Melissa Harris-Perry: Welcome to The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. Thanks for being with us. Quick, name the first date that comes to mind when I say historic leader in expanding access to the ballot. Now, maybe you said Nevada. That's the first date to ratify the 15th amendment, or maybe you picked Wyoming, the first to enfranchise women, maybe even thought about Washington state or vote by male elections have been standard practice for over a decade.

Who put Georgia on their list? Yes, Georgia. Because, see, back in 1943, Georgia became the first state to lower the voting age to 18, and that laid the foundation for one of the largest expansions of the franchise in our national history, the 26th amendment. We really think of Georgia as a leader in expanding the ballot because at the same time that the state was building one road, that was a pathway for young white voters who was using Jim [unintelligible 00:01:00] to obstruct the way to the polls for Back Georgians.

Speaker 2: One man, one vote, [unintelligible 00:01:05]

Melissa Harris-Perry: That of course is a young John Lewis speaking to the March on Washington. He spent his entire career focusing on the question of voting rights. What Lewis identified in that moment was that Georgia was at an intersection, movements for progress on one road and massive resistance on another. Today, Georgia is at a similar intersection. This midterm season, the state is hosting multiple historic contests, two African American men vying for the US Senate seat incumbent Reverend Rafael Warnock who won a special election in 2021 to become George's first Black Senator is facing another Black candidate challenger, Herschel Walker.

Speaker 3: That new insider advantage Fox five poll shows Republican Herschel Walker with a slight lead over incumbent Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock.

Melissa Harris-Perry: No matter the outcome state of Georgia is going to continue to be represented in the Senate by a Black man. In the state's gubernatorial race, Stacey Abrams is once again, contesting incumbent, governor Brian Kemp.

Speaker 3: In a new insider advantage Fox five poll shows governor Brian Kemp as widening his lead against Democratic challenger, Stacey Abrams. The poll has Kemp at 50%, Abrams at 42.

Melissa Harris-Perry: If Abrams can pull this out and secure victory, she'd become the nation's first Black woman governor. Now historic candidates traveling along one route but before the midterm season even got started, Georgia state legislators had built another pathway. The state's 2021 so-called voter integrity bill erected new barriers to voting that looked very much like old barriers to voting.

Speaker 4: Jim Crow 2.0 is about two insidious things, voter suppression, and election subversion.

Speaker 5: We are witnessing right now a massive and unabashed assault on voting rights unlike anything we've ever seen since the Jim Crow era.

Speaker 4: This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle.

Melissa Harris-Perry: With less than two months to election day, Georgia is again at an intersection. Let me just say it's almost like the state's NFL team and where it found itself on Sunday afternoon when the Atlanta Falcons, once again, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, losing a 16-point lead to my beloved saints.

Speaker 6: Touchdown, Michael Thomas, touchdown. It's Thomas again from 51 to give New Orleans the lead it [unintelligible 00:03:42].

Melissa Harris-Perry: Even though this is not the epic fail on the scale of the Falcon's losing performance in Super Bowl LI, it is a reminder of this key takeaway. Never think that just because you're ahead in Georgia, that you're actually winning. Okay, enough petty from me. Maya King is here to help us think through these political races in Georgia, chief politics reporter covering the south of the New York Times. Welcome back to The Takeaway, Maya.

Maya King: Hi, thanks for having me back.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Absolutely. Thanks for putting up with my petty football analogy there. Stacey Abrams and governor Brian Kemp are in a rematch for the governor's office. What is Stacey Abrams doing differently this time?

Maya King: Well, there are a couple things. I think first it's important to note that the political environment is very different both for Ms. Abrams and Mr. Kemp. One, she's running against an incumbent, so where in 2018, her argument was largely based around policies, how she would lead in the next four years, and really what her plan would be not only as the first Clack governor in the South Sensory Reconstruction, but one of the first women as well in first Black women to serve in this role. She's incorporated that argument, but she's also made this campaign a lot about the last four years now of Brian Kemp's governorship in Georgia.

Melissa Harris-Perry: In addition, there's a strategic point that Abrams has in the past focused primarily on growing the electorate. As you write in your recent piece for the New York Times her focus has been less on winning the 50% plus one of the existing electorate and much more right on growing who is available to go to the polls, increasing excitement for folks who are not normally mobilized, taking advantage of a new Georgia and these new Georgia voters in a midterm election where we have these core concerns, but that are also maybe a little policy wonky, maybe not the things that drive voters to polls hard to tell sometimes in midterms.

Is that notion of expanding the electorate, especially given the 2021 bill that's been described as a new Jim Crow shrinking the electorate, is that a strategy that can still work for Abrams?

Maya King: Well, that's really the big question now that Democrats in Georgia and political observers, even outside of the state are now asking and asking more directly of the Abrams campaign. When we spoke with leader Abrams for this story, one thing that she mentioned about Georgia's electorate is that the way that she was running her campaign was not necessarily for the electorate as it stands, but the electorate that she saw as possible in Georgia.

Her campaign's calculus has always been not necessarily playing off the traditional playbook as you mentioned, this 50% plus one, which is really still a very difficult task for a democratic candidate to achieve running statewide in Georgia.

It's really been focused as we saw in 2018 where she got very close to winning and in 2020, of course, where not only Joe Biden won the state, but it elected two democratic senators. That strategy of turning out new voters, finding every single person who has turned 18 in Georgia folks who may not have ever voted in these smaller rural counties, particularly younger people of color in those areas, and of course, running up the gains in new places in the Metro Atlanta area that has now become very safely democratic, all of these things factored in to her calculus in 2020.

I think where that tension, however, comes in in this midterm cycle as you point out is this question of whether or not that's the same strategy or the most successful strategy in the face of significant national headwinds for Democrats, a rather unpopular democratic president at this stage.

The lack of really mobilizing issues now on the ballot Georgia voters are not making an anti-Trump vote this time around and Biden camp is not nearly as unpopular of a Republican in the state, either for Democrats to be able to make that argument. Of course, there's the enthusiasm piece of all of this. Voters were extremely, extremely fired up coming after a summer of activism and organization and cities across the country in 2020.

There were far more points of access to the ballot in 2020 as well, of course, before the passage of S.B. 202. All of those things played a role in Democrats wins. They are not all as present in 2022. I think that's why in our reporting, talking to a number of democratic sources in Georgia folks have started to express concern that this win for Abrams that everybody has been counting on the second time around just might not be feasible yet.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Can we talk about Black men in Georgia, in two different ways, one, there is a raise here between [unintelligible 00:09:07] and Walker. It does look a little different than the aspects of Stacy Abram's race and that's in part because of Black male voters. Can you walk us through that a bit?

Maya King: Sure. Well, Black men have been by and large overwhelmingly vote for Democrats in every election. In previous cycles what Democrats have noticed what's really put them on the defense particularly in Georgia is this little bit of chipping away of blackmail voters at the margins. Polling shows that the polling numbers that Abrams would need to be successful in November would be upwards of 90% to 93% of Black male voters in Georgia. Right now she's polling around 80 to 85. There's obviously some work for her to do. She's made the argument many times in conversations with Black men and has had a number of events across the state that are focused on Black men, where she said to them or made the argument that they essentially punch under their weight politically meaning that they have the power to turn out in large numbers that would elect a democratic governor or democratic statewide officer.

However, if they don't turn out in mass, that won't be possible. What you're seeing from Abrams and a number of Democrats now across on the democratic ticket in Georgia, is this real focus on turning out as many Black men as possible, making sure that they not only turn out in large numbers but that they not vote for Republicans or not stay home altogether, which are two scenarios that would really, really not vote well for Democrats in November.

This is a very interesting voting block that has a lot of unique issues and has long felt like those issues have not been heard. This is an opportunity, I think for democratic candidates, not just in Georgia, but in other battleground states, frankly, to really demonstrate their knowledge of the democratic electorate and really make sure that they're not only diversifying the base but have a message to match that, too.

Melissa Harris-Perry: In many ways, the Warnock Walker campaign has been an absolute battle of commercials and advertisements. Some of them with some pretty harsh words from Warnock to Walker and from Walker to Warnock claims about things like domestic violence, concerns about paternity, and childcare. Can you just maybe give us the short part of some of that?

Maya King: Well, the Democrat's message both from the Warnock campaign, the democratic party in Georgia is that while Herschel Walker is certainly an icon of athletics and football in the state and one who was very beloved for that reason, they have made the point and driven at home many times that he is simply not qualified to run for the United States Senate. That is the argument that Democrats have repeatedly made and will continue to amplify the closer that we get to November. It's no secret that this is a really close race and polls show it's still within the margin of error.

I think everyone in Georgia has just a little bit of fear perhaps of going back into a runoff period, especially for a hotly contested Senate seat. The reason why these arguments are so elevated, particularly on Herschel Walker's past is for an all-out Warnock win, but Walker's team has also put up quite a fight and has poured has aimed to pour in more money to amplify this message of Warnock's Alliance with Joe Biden, as they're both Democrats and has underlined his voting record that mirrors the policy objectives of Joe Biden, hoping that the current president's unpopular approval ratings will also be an anchor on Warnock's reelection prospects. It's only going to get more interesting and more spicy from here.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Maya King politics reporter for the New York Times. Thanks so much for joining us to give us a little bit of Georgia at the intersections.

Maya King: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[music]

[00:13:43] [END OF AUDIO]

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.