OPINION: Stacey Abrams is now a millionaire. Nice work if you can get it.

Apr. 8—Just over the Tennessee border in Georgia, former state Rep. Stacey Abrams is making a second run for governor.

You'll recall that now-Gov. Brian Kemp won the 2018 race over Abrams by around 55,000 votes out of a total of about 3.9 million votes cast, and that Abrams has spent the last four years making false claims saying he didn't.

What does four years of making false claims do for you? For Abrams, it has made her a millionaire. In a state disclosure she filed this month, she said she is worth $3.17 million.

When she ran four years ago, her declared net worth was $109,000.

Nice work if you can get it.

We don't bemoan anyone making money. We ascribe to what John Wesley, one of the early leaders of Methodism, once said: "Having, first, gained all you can, and, secondly saved all you can, then give all you can."

Abrams has made a living off losing a close race and lying about it.

Among her pronouncements: "I did win my election, I just didn't get to have my job," and the election was "stolen from the voters of Georgia." She has yet to concede the race.

Election law expert Richard L. Hasen has said Abrams lacked sufficient evidence to make such claims, former Georgia U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler in an opinion in The Hill caller her "the pioneer of election disinformation" and said her claims were a "desperate attempt to rewrite history," and a USA Today fact-check article said "there's no empirical evidence that now-Gov. Kemp stole that election from her."

Abrams parlayed her lies into a leading position as a national Democrat. She was mentioned as a potential running mate for Joe Biden in 2020, and she played a role in get-out-the vote operations that year that helped Biden become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia in 28 years. She also was credited with helping rally support for the state electing two Democrats to the U.S. Senate the following January.

Along the way, she picked up a Distinguished Public Service Award from the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs, was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, and in 2021 was included in the Time 100, Time's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Although she was paid more than $700,000 over three years as executive director of the Southern Economic Advancement Project, she also gave 37 paid speeches in 2021 and has written or co-written or reissued six books since 2019. Another is scheduled to be reissued later this year, according to a campaign spokesman.

The publicity for one of her books, "Our Time Is Now," published in 2020, describes Abrams as a victim since "the right to vote and the principle of democracy have been under attack."

"Abrams would have been the first African American woman governor," it continues, "but experienced these effects firsthand, despite running the most innovative race in modern politics as the Democratic nominee in Georgia. Abrams didn't win, but she has not conceded."

In 2018, Georgia's would-be governor, according to financial disclosure forms, owed $50,000 in back taxes and had $170,000 in credit card and student loan debt. Part of debt, she said at the time, came because of cash-strapped parents and a sibling who struggled with drug addiction.

Since then, with money that rolled in from speaking nationally about the governor's race she said she didn't lose, she has paid off her student loan and credit card debt, bought herself a $975,000 house outside Atlanta and bought her parents a $370,000 house in suburban Atlanta.

Before running for governor, Abrams served as a state representative for 10 years, including minority leader for the last six. She also has written romance novels under the name of Selena Montgomery, all but one before her first gubernatorial run.

When she ran for governor in 2018, the governor's $175,000 salary would have been a huge step up for her. Now, thanks to her four-year they-stole-my-job tour, the governor's salary is chump change.

Nice work if you can get it.