Democrats look to Stacey Abrams for help flipping the Georgia House

Georgia Democrats are stepping up their efforts to flip the state House. And they’ve enlisted a familiar face to help kick-start their campaign.

House Democrats launched a listening tour this week that featured a fiery campaign-style speech from two-time gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams, who was once the House’s top Democrat.

Now she’s working with her ally, House Minority Leader Carolyn Hugley, to target the 11 seats needed to wrest control of the chamber. And their hunt is focusing far beyond the suburban swing districts that have become the state’s most heated battlegrounds.

Abrams joined Hugley on Thursday in Montezuma, the heart of a majority-Black area in southwest Georgia where Democrats aim to expand their foothold. Other stops on the tour include LaGrange and Dawson, rural areas where the party also sees potential.

The party is targeting a dozen or so House districts where Vice President Kamala Harris topped 45% of support in last year’s election. And it’s deploying Abrams, who helped draw a crowd of roughly 100 to a listening session that centered on local issues.

Some vented about zoning laws and property taxes. Others worried about a lack of job opportunities and lamented the county’s school system. Abrams urged them to also remain focused on a broader fight against President Donald Trump’s agenda.

“What’s happening in D.C. is terrible. And it’s coming to visit us soon,” she said, urging them not to lose faith as they fight Trump’s “no-good, tyrannical terrible” platform.

“It feels like we are in the wilderness again,” she said. “But I’m here to tell you we’ve been here before. We’ve got out before. And we are going to do it again.”

As for her own future, Abrams was circumspect. She still hasn’t ruled out a third run for governor, though she also didn’t sound like someone itching to get in. She told us she was “laser-focused” now on helping Democrats fight Trump’s policies.

“The only way to reverse the carnage that we are seeing coming from Republicans is to elect Democrats who do the right thing.”

Things to know

Credit: Courtesy photo

Credit: Courtesy photo

Good morning! Here are three things to know for today:

Georgia 2026

Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC

Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC

Gov. Brian Kemp and President Donald Trump are seeking a unicorn candidate that they can both get behind to take on Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff in next year’s election. It’s unlikely to be Republican state Sen. Colton Moore, the ultraconservative disruptor who on Thursday announced he is strongly considering a bid.

Moore posted on social media that unnamed conservatives consider him the “best option” to challenge Ossoff. Remember, this is the same Moore whom Republicans booted from the Senate GOP caucus and banned from setting foot on the House floor — the latter punishment resulting in Moore’s arrest earlier this year when he tried to defy that ban during Gov. Brian Kemp’s State of the State address.

In a news release dripping with MAGA bravado, Moore blasted “generic Republicans,” praised U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Rome, and said his team was in prayer about “what God needs from us.”

He also cited a questionable poll that showed him leading a GOP gubernatorial field. But this isn’t a governor’s race. His chances of securing the mythical Kemp-Trump blessing are about as likely as a quiet news cycle in Georgia during campaign season.

Cancer funding

Tobacco companies have paid Georgia more than $4 billion over the last two decades as compensation for the health and financial impacts of smoking. But as state lawmakers learned on Thursday, the percentage of that money Georgia uses to combat cancer has been steadily declining.

The money comes from a settlement agreement between four tobacco companies and 46 states. In the beginning, Georgia was spending about 27 cents out of every dollar from the settlement for cancer-related activities. Today, that’s fallen to about 9 cents out of every dollar, according to Chris Parker, a cancer survivor and director of population and global health at the Georgia State Health Policy Center.

“I think we’ve done a really good job of focusing the use of these dollars on health, but I also think that there is an opportunity to do more,” he said.

Parker spoke Thursday during the first hearing of the House Study Committee on Cancer Access at the Capitol in Atlanta. He noted that while cancer-related spending has declined, it’s not entirely Georgia’s fault.

The settlement payments are structured based on tobacco sales in each state. As Georgia educates more people about the health dangers of smoking, fewer people buy cigarettes — which decreases the size of the payments.

“The expectation is that, over time, it should diminish,” Parker said. “The responsibility of how to make that resource stretch for all that folks need for it to stretch to do is, once again, a difficult challenge.”

Of the money Georgia spends on cancer-related activities, about 41% of it has gone to treat low-income people who don’t have insurance. State Rep. Jasmine Clark, D-Lilburn, suggested Georgia might have more money to spend on combatting cancer if more people had insurance — a reference to the state’s Republican leaders’ refusing to expand the Medicaid program.

But Parker said it’s not that simple.

“Even if you are insured, that doesn’t necessarily guarantee you the access that you need,” he said.

Abortion debate

Credit: Adam Beam/AJC

Credit: Adam Beam/AJC

Georgia Democrats gathered on Thursday to once again denounce the state’s abortion law, blaming it for forcing a brain-dead young mother to stay on life support for months because she is pregnant.

But as our AJC colleague Maya T. Prabhu has noted, the case of Adriana Smith that has attracted global attention has more nuance.

“I just want to be clear on something, we want her to have her baby,” April Newkirk, Smith’s mother, told 11Alive in a recent interview. “We want her life to continue throughout her children.”

But Newkirk also noted the family “didn’t have a choice or a say about” continuing with the pregnancy — and that’s the bigger issue for Democratic state lawmakers and their allies.

Republican Attorney General Chris Carr has said there is nothing in the law “that requires medical professionals to keep a woman on life support after brain death.” But that was a statement to the news media, not an official opinion from the attorney general’s office.

State Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes, D-Duluth, said she sent a letter to Gov. Brian Kemp, asking him to request a “binding legal opinion from the AG that brings clarity to this crisis.”

“These questions are not theoretical, they are urgent,” she said. “As long as this law remains vague, we will continue to see families traumatized.”

A spokesperson for Gov. Brian Kemp confirmed his office received Parkes’ letter, but noted “the Attorney General’s office has already answered this question in the clearest possible terms. We would refer you back to their response.”

Blow it up

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

As President Donald Trump tries to get rid of the federal Department of Education, Gov. Brian Kemp says he’s happy about it — and he suspects some Democratic governors are, too.

Kemp spoke with The Wall Street Journal on Thursday during its “Future of Everything” event. He said he’s “not too worried” about the department’s potential demise, saying federal funding would work better if it was distributed as block grants to states that would “let us compete.”

“I’m in the camp of I think that bureaucracy could be blown up a little bit,” Kemp said. “I think there is Democrat governors and Republican governors that would love to see block-granted funds.”

Trump signed an executive order in March to dismantle the Department of Education. But last week, a federal judge blocked that order and told the administration to reinstate employees who were fired in mass layoffs.

Kemp compared federal education spending to the aid Congress approved during the coronavirus pandemic, saying “it was almost not even worth trying to put up with all of the requirements versus just doing it ourselves at the state.”

Kemp said he was proud of his record on education, noting he signed budgets raising salaries for teachers and increasing funding for school security. Democrats, meanwhile, have criticized Kemp for signing a school voucher law that they say takes money away from public education.

Not so fast

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

A Democratic candidate for the Public Service Commission is challenging Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s decision to disqualify him from the race.

Daniel Blackman is running in District 3, and to be eligible he must have lived in the district for at least one year.

Blackman’s attorney, Matthew Wilson, says the former Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator has lived in Fulton since last fall, which he argues is long enough to qualify for the race.

Voting history data shows Blackman voted in Forsyth on Nov. 5, one month after he said he moved to Fulton. He also changed his voter registration address to a Midtown Atlanta apartment in April, the last day to qualify for the race, our AJC colleague Caleb Groves reported.

Time is short to hear the appeal. Early voting for the June 17 primaries is already underway.

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Shoutouts

Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC

Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC

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Before you go

Credit: Evan Vucci/AP

Credit: Evan Vucci/AP

The U.S. Court of International Trade blocked President Donald Trump’s tariffs, only to have a federal appellate court rule the tariffs could continue while the case is appealed. It’s hard for business owners to keep up.

That’ll do it for us today. As always, you can send your best scoops, gossip and insider info to greg.bluestein@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com, patricia.murphy@ajc.com and adam.beam@ajc.com.