From the Politics Desk

We're been trying hard to be non-divisive lately, but it's hard to discuss a political primary without being at least a little partisan.  It was Primary Tuesday here in Georgia today and even though a Democrat has not occupied the governor's mansion in two decades, Stacey Abrams is running to be the first black woman to be the governor of any state, much less of Georgia.  This year's gubernatorial race has even attracted the interest of the New York Times, and reporters Maggie Astor and Jonathan Martin described today's primary as "a battle with implications for health care, gun control and other contentious issues."  

On the Republican side, the race is between four reprehensible mouth-breathers, all white males naturally, each competing to be more extreme, more anti-immigrant, and more pro-gun than the next. One ad features the candidate pointing a gun at a teen boy supposedly interested in dating one of the candidate's daughters.  Another ad has the candidate in an over-sized monster truck saying he had to buy such a large vehicle in case he had to round up some "illegals" and "take them home" himself.  It would literally not surprise me to see one of the candidates actually shoot a Latino on live t.v. just to show how much they love guns and hate immigrants. 

On the Democratic side, the primary is a race between two Stacey's - Stacey Abrams, the former minority leader of the Georgia House, and Stacey Evans, a State Representative from conservative Cobb County.  Georgia Democrats are hoping the same political climate that has buoyed the party in special elections elsewhere will lift them here and that one Stacey or the other will be the next Georgia governor.  

Stacey Abrams leads in polls and fund-raising.  An outspoken progressive, Abrams has distanced herself from Evans not so much on policy as on strategy, rejecting the conventional wisdom that a Democrat seeking office in the South must appeal to moderate and conservative-leaning white voters. According to the Times, 

"Ms. Abrams’s bet is that Georgia’s electorate is shifting. Supporters of President Trump will never vote for her, this thinking goes, and so the way to win is to mobilize core supporters like young people, women, African-Americans and Hispanics — including those who live in majority-white areas far from the state’s major cities — ensuring that they turn out on Election Day.  Georgia’s changing demographics suggest this strategy has potential — African-Americans alone were 33 percent of registered voters there in 2016 — but some of these constituencies have proven difficult to rouse in nonpresidential election years."

If there's one thing we've learned here in Georgia after losses by Democrats Jason Carter, Michelle Nunn, and Jon Ossoff, it's that Democratic attempts to appeal to moderate Republicans aren't successful, and that a Republican voter is actually far more likely to vote for another actual Republican than for a Democrat trying to pose as a Republican.  Despite the recent lessons, Stacey Evans is still playing by the old rulebook and trying to assemble a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans, while Stacey Abrams is giving up on the right altogether and trying to assemble a coalition of Democrats, women, the young, and underrepresented minorities.  

Speaking of Ossoff, the House seat for Georgia's Sixth District (the Fighting Sixth!), a longtime Republican stronghold where Ossoff came close to winning in a special election last year, is also back in play.

"Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District, north of Atlanta, was the site of one of 2017’s hardest-fought special elections. After the most expensive campaign in House history, the Republican candidate, Karen Handel, fended off Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old Democrat who had never run for office before. Ms. Handel won by a larger margin than political experts had expected, but it was notable that Mr. Ossoff was competitive at all in a reliably conservative district that has not been represented by a Democrat since 1979."

Longtime readers will recall that we here at WDW have a particular revulsion of Ms. Handel, who is now up for re-election.  But four Democrats are running for the chance to unseat her and make sure that her time is Washington is as brief as possible, including Bobby Kaple, a former news anchor, and Lucia McBath, a gun safety activist who entered politics after her son, Jordan Davis, was fatally shot in 2012.

We don't live in the Sixth District and don't have a vote in this contest - we live in the Fifth District (the Fighting Fifth!) where incumbent John Lewis is running unopposed.  But we voted for Lewis anyway, just to show support, and we also cast our ballot for Stacey Abrams because that's the way we're going to take back this state.

Update, 8:00 p.m. - With only 1% of the precincts reporting, Abrams leads Evans by 64% to 36%.
Update, 10:00 p.m. - With 53% of the precincts reporting, Abrams won the primary in a landslide, 75% to 25%.