Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has been tapped to deliver the Democratic response to Donald Trump’s upcoming State of the Union address.
The choice was announced on Tuesday by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, just a week before the president’s planned speech on 5 February.
Ms Abrams gained national recognition during her failed run to become the governor of Georgia, when she was narrowly defeated after running a progressive campaign that energised new voters in the deep red, southern state.
Since her defeat — announced in December after Ms Abrams received more votes than any Democrat running for governor in the state’s history — Ms Abrams has vowed to run for political office again.
She lost 1.39 per cent to Republican Brian Kemp, Georgia’s former secretary of state whose voting access policies in that position were called into question by federal judges while votes were being counted last year.
Ms Abrams has indicated she may run as soon as in 2020.
The opposition party’s response to the State of the Union provides an opportunity to provide an alternative narrative and way forward from the president’s vision, and often features prominent politicians viewed in their party’s eyes as a rising star.
But, Ms Abrams being this year’s pick is notable in that Ms Abrams did not recently win her election, unlike others like Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who became the state’s first woman senator in history. Ms Sinemal is also the first democrat to represent the state in the Senate in over 20 years.
The choice to tap Ms Abrams — a progressive, black woman who showed she can energise voters in a state previously seen as out of reach for traditional democrats — to deliver the respose could reflect a shift in the general attitude of the party, and a shift towards embracing the types of policies and issues championed by politicians like the Georgian democrat.
