Stacey Abrams Ready for Runoff Election Despite Kemp's Growing Lead

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is preparing for the possibility of a runoff election in Georgia, even as polls show her opponent Republican Governor Brian Kemp with a sizable advantage just two weeks from the midterm elections.

"We are working hard to win out right [but] we will also be ready for a runoff. We're readying ourselves for every post-election scenario," Lauren Groh-Wargo, Abrams' campaign manager, told The Hill on Monday. "Black voters are flexing their power, our Democratic coalition is flexing their power across the board and we will continue to keep our foot on the gas."

Abrams, a former state representative and voting rights activist, is taking a second shot at defeating the incumbent GOP governor this year. Although her bid drummed up significant enthusiasm among Democrats, especially after President Joe Biden's 2020 victory in the Peach State—a win Abrams was credited with helping win—polls suggest that Georgia voters want to see another Kemp term.

As of Sunday, Kemp holds a 6.3-point lead over Abrams, an advantage the Republican has held steadily throughout the election cycle. The Republican governor was only ahead by 3.9 points last month, but has managed to surge more than 2 points since September. FiveThirtyEight's forecasts had Kemp "clearly favored" to win with a 91 in 100 chance of reelection. Meanwhile, the Cook Political Report is predicting the race will lean Republican.

The latest Quinnipiac University poll shows a closer race between the two, although Abrams is still trailing behind Kemp by 1 point in the survey. Kemp received 50 percent of voters' support while Abrams received 49 percent.

Despite the projections, Groh-Wargo told the news outlet, "Bottom line is we can still win."

"Polls are only a snapshot of this race, they don't paint the full picture of Georgia's electorate," Jaylen Black, Abrams' press secretary and spokeswoman, told Newsweek. "We know we are building and mobilizing one of the largest and most diverse electorates in our state's history."

"Instead of tracking the latest fluctuating polls, we are focused on getting voters to the polls. This is a tight race and we will continue bolstering our get-out-the-vote operations statewide," Black said.

Back in 2018, Abrams narrowly lost to Kemp, who received 50.2 percent of the vote. It was the closest governor's race the state had seen since 1966 between Lester Maddox and Bo Callaway.

In the weeks following the election, Abrams and her organization, Fair Fight, filed a number of lawsuits challenging the conditionality of Georgia's voting laws and accusing Kemp, the then-secretary of state, of using his power to suppress votes. All of those lawsuits were rejected by the courts. however.

On Monday, Abrams again raised concern about voter suppression in Georgia, even amid a record-breaking week of early voter turnout.

"In 2018, we had record turnout...that shattered records for Democrats among communities of color and in that same election...we know that 85,000 Georgians were denied their right to vote due to voter suppression tactics that shut down their precincts," she said at a press conference.

Reports showed that in 2018, thousands of voters in Georgia had their ballots purged while others had their registration put on hold because their election information didn't match their driver's license or Social Security records.

"We proved in '18 and it remains true that turnout does not dispel voter suppression," Abrams added. "Suppression is about barriers to access. But the antidote to suppression is overwhelming the polls with your presence and that is exactly what voters did in 2018, it's what they continued to do in 2020 and '21 and is what we are seeing in '22."

According to Abrams' campaign, over 838,000 people have already voted in Georgia, and of those early votes, more than 35 percent are from Black voters, who only accounted for 33 percent in 2020 and 31 percent in 2018 at the same time. The trend is also seen in Black men. Groh-Wargo told The Hill that 97,000 Black Georgian men have voted early this year, compared to the 96,000 in 2020 and the 45,000 in 2018.

"We're seeing very strong turnout by Black men," Groh-Wargo said. "More Black men have voted early in person in raw numbers in 2022 then 2020 or 2018 at the same point."

Update 10/25/22, 5:12 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information and background.