Stacey Abrams says she’s open to being a VP candidate

August 14, 2019

Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said that she is open to being the Democratic presidential nominee’s vice presidential candidate, after declining to run for president earlier this week.

Abrams told The New York Times that she believed the “strongest contribution” that she could give to the presidential primary would be to “make sure our nominee is coming into an environment where there’s strong voter protections in place.” After narrowly losing the Georgia gubernatorial race in the fall, Abrams has focused on promoting and strengthening voter rights. Many Democrats believe that Abrams’ loss was due to voter suppression in Georgia, which affected African Americans in particular.

“I would be honored to be considered by any nominee. But my responsibility is to focus on the primary. And that means using the primary as an opportunity to build the apparatus to fight voter suppression,” Abrams said about potentially being named as a vice presidential nominee.

Abrams had publicly mulled a presidential bid for months, saying in March that a 2020 campaign was “definitely on the table.” Abrams also ruled out running for Senate in 2020.

“My decision not to run for the Senate was because I do not want to serve in the Senate. I think that there are people who are running who are the right people for that job. And I’m going to do my best to ensure that they can become the senator from Georgia,” Abrams said in the interview with the Times.

Abrams also declined to endorse any presidential candidate at the moment, saying: “I do not foresee making any decisions about the candidates in the primaries right now.”