Georgia's Democratic Governor Primary Comes Down To Race, Hope, and First Names

The dueling Democratic candidates in Georgia’s strangely pivotal governor’s race agree on one thing: Sometimes they wish they had different first names.

- Lisa chase

Qualifying day in Georgia: the day when anyone running for an office in the state has to trek to the Capitol Building in Atlanta—the Gold Dome, as it’s known—to fill out some paperwork, shake some hands, and be officially recognized as a candidate. It’s a necessary nonevent.

On this day, March 6, Stacey Abrams is qualifying as a Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia. As is always the case with Abrams, whose voluble, Bill Clinton–esque intelligence and ambition have won her national press and big checks from out-of-state donors, today is anything but a nonevent. About 40 people sweep in to watch her register—supporters in stacey abrams: governor T-shirts, a film crew from a local TV station, energized activists, Abrams’s senior staff, members of her large family. Wearing a conservative cobalt-blue dress and a string of pearls, she arrives last and is surprised by her elderly parents, Carolyn and Robert Abrams, who’ve driven over from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, to watch their second-oldest daughter make history as the first black woman to formalize her run for governor of Georgia.