Stacey Abrams Is Now the First Black Woman Gubernatorial Candidate in American History
Tuesday was a big night for female Democratic candidates in primaries around the country, but particularly exciting was the triumph of Stacey Abrams in Georgia, who will be the first black woman candidate—ever—to run for governor in the United States. Elsewhere, in Kentucky, Democrat Amy McGrath, a first-time candidate and Marine fighter pilot, beat former Republican mayor of Lexington Jim Gray for a House seat. And in Texas, Lupe Valdez, a gay Latina, will be the Democratic party’s candidate for governor. Last night’s results prove that not only is America’s “blue wave” rolling in, so too is a “pink wave” (the term of the moment for the historic number of women candidates).
After her win, Abrams, a 44-year-old former tax attorney (and once upon a time, author of eight romantic novels), thanked “everyone who believed that a little black girl who sometimes had to go without lights or running water—who grew up to become the first woman to lead in the Georgia General Assembly—could become the first woman gubernatorial nominee from either party in Georgia’s history.”
Abrams is showing that women candidates aren’t the future of the Democratic Party—they’re its present. She didn’t just take the tack of other true-blue men running for Democratic office this year, many of whom are appealing to a more moderate working class. Abrams instead reached out not only to black voters, but black women in particular. She’s made registering black voters a huge part of her campaign and is aware of her trailblazing status as the first black female gubernatorial nominee. “We cannot win by pretending to be something we are not,” Abrams told CNN. “My mission is to demonstrate that if we bring everyone to the table, we can win.”
And Abrams has grounded her overtures to the working class not in vague, often disingenuous populist rhetoric, as has been seen from conservatives: Before the election, Abrams wrote a very frank article addressing the fact that her $200,000 debt from student loans and IRS tax payments should not disqualify her from running for governor. Instead, it makes her more like her potential constituents.
In both the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election and Doug Jones’s win in December, 2017, in Alabama, we learned a very harsh truth about white women voters: They don’t always show up when it comes to electing candidates from the left. In the Alabama race, an estimated 63 percent of white women picked Moore, compared to the overwhelming 97 percent of African-American women voters who supported Jones. It was a reminder of the unfortunate fact that 53 percent of white women voters in 2016 chose Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.
Abrams’s win is a much needed reflection of the voting power of black American women—and the odds they, and women at large, are still up against as candidates. “Look at the power structure I’m facing right now running for governor in a country where there is not a single African-American governor,” Abrams told Marie Claire in May. As we look at the huge rise in women candidates—46 women have filed to run in governors’ races this year, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, a record high—Abrams is a reminder that they’re running on complex, multifaceted platforms, addressing many kinds of inequalities, including gender. Abrams is being called a long shot. Many headlines today wonder if she can possibly win in traditionally red Georgia. Abrams, for one, isn’t deterred.
“I may be the only one with my specific profile, but there are women, people from the LGBTQ community, Muslims who are seeking to reassert their patriotism after being denounced by many, and all of us have naysayers and doubters,” she has said. “We must remind ourselves that our success is inevitable.”
