One was a three-term congressman known for once playing in a punk band, riding a skateboard and giving an answer about structural racism that went viral.
The other was the leader of her party in a Deep South state with a long history of racial discrimination who had spent years mobilizing people of color to register to vote and whose opponent was overseeing the election while erecting numerous obstacles to voting that disproportionately affected her supporters.
If one of these résumés seems more impressive than the other, you’d be forgiven for wondering why Texas’s Beto O’Rourke, the politician with the decidedly thinner personal story, became a national sensation while Georgia’s Stacey Abrams did not.
O’Rourke was the biggest political story of the 2018 election. His campaign to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz brought in a stunning $70 million, despite his refusal to take corporate money. Beyoncé and LeBron James promoted him and, despite losing, he is now the buzziest name in the speculation about which Democrats will run for president in 2020.
Abrams didn’t go unnoticed in her quest to win the governorship of the Peach State. But while Oprah Winfrey and other big names campaigned for her and Abrams got plenty of national media attention, she never became the kind of cause célèbre that O’Rourke did, raising a respectable $26 million. She is occasionally mentioned in the 2020 conversation but is generally expected to run for statewide office again in her home state…. to read more,click here