Left and center-left both claim Stacey Abrams. Who’s right?
To left-leaning Democrats, Stacey Abrams, who is making her second run for Georgia governor, is a superstar: a nationally recognized voting-rights champion, a symbol of her state’s changing demographics, and a political visionary who registered and mobilized tens of thousands of new voters — the kind of grassroots organizing that progressives have long preached.
“I don’t think anyone could call Stacey Abrams a moderate,” said Aimee Allison, founder of She the People, a progressive advocacy group for women of color.
Moderates would beg to differ. They see Abrams as an ally for rejecting left-wing policies that center-left Democrats have spurned, like “Medicare for All,” the Green New Deal to combat climate change and the defunding of law enforcement in response to police violence.
“I don’t know that anybody in the party can say, ‘She’s one of us,’ ” said Matt Bennett, a founder of Third Way, the center-left group. “We can’t pretend she’s a moderate,” he added. “But the progressives can’t say she’s a progressive and not a moderate. We’re both kind of right.”
The question of how to define Abrams, 48, the presumptive Democratic standard-bearer in one of the most high-profile races of 2022, takes on new urgency amid the current landscape of the party.
Moderates and progressives sparred in Washington throughout 2021, frustrating a White House struggling to achieve consensus on its priorities and continuing an ideological debate that has raged in the party for years. There is also thirst for new blood across the party, considering the advanced ages of President Joe Biden, congressional leaders, and leading progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
On a local level, whether Abrams maintains credibility with both Democratic wings may determine how well she can withstand Republican attacks. Those close to her campaign say they expect an extremely close race and that the key is holding the suburban moderates who supported her in 2018 while exciting enough of the new Georgia voters who have registered since that election.
Republicans in Georgia — who await Abrams in the general election — are eager to denounce her as a left-wing radical out of place in a state that was a GOP stronghold until it narrowly tipped into the Democratic column in 2020. Gov. Brian Kemp, who faces a fierce primary challenge in May from former Sen. David Perdue, who has the support of former President Donald Trump, has released five digital advertisements attacking Abrams since she announced her campaign Dec. 1.
“Stacey Abrams’ far-left agenda has no place in Georgia,” one warns ominously.
But a review of Abrams’ policy statements and television advertisements, and interviews with political figures who have known her for years, reveal a leader who has carefully calibrated her positions, making a point to avoid drifting into one Democratic lane or another.
Her allies say the fluidity is an asset and highlights how policy is only one way that voters choose which candidate to rally behind. Racial representation and the unique political context of the American South are also factors in whether a candidate can credibly claim progressive bona fides, they argue.
Steve Phillips, an early supporter and prominent progressive Democratic donor, said Abrams’ political strategy was progressive, even if her policy positions were more moderate.
“It’s hard for white progressives to be too critical of someone who is so strongly and fiercely unapologetically Black and female,” he said. “Her authenticity comes from the sectors that are the core parts of the progressive base.”
Abrams’ approach does carry risks. In the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race, several candidates who sought to straddle the line between moderate and progressive policies lost the trust of significant numbers of voters in both camps, as activists pushed for firm commitments on issues like health care, climate change, expanding the Supreme Court and reparations for descendants of enslaved people.
At times, Abrams has used her perch to speak out against progressive causes and defend the Democratic establishment. She said attempts to defund police departments after the murder of George Floyd were creating a “false choice” and said departments should be reformed instead.
On health care, she has focused on expanding Medicaid rather than supporting a single-payer system. And in 2020, a think tank founded by Abrams released a climate plan focused on the South that embraced efforts to incentivize renewable energy but stopped short of the ambitious goals pushed by progressive activists and lawmakers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
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