Georgia Runoff Races 2020

I’ve been so busy with the calendar that I haven’t had time to get up a Georgia post in about two weeks.  Sorry about that!  Not enough time in the day.

I think a lot of us have concluded that money spent on organizing is better spent than money spent on advertising or TV.  Well, here’s a chance to contribute to organizing on the ground in Georgia.

I asked DougJ if he could make us a BJ thermometer for this group, and of course he came through.

If you donate to America Votes – Georgia, they are making sure they get distributed directly as needed to groups that are having the biggest impact on the ground.

AMERICA VOTES – Georgia

Organizations include:

• Asian American Advocacy Fund
• Black Male Voter Project
• Black Voters Matter
• BlackPAC
• Care in Action
• Collective PAC
• Color of Change
• Georgia Alliance for Progress
• Georgia Conservation Voters
• Georgia Equality
• Mijente
• New Georgia Project Action Fund
• Poder Latinx
• UNITE HERE

I also want to share a couple of great articles:

Stacey Abrams On Finishing the Job In Georgia “It can be undone just as quickly and as effectively as we did it.”

In the math-addled hours after polls closed on Election Day, as the New York Times needle tipped delicately toward blue in Georgia, the nation’s attention followed, homing in on one of its most transformative political figures: Stacey Abrams.

She is extraordinary, partly because she has one of the most detailed-oriented, forward-looking, compulsively organized brains in politics. Abrams — who served as minority leader in Georgia’s state legislature for seven years before running for governor in 2018, losing narrowly to Georgia’s then–Secretary of State Brian Kemp, in one of the most flagrantly voter-suppressed elections in recent memory — has been working to turn her state from red to blue for more than a decade. Now that her promise has (this time at least) been made manifest, many in the Democratic Party are looking toward Abrams as a kind of silver bullet: a figure who can be installed — in the Cabinet or as head of the DNC — to perform her magic across the nation.

In the flood of post-election analysis of muddied results and still-emerging data, answers can seem simple and obvious. But real life, real states, and real political organizing don’t always lend themselves to easy explanations or diagnoses. And what’s been missing from some of the adulation of Abrams is a view of how much work — by so many people, from so many angles, over so many years — has always undergirded her efforts in Georgia; I wanted to hear a fuller story, from the woman whose capacious vision sets her apart from so many currently telling the story of politics and power in America.

In Georgia, get-out-the-vote operations that helped Biden win haven’t stopped

For Deborah Scott, executive director of Georgia Stand-Up, it’s as if Election Day never ended.

The get-out-the-vote efforts of civic engagement groups like hers, which helped Joe Biden become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state in nearly three decades, have been ongoing since Nov. 3. The group is still knocking on doors, calling voters and signing up new registrants, with a big push involving 100 volunteers planned for this weekend. Another group that works to mobilize voters of color set up tables at a recent high school graduation to register newly eligible young voters. A third group is reaching voters at transit stations.

The efforts are a continuation of the groups’ relentless push to register, engage and turn out voters ahead of a pair of high-stakes Senate runoffs on Jan. 5, which will determine which party controls the Senate and potentially whether a President Biden will be able to enact an ambitious agenda or be blocked by a restive upper chamber.

Scott is executive director of Georgia Stand-Up, which is focusing on registering more voters ahead of the state’s Senate runoffs in January. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
“At this point, it’s a turnout game,” said Scott, whose group focuses on Atlanta. As excited and proud Black voters are about their role in the outcome of the general election, Scott said the challenge is to remind them “we’re not done yet. We have to get them to go back. We have to show them why this race is so important because a lot of people will not be as engaged.”

What’s everybody doing to help with Georgia?

Update: Open thread, also.

Georgia: Organizing, Organizing, OrganizingPost + Comments (69)