Stacey Abrams Says She's Going to Run for Office Again

Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who was defeated in a race marred by voter suppression, said on Sunday that she will run for elected office again. Abrams acknowledged her loss against Republican Brian Kemp on Friday.

Abrams was asked on CNN’s “State of the Nation” whether she’d run for Senate in 2020, when the Georgia seat held by Republican David Perdue will be up for grabs.

“I’m going to spend the next year as a private citizen, but I do indeed intend to run for office again,” she said. “I’m not sure for what, and I am not exactly certain when. I need to take a nap. But once I do, I’m planning to get back into the ring.”

We all need a nap after experiencing Abram’s drawn -out campaign against Kemp, who, in his role as secretary of state overseeing the election, tried every trick in the book to suppress the Democratic vote, including announcing a last-minute investigation of the Georgia Democratic Party after accusing Abrams of voter fraud. During the campaign, Abrams was also one of several black candidates targeted by racist robocalls.

In the interview, Abrams also forthrightly said that voter suppression contributed to her loss.

If Abrams does go up against Perdue in 2020, we can expect to experience most of this again. It’s hard to see any of the circumstances that led to Abrams loss changing under Kemp as governor, and Perdue is a big fan of voter suppression himself. This is the paradoxical hell of 21st century American politics: trying the same thing over and over again and still hoping desperately for a different result.