Stacey Abrams

Stacey Abrams is a politician, voting rights activist, and bestselling author who has made an immeasurable impact on voting rights reform in Georgia and the deep south. 

Born in Wisconsin in 1973 and raised in Atlanta, Abrams proved to be a talented politician from a young age. After graduating as the valedictorian of her graduating class,  Abrams was hired as a typist for a congressional campaign and later promoted to speechwriter based on her performance straight out of high school, at the age of 17.

During her undergrad at Spelman college, she worked in the youth services department in the Atlanta Mayor’s office. She also interned at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and participated in protests to change the George state flag, which at the time bore the Confederate Battle Flag. She graduated in 1995 magna cum laude and then went onto study public policy at the University of Texas in Austin, where she earned a Master of Public Affairs. In 1999, she earned a Juris Doctor from Yale Law. 

After law school, Abrams worked as a tax attorney for a number of years. She then turned her sights back to politics and in 2002, ABrams was appointed a deputy city attorney for Atlanta, Georgia. Shortly after, in 2004, Abrams ran for Georgia House of Representatives in Georgia’s 89th district, winning 51% of the vote.

During her time in Congress, Abrams worked on tax reform and is credited with single-handedly stopping the largest tax increase in Georgia’s history. Abrams served District 89 for six years before being nominated as the Democratic Party’s nominee for Georgia governor. 

Abrams did not win the governor’s seat but instead spent the next few years battling voter suppression and fighting for voting rights for all Americans. In 2020, she announced the Fair Fight action, an organization dedicated to building voter protection in several states. Abrams’s efforts in battling voter suppression are largely credited with helping Georgia flip to a blue state in the historic 2020 presidential election, and then again in the 2021 run-off election that elected Jon Ossof and Reverand Raphael Warnock. 

Abrams’s historic impact on the 2020 presidential election and on voter turnout has cemented her as a political force to be reckoned with. She is continuing her work in Georgia and in multiple states. You can find her political positions here.