Stacey Abrams launches 2nd campaign for Georgia governor

Democrat Stacey Abrams announced Wednesday that she will mount a second campaign for governor in Georgia, setting up a potential rematch with incumbent Republican Brian Kemp in 2022.

Abrams, the former Georgia House minority leader who is credited with helping Democrats win two U.S. Senate contests by mobilizing a network of Black voters across the state, made the announcement on Twitter.

In 2018, Abrams lost to Kemp by just under 1.4 percentage points, one of the closest gubernatorial races in state history. She refused to concede her loss, maintaining that Republicans sought to keep African Americans from voting.

“Regardless of the pandemic or the storms, the obstacles in our way or the forces determined to divide us, my job has been to just put my head down and keep working toward one Georgia,” she said in a video announcing her candidacy Wednesday. “Because in the end, we are one Georgia.”

In her video, Abrams also said that "opportunity and success in Georgia shouldn't be determined by your ZIP code, background or access to power."

Following her loss in 2018, and her selection by Democrats to deliver the party's response to then-President Donald Trump's 2019 State of the Union address, there was widespread speculation that Abrams might run for president in either 2020 or 2024.

“I’m in a place where I'm comfortable with my declarations, and part of my responsibility is to create that comfort for others. And that means declaring what I want, which is to one day be president of the United States, but not at this moment,” Abrams said in a 2019 interview on “The Long Game,” a Yahoo News podcast.

Instead, she will seek to become the first Black woman elected governor of any U.S. state.

Through her organization Fair Fight, which encourages voter participation and educates voters about elections, Abrams helped Democrats retake control of the U.S. Senate, and she will likely have the unqualified backing of her party. She'll also have a formidable war chest to help her. Fair Fight has raised more than $100 million since 2018, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The gubernatorial race will help decide whether the gains that Abrams and Fair Fight have made in the state will prove fleeting. Sen. Raphael Warnock, one of the two senators Abrams helped elect in razor-thin runoff contests earlier this year, will also be running for reelection.

Republicans, meanwhile, remain divided over Kemp's reluctance to try to sway the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in favor of Trump. (Joe Biden won the state by just 0.3 percent.) Kemp will almost certainly face a primary challenge, as Trump has been a fierce critic.

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