May 3, 2022
No time to waste
Stacey Abrams isn’t waiting for Georgia Republicans to choose her opponent in November’s general election. As Brian Kemp, David Perdue and three other Republican gubernatorial candidates prepared for a third and final debate, the putative Democratic nominee for governor campaigned in coastal Georgia.
On Friday in Brunswick, Abrams held a rally at Veteran’s Memorial Park and met Mayor Cosby Johnson and his cabinet. A private fundraiser on St. Simon’s Island attracted over 70 people and raised $30,000 for her campaign.
On Saturday, she met Savannah residents by day and attended an evening fundraiser at The Landings on Skidaway Island, where she was introduced by Mayor Van Johnson. Along the way, she spoke to national and local media.
Audrey Gibbons, who attended the Brunswick rally, said the Abrams visit put a welcome spotlight on an underappreciated region. “The people of southeast Georgia are usually forgotten,” Gibbons said. “We’re south of the Georgia Mason-Dixon Line—if you’re south of Macon, you don’t exist.”
“We’re important down here, and Stacey recognizes that,” she said.
According to latest gubernatorial polls, Abrams needs all the votes she can muster. A poll released last week shows Kemp leading Abrams by 50% to 45%, with 5% undecided. The survey of 1,278 likely general election voters by 11Alive/SurveyUSA had a margin of error of 3.5%.
Takeaways from the Abrams whistle-stop tour
Knock, Knock: It’s been obvious for some time that this fall’s governor’s race will be the most expensive in the state’s history. It could even exceed the nearly $512 million spent in U.S. Senate race between Perdue and Jon Ossoff in the last election cycle.
Abrams spoke of the need for a gigantic campaign war chest Saturday night, especially in the likelihood of lawsuits challenging the election results. It won’t be enough to win a razor-thin margin like Joe Biden did in the presidential race in 2020. Abrams told Chatham County donors that she will have to win at least 51.5% of the vote this fall to overcome a perceived margin of error or vote tampering. A huge turnout to make that possible means building the largest voter apparatus and door-knocking operation the state has ever seen, she said.
Black Democrats: Will They Join Herschel’s Huddle? Abrams said Republican senatorial candidate Herschel Walker is unlikely to siphon off the votes of Georgians who cast their ballots for Raphael Warnock in the last election. People, particularly Black Georgians won’t equate Walker’s skill running the football into being a good senator. Voters of color tend to be the most pragmatic voters of all because bad choices affect them first, she said.
Who Loves You Less, Georgia? We’ve heard of impugning your political opponent’s patriotism, but we can’t recall hearing candidates lean so heavily into the notion that their opponents simply don’t care about the citizens whose votes they’re seeking. That’s the message Kemp and Perdue are sending about Abrams as they repeat the campaign trail quip that she views the Georgia governor’s office as merely a stepping stone to the Oval Office. Abrams, meanwhile, asserts in her own campaign stops that Kemp doesn’t care about Georgians as evidenced by the closure of rural hospitals during the pandemic and a reduced education budget. This line of argument, if it continues through the general election campaign, is likely to get ugly.
Back to the future (Part 1)
Kemp and Perdue on Sunday held the last of their three scheduled debates before the May 24 Republican primary. This time, three other Republican gubernatorial candidates — Catherine Davis, Kandiss Taylor and Tom Williams—joined Perdue in piling on Kemp. They accused the incumbent governor betrayal aplenty, starting with selling out Donald Trump in the 2020 election and extending to Taylor’s demand that the governor renounce the Chinese Communist Party.
Perdue’s back-to-the-future campaign, highlighted by his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, hasn’t caught traction beyond hardcore Trump supporters. The sitting governor holds a more than 20-point lead in the race, according to a poll released last week by the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs on behalf of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Speaking of debates . . .
With candidate forums and debates now crowding the calendar ahead of the May 24 primaries, the Democratic candidates for the 1st District seat in Congress will meet again on Thursday, this time in a forum sponsored by League of Women Voters of Coastal Georgia.
The same candidates — Joyce Griggs, Wade Herring, Michelle Munroe — met at a forum last week convened by The Current and Savannah State University’s student Tiger’s Roar TV. The differences between their exchanges and the Perdue-Kemp debates are stark. While the Democrats politely and mostly thoughtfully put forth policy positions, the Republican candidates for governor engaged in vitriolic personal attacks that traditionally have been the province of, well, Democrats.
There’s at least one reason that “forums,” not “debates,” are the format of choice for the League and other organizations holding candidate gatherings. These groups are interested in events that shed light, not heat, on important issues — a goal that wide-open debate often undermines.
The League’s tried-and-true formula has proved enormously successful and illuminating, both in Coastal Georgia and elsewhere in the nation. Still, in the case of the Democrats seeking to face Republican incumbent Earl L. “Buddy” Carter in November, we hope the candidates take it upon themselves to point out — constructively — the deficiencies of their primary rivals’ arguments, their misstatements of fact, and their truthful hyperbole. In doing so, they would bring integrity and honor to the office they seek, and Democratic voters would be better served.
Back to the future (Part 2)
Perdue’s political comeback might be a longshot, but his core claim of electoral fraud isn’t fading among the nearly 80% of registered Georgia Republicans who believe the 2020 election was stolen.
One Current reader alerted us to “2000 Mules,” a film by right-wing activist Dinesh D’Souza, which premiered Monday in select theaters. In 2014, D’Souza pleaded guilty in federal court to one felony charge using a “straw donor” to make the illegal campaign contribution. Donald Trump pardoned him in 2018.
A Washington Post analysis had this to say about the film. More broadly, the independent, non-profit newsroom, ProPublica, last week published a deep dive entitled, “Building the Lie: Building the ‘Big Lie’: Inside the Creation of Trump’s Stolen Election Myth.”
Meanwhile, a Fulton County judge, at the request of county’s district attorney’s office seated a special purpose grand jury on Monday to examine whether former President Trump and others illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia.
In Washington, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot will begin holding public hearings probably in June and issue a public report in coming months.
Don’t forget!
Early in-person voting for the May 24 primaries began yesterday, May 2. Here’s a guide to early voting, times, dates and places in Coastal Georgia.
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