Firebrand Democrat, Georgia Gubernatorial candidate, thanks AAPI Victory Fund for endorsement

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Democratic Gubernatorial candidate for Georgia and firebrand political activist and author Stacey Abrams thanked AAPI Victory Fund for its endorsement September 1, 2022.

“I am honored to receive the endorsement of the AAPI Victory Fund. Georgia’s diverse AAPI community deserves leadership that sees them, represents them and is committed to ensuring they have access to safety, justice and opportunity,” Abrams said in a statement contained in AAPI Victory Fund’s announcement.

“This year, we have a generational opportunity to shape the future of Georgia and ensure all communities have access to affordable healthcare, an economy that works for everyone and education that supports our children from cradle to career,” Abrams said, adding, “AAPI voters were critical to Democratic victories in 2020 and 2021 and together, in 2022, we can make history again and ensure all Georgians have the opportunity to thrive — no matter their background or zip code.”

Abrams is a lawyer, author, and voting rights activist who served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017 and as the minority leader from 2011 to 2017. She ran for governor in 2018, the first Black woman gubernatorial nominee for a major party in the United States.

She is the founder of Fair Fight Action, a voting rights organization to address alleged voter suppression in Georgia.

As the fastest growing racial or ethnic group in the U.S., Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) population makes up 4.7% of Georgia’s electorate, a figure that shows a 53% increase in AANHPI turnout since the 2010 election, the AAPI Victory Fund said in its press release.

“With the narrow 2020 presidential election margin of just 11,779 votes in Georgia, it is clear that the surging AANHPI electorate is becoming a crucial election-determining community in Georgia,” AAPI VF contends, adding that this community played a key role in historic Democratic wins such as those of Senators Jon Ossof and Raphael Warnock in 2021.

In tandem with Abram’s persistent voter mobilization efforts with Fair Fight Action in coalition with AAPI-led organizations in-state and the record-breaking turnout of the AANHPI electorate, Democrats won historic victories during the election of President Joe Biden in 2020 and the runoff Senate elections of Georgia Senators Jon Ossof and Raphael Warnock in 2021.

National Political Director of AAPI VF Shehn Datta said “Georgia’s AANHPI community is in a unique position – as the fastest growing sector of the electorate, our election-determining community has the ability to help elect Georgia’s first woman governor, Georgia’s first person of color governor, and the nation’s first Black woman governor.”

AAPI VF President and CEO Brad Jenkins called it a historic opportunity to elect an African American woman governor, especially at a time when violence against the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander community continues to escalate.