WASHINGTON (AP) – In a matter of months, Stacey Abrams has gone from losing the Georgia governor’s race to being a heavily recruited Democratic star, urged to run for Senate and mentioned as a possible presidential contender.
It’s a dramatic rise often fueled by the promotional spending of Fair Fight Action, a nonprofit she founded to advance voting rights. The organization has paid for advertisements featuring Abrams and some of her travel and organized national watch parties when she delivered the Democratic rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union.
But spending by Fair Fight Action, which is staffed by former Abrams campaign aides, could prompt questions about whether the nonprofit is inappropriately supporting her political ambitions. Although there is no proof of any illegal activity, some of the organization’s expenditures could pose a problem if Abrams follows through with her pledge to run for office again.
“There is nothing wrong with a nonprofit promoting its charismatic founder,” said Adav Noti, a former Federal Election Commission attorney who now works for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. But, he added, that “if we later learn that the spending was to lay the groundwork for a campaign, retrospectively that could be a violation.”
Abrams has said that she will decide soon on her political future. Last week, she met with former Vice President Joe Biden, leading to speculation he might pick her as a running mate if he enters the 2020 White House race and wins the Democratic nomination. Her latest moves have also been closely watched by national Republicans, who think she would be a formidable challenger to Republican Sen. David Perdue of Georgia in 2020.