuesday but they did not fare as well as Democratic women, winning less than half the seats they competed for. House races aren’t the only places women are making huge imprints on the ballot. Haspel hearing harangued The Senate confirmation hearing for CIA director nominee, Gina Haspel, was interrupted multiple times by demonstrators upset about her connection to the torture of foreign detainees. Another group of Code Pink activists were removed before the proceedings began, and several were dragged out by authorities as they yelled about torture. One of the protesters removed from the chamber was Ray McGovern, a former CIA operative turned activist who has been highly visible in criticizing the agency, especially on torture, since the mid 1990s. An exile in Brooklyn these days, after several years in the UK following her ousting from Iran in 2009, Alinejad is a face of the resistance on both sides of the ocean.