Stacey Abrams—the Democratic politician from Georgia who has been credited as one of the leading figures who helped flip Georgia blue for President Joe Biden in the November 2020 election—has officially
been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her work on voting rights.
Reuters reported that Norwegian parliament member Lars Haltbrekken announced her nomination earlier today. "Abrams' work follows in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s footsteps in the fight for equality before the law and for civil rights," said Haltbrekken, per the outlet. "Abrams' efforts to complete King's work are crucial if the United States of America shall succeed in its effort to create fraternity between all its peoples and a peaceful and just society."
Abrams gained national attention when she ran for governor of Georgia in 2018, ultimately losing to Republican Brian Kemp by a margin of less than two percentage points. Exposing voter suppression in her state was a cornerstone of her campaign.
After losing the gubernatorial race, Abrams launched Fair Fight Action, a voter education campaign that took the fight against voter suppression across the country.
She spoke to ELLE about her work, saying, “I’ve learned that failure is not permanent. My responsibility is to not let failure dissuade me from my core obligations. Sometimes we pursue a challenge thinking it is about our victory, but we don’t know the true purpose until later. Not becoming governor of one state gave me the opportunity to launch a national network in 20 states [to fight for fair elections]. We are helping reform democracy in places where it was broken and battered. We are fixing access to a census that the president of the United States tried to destroy.” She continued, “I may not have won the office, but what I was able to earn for the causes I serve has been extraordinary, and beyond anything I could have imagined. Apparently, I’m a really good loser.”
In a September 2020 interview, Abrams spoke to Janelle Monáe for Harper's Bazaar about the 2020 election specifically: "We have watched the undermining of our democracy not just for the last four years under Trump, but for the last 20 years under Republicans, because they are a very homogenous party that relies on keeping people out of the process," she said. "Their only way to continue their dominance is to keep voter suppression in place. But they’ve also eroded our democracy because the thing is, you may target people of color, you may target young people, but when you break the machinery of democracy, you break it for everyone."
From:Harper's BAZAAR US