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The leadership of Stacey Abrams, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, LaTosha Brown, Nse Ufot and a trusted force of black voters who voted overwhelmingly for President-elect Joe Biden will remain critical to Democrats’ chances of success. take control of the US Senate on January 5. .
Black leaders and organizers say years of voter registration led to churches and community events, and knocking on doors in black and Latino neighborhoods paid off when Biden and the Vice President-elect Kamala Harris won Georgia.
And they think they can start over.
Over the next six weeks, black women said they would use those same strategies in addition to reaching out to voters who did not run in the general election to help Warnock and Ossoff win their races.
“We have done it before and we will do it again,” said Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project, a non-partisan voter registration group founded by Abrams in 2014. “Never in my life have Georgian voters. were more important to the state of this nation. ”
According to the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, around 5 million Georgians voted in the presidential election, including 1.2 million black voters.
According to exit polls, 92% of black women in Peach State voted for Biden.
But Warnock and Ossoff could face an uphill battle given that Republican voters in Georgia have historically turned out in greater numbers in the run-off, political analysts say. Their Republican opponents are also spending them from around $ 109.5 million to $ 88.2 million on Friday.
Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University, said Democrats should use their presidential success to galvanize voters in the second round of the Senate. Part of that strategy requires relying on black women leaders and organizers to entice voters with low propensity to vote, Gillespie said.
“It’s really simple, it’s just about making sure you ask people to vote,” Gillespie said. “They just have to plow the same soil that they have plowed for the past decade in the hope that they can turn the tide of Republicans who are doing extremely well in elections.”
Black women organizers received much of the credit for Biden’s victory in traditionally red Georgia with their grassroots efforts to register new voters in communities of color and fight voter suppression through voter education.
The way to turn blue
Abrams, a Democrat who narrowly lost to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in 2018, has been praised for registering some 800,000 new voters in recent years and challenging the state’s electoral system that allowed voter purges and long queues in predominantly black constituencies.
Abrams and other black women recognized Georgia’s growing diversity and saw a way to make the state blue.
The share of eligible black voters in the state increased by 5% between 2000 and 2018, according to the Pew Research Center. The share of eligible Latino voters increased by 3% over the same period. During that time, the state lost 10% of eligible white voters.
“Right now we can at least make sure everyone shows up to vote so we have two Senators (Warnock and Ossoff) to make sure we have the Covid response and we have the money. stimulus that returns to Georgia. “
Ufot said she had spent the past six years knocking on doors, organizing events and texting en masse to get young people and people of color to register and participate in elections. The New Georgia Project was successful in registering 500,000 new voters during that time, she said.
Ufot also encourages voters to vote by mail and is ready to challenge any voter suppression effort.
“We’re going in this case with our eyes wide open,” she said.
Brown, who co-founded the Atlanta-based Black Voters Matter, has also spent years educating black voters in Georgia and other southern states about the importance of voting.
Brown said the volume of voter turnout, especially among black women, in the presidential election was the result of multiple campaigns by black women and multiracial coalitions.
Credit is overdue
Georgia Democratic State Senator Nikema Williams, who was elected to succeed the late U.S. Representative John Lewis in the 5th Congressional District, said the credit given to black women for holding Democrat elections is was long overdue.
“Black women didn’t just start to play a critical role in winning the Democrats in the election,” Williams said. “Black women have always been the backbone of the Democratic Party, but what we are seeing now are people digging into the data and recognizing us for what we’ve done.”
Williams said she expects to see a continuation of efforts led by black women ahead of the presidential election, including voter registration events, speaking at sorority meetings and historically at colleges and universities. black people, and talking to voters about election issues. Black women, she said, must also reach out to voters who did not vote in November to convince them that Biden’s victory proves their vote counts, Williams said.
Viola Hardy, a black woman from Marietta, said she was inspired by the work black women have done to win over voters in Georgia.
Hardy said she posted on social media, made phone calls and sent emails urging friends, family and neighbors to vote in the next run-off.
Without Senate oversight, Hardy said it would be difficult for Biden and Harris to address issues that affect black women, such as abortion rights and equal pay.
“I’m asking people to do the same thing they did in the general election, which is to go out and vote,” said Hardy, a 48-year-old real estate agent. “We have our first black vice president. If nothing else, let’s show her that we have a voice and that we are speaking out loud so that she can leave a great legacy.”
CNN’s Eryn Mathewson and David Wright contributed to this report.
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