Stacey Abrams Says She’ll Run Again After Losing Fierce Battle For Georgia Governor
Stacey Abrams is not done yet.
The Georgia Democrat said Tuesday that she will run for political office again after narrowly losing the race to become the state’s first black governor.
“Yes, I will run again,” Abrams said at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Next Gen conference. “Now, if you could all move to Georgia.”
Abrams, a former leader of the Georgia House, lost by less than 55,000 votes to Republican Brian Kemp, who was serving as Georgia’s secretary of state, making him the state’s election overseer while running for governor. She refused to concede the race, instead acknowledging her loss to Kemp last month after lambasting what she called widespread voter suppression efforts.
“Words matter. For me, concession, there’s a legal and moral nature to conceding,” Abrams said Tuesday. “It means you accept that something is right, that it is just, that it is proper. What happened was not just.”
The state saw various difficulties for voters both before and on Election Day, including people being denied ballots and being turned away from the polls, along with efforts by Kemp to put about 53,000 voter registration applications on hold due to a controversial “exact match” law that disproportionately affected African-Americans.
“More than a million citizens found their names stripped from the rolls by the secretary of state, including a 92-year-old civil rights activist,” Abrams said at the time, noting that “democracy failed Georgia.”
Kemp will assume office in January to serve a four-year term.
During her speech on Tuesday, Abrams called her effort “extraordinarily successful” despite the loss but once again slammed a “miasma” of voter suppression efforts.
“That anyone had their vote tarnished or restricted or narrowed is wrong,” said Abrams, who is backing a federal lawsuit that would force Georgia to change how it runs elections. “This isn’t a partisan issue. This is a people issue. This is a democracy issue.”
Abrams didn’t say what office she planned to run for but didn’t rule out another bid for governor.
“Being in office is an effective way to get better done,” she said. “I haven’t quite decided, because I try not to make decisions out of anger too often. I want to make sure what I run for next is the right job not just because it has a good title, but because the mission matches my skills and matches the moment.
“So, stay tuned.”
Related Coverage
Stacey Abrams Acknowledges Loss In Georgia Governor's Race
Stacey Abrams Says Georgia Gubernatorial Election Was Neither Fair Nor Free
Stacey Abrams Says She Faced Issues Voting In Georgia's Midterm Election
Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
