The Stacey Abrams For VP Movement Is Real
This is your last chance to get on the Stacey Abrams for VP bandwagon before you become a bandwagoner (“I was with her before she sold out”).
In a wide-ranging feature in Elle magazine, Abrams explicitly makes her case:
I would be an excellent running mate. I have the capacity to attract voters by motivating typically ignored communities. I have a strong history of executive and management experience in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. I’ve spent 25 years in independent study of foreign policy. I am ready to help advance an agenda of restoring America’s place in the world. If I am selected, I am prepared and excited to serve.
Certainly she’s more qualified for that job than, say, hypothetically of course, being a skeezy reality-tv host running for President.
Steve Phillips of the Center for American Progress (where Abrams is a board member) argued in The New York Times on Wednesday that Abrams would be the strongest of all possible women Veep hopefuls.
His case rests on the data showing Abrams has the most enthusiasm among African-American voters, younger voters, and did well with Latino voters in her gubernatorial run. (I question some of the premise about Biden suffering with Latino voters against Sanders in their head-to-head race but no one asked me).
It is in the realm of African-American voter enthusiasm that Ms. Abrams is without peer. Not only did she win 93 percent of the black vote in her race for governor — a higher percentage than any of the other potential vice-presidential picks won in their statewide races — but few candidates (if any) in the history of this country have increased black turnout in a statewide election to the extent that Ms. Abrams did in 2018. Black voter turnout jumped 40 percent in Georgia in 2018, an astounding level of strength that not only can bring the Midwestern states back into the Democratic fold but also has the potential to expand the map of competitive states to Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and Texas.
Among the other contenders, a recent poll (by Data for Progress for the group Way to Win) found that Ms. Harris ran a close second to Ms. Abrams in terms of support among African-Americans.
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