On November 8, Georgians will be voting for their next governor, but candidate Stacey Abrams is falling behind as she is lacking black support.
A new poll from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution showed that GOP incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp is about five points ahead of Stacey Abrams in the gubernatorial race.
Unfortunately for Abrams, identity politics doesn’t seem to be playing in her favor at the moment.
She may be a black woman, but she has only garnered about 80 percent of black support in Georgia.
Though that is much more than Kemp’s 10 percent, AJC reported that Georgia Democrats usually have more than 90 percent of the black electorate supporting them.
“It’s not ideal territory for Abrams, whose campaign to become the nation’s first black woman elected governor hinges on motivating core supporters,” AJC reported.
So what could be driving black voters away from Georgia Democrats?
One reason could be that many black voters disapprove of President Joe Biden as president, and he is at the top of the Democratic Party.
“Nearly one-third of Black voters disapprove of President Joe Biden’s record as president,” AJC reported.
Do you think that Abrams will win?
Abrams could also be losing support because she has supported the defund the police movement in the past.
She sits on the board of The Marguerite Casey Foundation, which is a nonprofit she joined in 2021 that has supported abolishing and defunding police, the Daily Caller reported.
Meanwhile, crime rates soared in Georgia and Atlanta, WXIA News has reported.
In 2021, Georgia homicides jumped 55 percent.
So, after suffering from higher crime rates, Georgians may not be as favorably inclined toward electing a governor who has a history of wanting to defund law enforcement.
Abrams, and anyone else, should not be so bold as to just assume Georgia’s black population would support her just because she is black and a Democrat. That is an ignorant and biased assumption.
With her falling behind Kemp in the polls, it looks like Abrams could be facing another defeat.
The last time around Abrams lost to Kemp by just 1.4 percentage points though. So this is still a tight race and one of the most important and watched races this coming fall.