Stacey Abrams has shared with Vogue some of the questions she considers as she contemplates a bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
In a profile appearing in the magazine’s September issue, the former Georgia gubernatorial candidate and voting rights advocate noted that the party already has a “solid field of candidates” (more than 20 have entered the race).
“For me, the calculus is, ‘Am I the right person, and is this the necessary time?’” Abrams said in the article published Tuesday.
Abrams, 45, attracted national attention last year as the first Black woman nominated by a major party for governor. In November’s election, she lost by barely more than one percentage point to Republican Brian Kemp, who had been serving as Georgia’s secretary of state.
As the campaign unfolded, Kemp faced renewed allegations of voter suppression. As the state’s top election official, he oversaw voter roll purges and a system that put some 53,000 voter registrations – overwhelmingly from Black people – on hold ahead of the election, according to an Associated Press analysis.
In the aftermath of her narrow defeat, Abrams, who has long led efforts to boost voter turnout, has founded two nonprofits ― Fair Count, which aims to ensure the votes from all Georgians are counted, and Fair Fight Action, which advocates for election reform and voting rights.
Days after November’s vote, Fair Fight Action joined in a lawsuit charging that Georgia’s election board and the secretary of state’s office, among other defendants, “grossly mismanaged” the election. The case is proceeding.
When asked by women in a market in Atlanta in June whether she’d consider a run for president, Abrams replied, according to Vogue: “I’m gonna run for something.”
Read the entire profile of Abrams in Vogue here.