Stacey Abrams may run for Senate in Georgia — and she could win

According to a new poll, voters in Georgia could help turn the Senate blue again in 2020.

Stacey Abrams, a Democrat who narrowly lost the 2018 governor’s race to Brian Kemp, is considering a 2020 Senate run against the Republican incumbent, David Perdue — and she’s already more popular in Georgia than Perdue, according to a new poll from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Abrams enjoys a healthy 52 percent approval rating overall, and gets positive marks from 60 percent of women, two in three moderates, and 90 percent of black voters. The same poll shows Perdue with just a 45 percent approval rating.

CNN reports that Abrams recently met with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), who is heading up Democratic efforts to regain control of the Senate in 2020, to talk about a possible run against Perdue. And if Abrams decided to run, CNN notes, she would “instantly be a front-runner in the Democratic primary, and be able to draw on a fundraising base that powered her to a record-breaking $22 million haul in 2018.”

Abrams, a black woman, also hasn’t ruled out a 2022 gubernatorial rematch against Kemp, who implemented numerous voter suppression tactics against minority communities in his former role as Georgia’s secretary of state. Abrams received more votes than any Democratic candidate in state history, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the barriers Kemp threw in the way.

Whichever office Abrams decides to run for, she is already laying solid groundwork for it. She recently kicked off a “thank you tour” across Georgia, seeking to “outline ways to stay involved during the legislative session and beyond,” the Journal-Constitution reports.

As Abrams listens to the people of Georgia, Perdue, a first-term senator, has been busy ingratiating himself to the increasingly unpopular Trump.

When the Trump administration started its unconscionable practice of ripping families apart at the southern border, Perdue brushed it off as the “shiny object of the day.” The administration stole at least 2,700 children away from their families, and likely thousands more than that — but Perdue doesn’t think that’s important.

Perdue is known to be part of “what passes for a circle of trust within the Trump White House, consulting and advising the president behind the scenes,” according to a Savannah Morning News editorial. “This allegiance could make Perdue vulnerable if the election is a referendum on Trump’s performance.”

If that’s the case, Perdue is certainly in trouble. The same Journal-Constitution poll that showed Abrams with a high 52 percent approval rating in Georgia also showed that Trump is deeply unpopular in the state.

Fewer than 38 percent of Georgians approve of Trump, including less than one in five independents. In fact, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has higher a higher approval rating than Trump, 39 percent, in what was once considered a deep red state.

This suggests that Georgia could be a key swing state in the presidential race as well as in the Senate.

Abrams told Politico that in 2020, Georgia “will be a battleground state, I believe, for the first time in more than 20 years.”

Abrams, who said she will decide on her next steps in March, energized Democrats in Georgia and across the nation in her 2018 bid for governor. Now she is in a good position to do the same in 2020 — and possibly tip the balance of power in the Senate.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.