Brian Kemp Wins Re-election in Georgia, Topping Stacey Abrams
While her campaign team and allies were working furiously to sway voters across the country to cast ballots Tuesday, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was on a plane bound for Europe, attending the first leg of a mission unlike any he had ever undertaken. He traveled to the headquarters of the French, German and Russian parliaments to present the 2018 credentials of Democrat Andrew Gillum, the African-American mayor of Tallahassee, Fla., who was running for the nation’s highest office.
In his remarks, Mr. Raffensperger tried to sound reassuring, saying that the Democrat had “a clear plan to restore confidence and faith in government” and that he would be “a formidable opponent when the election is over.” He also described Mr. Gillum as someone who “is not just focused on his race” but on the country, which desperately needs “a transformative plan to rebuild and renew our infrastructure to protect and advance the needs of working families and our middle class.”
Mr. Raffensperger may be on a mission to restore faith and confidence in the nation’s democracy, but he may have just sent the Democratic Party a message that the contest over “the soul of the Democratic Party” is no mere partisan exercise. The new leader of the Georgia Democratic Party is none other than his former boss, Secretary Abrams.
In May, a few weeks after he had lost to her in the Georgia governor’s race, she became the first black woman elected to statewide office in the United States.
For that act of defiance, Ms. Abrams faced a barrage of criticism. Mr. Raffensperger, meanwhile, was elected by the Georgia Democratic Party to a four-year term as Secretary of State, with two years to serve as Attorney General and one year as Georgia state House Speaker.
When Secretary Abrams spoke on the floor of the General Assembly on the eve of the 2018 legislative session, she defended her decision to run for governor, saying, “Because of the nature of our country