Stacey Abrams, former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives. has won the Democratic nomination in the Georgia gubernatorial primary Tuesday. The race has been closely watched in recent months, as Abrams faced off with another Stacey, Georgia state representative Stacey Evans.

Should Abrams win in November, she will be the first black woman governor in the United States. Either woman winning in November would have been historic, though: Georgia has never had a woman in the state’s top job.

At the time of publication, Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle was leading the Republican primary. Earlier this year, Cagle threatened to get rid of Delta Air Lines’ tax exemption after the airline stopped offering discounts to NRA members, a threat on which the Georgia legislature ultimately followed through.

Abrams faced some criticism from left-leaning commentators for donations from Koch Industries in 2014 and 2016, but this year, she secured the endorsements of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Our Revolution, his a political organization.

“It came down to the issues, like it always does with him,” Arianna Jones, senior vice president of public relations at Revolution Messaging, told ABC recently. According to Jones, Sanders was particularly impressed by Abrams support for universal pre-K and automatic voter registration.


Abrams was also endorsed by Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), as well as three of the four Democrats from Georgia currently in the U.S. House. (The fourth didn’t endorse.) Evans, who made education affordability and expansion central to her campaign, was supported by former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes and former Sen. Max Cleland (D-GA).

Both women campaigned on Medicaid expansion, but their strategies differed. Abrams focused on engaging with minority voters, while Evans focused on tapping into rural support and flipping moderate Republicans.