Abrams, Georgia Dems call midterms 'unfinished business'
COLUMBUS, Ga. (AP) — Four years ago, Georgia Democrats had a contested primary for governor because the party's old guard didn’t believe in Stacey Abrams. She routed their alternative and, in a close general election loss, established herself as de facto party boss in a newfound battleground state.
That previewed 2020, when Joe Biden put Georgia in Democrats’ presidential column for the first time in 28 years, and Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff captured Senate seats soon after to give Democrats control on Capitol Hill.
Now Abrams and Warnock top the Democratic ticket together for the first time as the party tries to replicate its success in a tough midterm election landscape. The outcome will again help determine the balance of power in Washington and whether Republicans retain their dominance in state government.
“We're going to defy all the naysayers and take our state all the way back,” Abrams told delegates to the Democratic state convention Saturday. “Georgia Democrats, we've got unfinished business to take care of.”
Yet Democratic leaders acknowledge that 2022 is not a simple replay of the last two cycles.
Abrams, in her governor's race rematch with Brian Kemp, is not running against a little-known Republican secretary of state but a well-positioned incumbent. Warnock, no longer a political newcomer, is trying to distinguish himself from a relatively unpopular president who once campaigned for him. That's a point that challenger Herschel Walker relentlessly seeks to make by criticizing Warnock as a rubber-stamp for the White House.
The rest of the Democratic ticket must run under the banner of a national party that controls Washington at a time of sustained inflation and an uncertain economy. And Democrats must retool their voter turnout operation to comply...