Tomorrow is Primary Day in Georgia and Mother Jones has an article that highlights how ridiculously racist the GOP primary for Governor has become:
The Republican gubernatorial primary in Georgia has devolved in recent weeks into a chest-thumping argument over which candidate hates undocumented immigrants the most. In their rush to prove themselves, two candidates—both currently elected officials—have engaged in an escalating competition over who can personally “round up” and remove more immigrants from the state.
In a television ad released May 9, Brian Kemp—who serves as Georgia’s secretary of state and was formerly a state legislator—suggests he intends to personally detain and remove immigrants from the country. “I got a big truck,” he says, climbing into a pickup truck, “just in case I need to round up criminal illegals and take ’em home myself.” He then adds with a smirk: “Yep, I just said that.”
“His ad is beyond anti-immigrant, as he quite literally threatens to abduct individuals,” Stephanie Cho, executive director for Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta, said in a statement. “Georgia needs a governor who…does not promote reckless vigilantism.”
But state Sen. Michael Williams, another GOP primary candidate, disagrees. So Williams saw Kemp’s pickup truck—and raised him a bus.
On Wednesday, Williams launched a multicounty campaign tour in his “Deportation Bus.” Metal grating covers the windows of the gray bus, and the words “Fill this bus with illegals” run along its side. On the back it reads: “Danger! Murderers, rapists, kidnappers, child molesters, and others on board.” Then, “Follow me to Mexico.” Williams has taken the bus to areas with large immigrant populations, dubbing them “sanctuary cities”—even though Georgia outlawed sanctuary jurisdictions in 2009. (Sanctuary cities are jurisdictions that limit the ways in which local law enforcement can cooperate with federal immigration officials.)
“We’re not just gonna track ’em and watch ’em roam around our state,” Williams says in a video announcing his tour. Williams pats the side of the bus as rock music plays in the background. “We’re gonna put ’em on this bus and send ’em home.” YouTube briefly labeled the video as hate speech and removed it but then put it back up.
Seriously, these are actual campaign ads:
This race is likely headed to runoff tomorrow and we’ll see how badly Republicans beat each other up if that happens. Meanwhile, Democrats are on the verge of making history:
Democrats in Georgia have a chance to make history this week if, as some political experts predict, they elect the woman who could become the nation’s first black woman governor.
Democratic and Republican voters in primary balloting in the state head to the polls Tuesday to elect their respective party’s nominee for governor.
For Democrats, the race is a showdown between Stacey Abrams, former Minority Leader of the Georgia General Assembly and fellow state lawmaker Stacey Evans.
Abrams, a romance novelist and an alumna of Spelman College with a law degree from Yale, has been considered a trailblazer in Georgia Democratic politics. She broke ground in 2007 by becoming the first black woman Minority Leader in the House of the Georgia General Assembly, a position she held until last year. During her career as Minority Leader, she became well known for her political savvy forging alliances across the aisle to get legislation passed.
And tomorrow, we’ll see if Abrams strategy will pay off:
Ms. Abrams, a former minority leader of the Georgia House, is also testing a risky campaign strategy: that a Democrat can win a statewide election in the Deep South without relying on the conservative-leaning white voters long considered essential.
“The approach of trying to create a coalition that is centered around converting Republicans has failed Democrats in the state of Georgia for the last 15 years,” Ms. Abrams said after mingling with diners in this North Georgia town.
Her rival in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, former State Representative Stacey Evans, has scorned Ms. Abrams’ strategy as unrealistic and “unhealthy for democracy.”
The dispute between the two well-regarded contenders is not merely the latest Democratic feud over how to break the Republican lock on the South. The stark differences in strategy — and the choice of candidates themselves — reflect the conflict among Democrats over the types of voters and the kinds of politicians that the party should elevate in the Trump era.
Democratic candidates nationwide are wrestling with whether they should try to reclaim some of President Trump’s supporters or try to maximize support from their racially diverse, liberal base. At a time in the country’s politics when issues of race and gender are central, with women at the forefront of an uprising against the president, Ms. Abrams’ candidacy looms even larger.
Even some Democrats believe that nominating a single, black, unabashedly liberal woman at this racially charged moment — and in the old Confederacy, no less — is nothing less than political suicide.
But if Ms. Abrams, who is expected to prevail Tuesday, goes on to win in November, her victory would demonstrate the intensity of the Trump backlash in a state that is nearly half nonwhite. And the shock waves would be felt far beyond Georgia’s borders.
And yes, white conservatives are terrified of her candidacy:
But what's truly "scary" about Abrams – the exact same thing that makes her so thrilling to coastal white liberals and Southerners of color alike – is not just what she represents, but the way she represents it. If polite and professorial Barack Obama being president was enough to spook white people all the way into voting for Trump in a "whitelash," what hellish visions might a President Stacey Abrams conjure up? Obama, after all, was wildly rumored to be an implacable enemy of The White Man; Abrams has spent years engaged in a high-profile public campaign to register and turn out more black voters – the New Georgia Project – with the explicit aim of outnumbering whites at the polls. And on the campaign trail, Abrams doesn't have to be dragged into talking about race; she leads with it. "My being a black woman is not a deficit," she told Cosmopolitanearlier this year. "It is a strength. Because I could not be where I am had I not overcome so many other barriers. Which means you know I'm relentless, you know I'm persistent, and you know I'm smart."
Abrams isn't just idly proclaiming herself a "candidate of the future," the way young politicians are contractually compelled to do. She is a living, breathing vision of the South's likely political future, as well as the national Democratic Party's. She makes a clean break, too, from the black middle-class candidates, especially in the South, who practiced a version of "respectability politics" to get ahead. (Picture Condoleeza Rice of Birmingham.) Far from "knowing her place," as "good" blacks in Georgia were always supposed to do in the eyes of "powerful white men," Abrams is sharp-witted as well as sharp-elbowed, and so unabashed about her vaulting ambition – she intends to be elected president in 2028 – that she considers it one of her greatest virtues and jokes about it easily. "Look, politicians are like 15-year-old girls," she told The Washington Post a few years back. "We respond to money, peer pressure and attention."
Abrams is well aware that she's practically a composite of every quality that Sean Hannity and Donald Trump get on the phone and fret about at night. Last September, at a New York event for EMILY's List, the national group that helps elect pro-choice women, Abrams delighted the attendees by asking cheekily: "You've gotta figure out: Do they hate me because I'm black? Because I'm a woman? Because I'm tall?" (It's not a surprise that Abrams has raised a ton of money from outside Georgia, including donors like Alyssa Milano and Meryl Streep; she knows how to play to a well-heeled liberal crowd.)
There’s still time to help get out the vote for Abrams tomorrow and Democracy for America is doubling down on these efforts:
Together, we can make history tomorrow -- but only if we mobilize enough sporadic Democratic voters to the polls.
The fight to make Stacey Abrams the Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia ends in less than 24 hours. In less than one day, we could be one step closer to electing America’s first Black woman governor.
If there was ever a time to get involved in the fight to elect Stacey Abrams, it’s now. If you needed a sign, this is it.
A victory tomorrow will help show the naysayers and pundits what’s possible -- that when we run a bold, progressive, people-powered campaign around our shared values, we can expand the electorate, restore faith in our democracy, and win. It’s one of the many reasons numerous progressives, including Senators Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris have endorsed Stacey’s campaign. It’s also why you and your fellow DFA members in Georgia and around the country have been in this fight from the beginning.
But winning won’t be easy. This race is coming down to the wire and and voter turnout is going to be everything if we’re going to put Stacey Abrams over the top.
We ran the numbers and we need to cover 12 more full volunteer shifts to make sure we get to every sporadic Democratic voter in key counties. Can you sign up now for a DFA Dialer shift to help turn out Georgia’s Democratic base for TOMORROW’s primary election on May 22nd?
Yes! I'll sign up now for a DFA Dialer shift to GET OUT THE VOTE by making easy-but-critical calls to support Stacey Abrams’ bid for governor.
No, I can't make calls now, but I will chip in $3 or more to fund DFA Dialer and all of DFA's Get Out The Vote work for Stacey Abrams in Georgia now.
The Georgia gubernatorial race carries implications for more than just one state. Making sure Stacey Abrams is the Democratic nominee in one of 2018’s most important battlegrounds will galvanize and validate women and people of color who are running for office all across the country.
And it means that from Georgia, to Maine to California, we can make sure these transformative Democratic campaigns led by progressive women of color will be at the fore in taking on and defeating Donald Trump’s GOP this November. With your help, we can create nationwide, systemic change that will result in more women and people of color in the highest levels of government.
Making calls on DFA Dialer is easy and fun. We’ll give you all the tools you need to have successful conversations with voters, and we will even provide you with a training before you begin calling so that you feel comfortable and prepared.
Can you sign up for a DFA Dialer shift TONIGHT to help turn out Georgia’s Democratic voters for TOMORROW’s primary election on May 22nd?
Yes! I'll sign up now for a DFA Dialer shift to GET OUT THE VOTE by making calls to support Stacey Abrams’ bid for governor.
No, I can't make calls now, but I will chip in $3 or more to fund DFA Dialer and all of DFA's Get Out The Vote work for Stacey Abrams in Georgia now.
Thank you for your support.
- Annie
Annie Weinberg, Electoral Director
Democracy for America
Click here to sign up to make calls for Abrams’ campaign.
Click here to donate to Abrams’ campaign.