New York Times: Is Stacey Abrams Assembling a New Democratic Majority?

When early voting begins today in the Georgia primary campaign for governor, Stacey Abrams, the former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, may very well take a momentous step closer to becoming the first black woman in the nation to be elected governor. Ms. Abrams will have entered that office lifted by the political power of a multiracial coalition led by the Democratic Party’s most powerful voting bloc, black women.

Ms. Abrams’s Georgia campaign represents the first time a statewide candidate is embracing the political hopes and dreams of black women — who make up a whopping 30 percent of the Democrats in the Georgia primary (held on May 22) — as the engine of its campaign. If successful, Ms. Abrams’s strategy and approach will establish a political precedent in the South and will subsequently offer Democrats a way to win in Republican strongholds in many parts of the country.