Debt-Saddled Abrams Campaign Rented TikTok ‘Hype House,’ ‘Swag Truck’
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Despite surpassing her 2018 fundraising record, Stacey Abrams’s 2022 Georgia gubernatorial campaign fell into deep debt due to reckless expenditures, according to staffers and operatives who worked on the failed campaign.
The campaign still owes more than $1 million to vendors, Abrams campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo confirmed to Axios.
Some of the campaign’s lavish expenditures included the rental of a home near Piedmont Park in Atlanta, which Abrams envisioned as a “hype house” for TikTok videos but which was ultimately underutilized, staffers told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Some aides occupied the empty large house as a work space. It can now be rented for $12,500 a month, the publication noted.
The campaign’s youth outreach strategy also proved pricey. Against the better judgement of many staffers, who found the idea irresponsible, Abrams launched a pop-up shop and “swag truck” to hand out merchandise, such as T-shirts and hoodies.
Abrams burned through cash on polls that ended up being inconsequential and consultants whose contributions were unclear, staffers also said.
Many employees in the campaign were given generous salaries compared to other candidates’ teams. For example, the campaign advertised paid canvasser jobs at $15 an hour, higher than the typical rate, according to a Georgia Tech blog discovered by the Journal-Constitution.
Benefitting from glossy, identity-focused coverage, Abrams brought in nearly $98 million as of early November. Yet, her campaign nearly ran out of money in the final stretch. Most of the 180 full-time staffers who worked for her were told they’d receive their last paycheck just a week after Election Day, according to Axios.
“People have told me they have no idea how they’re going to pay their rent in January,” one former staffer said. “It was more than unfortunate. It was messed up.”
The campaigns of Republican governor Brian Kemp, Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker, and Democratic senator Raphael Warnock were reportedly more fiscally responsible and therefore could afford to support their teams for longer. Kemp’s staff was paid through November, plus bonuses, while Walker and Warnock’s staffs were paid through December, campaign officials told Axios.
In the last week of the race, Abrams’s campaign surprisingly switched off many ad buys, slashing spending on the airwaves to under $1 million while Kemp spent almost $3 million on TV ads. Warnock similarly saved almost $3.5 million for final push ads. At the time, Groh-Wargo justified the strange cutback as a recalibration to focus on digital and grassroots operations.
“It’s incredibly bad planning, and it shows where their values are at,” a senior Democratic official told the Journal-Constitution his impression of the campaign’s financial situation. “You can’t look up one day and realize you can’t pay the bills.”
Abrams’s campaign still has many vendors to reimburse. “I’m done with this,” one former consultant said. “We have vendors still waiting to be paid.” To cover its liabilities, Groh-Wargo told Axios that the campaign has been trying to pawn off its donor lists and voter contact rosters.
