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Introducing 'Gaining Ground: The New Georgia' (episode 1) · Pod Save America

0:02
Speaker 1: When she laid out her vision, this idea that we
0:04
Speaker 1: were going to add a million people to the voter rolls,
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Speaker 1: I tell people I had 33 reasons why this would
0:11
Speaker 1: never work. She had like 34 reasons why it absolutely
0:14
Speaker 1: would work. And she was right, as usual.
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Speaker 2: This is Nse Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project,
0:23
Speaker 2: talking about a chance encounter in 2014.
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Speaker 1: A mutual friend said, you know, are you coming home
0:28
Speaker 1: for the holidays? And I was like, yes, of course.
0:30
Speaker 1: She said, I would love for you to meet this
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Speaker 1: state rep. Her name is Stacey Abrams. She's doing some
0:35
Speaker 1: incredible things. And I think you guys need to connect.
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Speaker 1: And I was such an asshole. I'm really coming home
0:41
Speaker 1: to hang with my family. I don't really need any
0:44
Speaker 1: new friends. Like, there's just a lot, you know. And
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Speaker 1: then she was like, no, you guys should really have brunch.
0:49
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, you should have led with that.
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Speaker 1: Of course I'll have brunch with this random state representative.
0:55
Speaker 1: because that is the national pastime in Atlanta. We had
1:00
Speaker 1: brunch on New Year's Day in 2014. I had packed
1:04
Speaker 1: my truck by August, drove the 24 hours from Ottawa
1:10
Speaker 1: in Canada, where I was living at the time, back
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Speaker 1: home to Atlanta. And now we are here where we
1:15
Speaker 1: are today.
1:19
Speaker 2: Today, Georgia looks very different than it did on New
1:22
Speaker 2: Year's Day in 2014. Surrounded by five states that went red,
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Speaker 2: Georgia's a blue state for the first time since 1992.
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Speaker 2: To understand this shift, journalists, pundits, and everyday Americans have
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Speaker 2: rightfully reflected on Georgia's 2018 gubernatorial election.
1:39
Speaker 3: Hello.
1:41
Speaker 4: On September 18th, thousands of Georgians began casting absentee ballots,
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Speaker 4: determined to lift their voices in the democratic process of
1:49
Speaker 4: electing our leaders for the next two years, the next
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Speaker 4: four years. A few weeks later, more than two million
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Speaker 4: Georgians declared their choices, heading to polling places for early votes.
2:00
Speaker 4: And then on November 6th, more than a million folks
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Speaker 4: arrived in precincts around our beloved state, anxious and excited
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Speaker 4: to express their patriotism through the fundamental act of voting.
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Speaker 2: On November 16th, 2018, former minority leader of the Georgia
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Speaker 2: House of Representatives, Stacey Abrams, was set to end her
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Speaker 2: bid for governor. She had just narrowly lost the bid
2:22
Speaker 2: to become the first Black woman to be elected governor
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Speaker 2: in the U.S. Republican Brian Kemp, who was also the
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Speaker 2: Secretary of State at the time, overseeing the very election
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Speaker 2: in which he was also a candidate, had won.
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Speaker 4: For these millions of Georgians, the act may have proven
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Speaker 4: tedious and hard, but they had no doubts their votes
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Speaker 4: would be counted. However, this year, more than 200 years
2:45
Speaker 4: into Georgia's democratic experiment, the state failed its voters. You see,
2:50
Speaker 4: despite a record high population in Georgia, more than a
2:54
Speaker 4: million citizens found their names stripped from the rolls by
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Speaker 4: the Secretary of State.
2:59
Speaker 2: Abrams admitted defeat, but she refused to concede. Instead, she
3:04
Speaker 2: used her speech to criticize the man she previously referred
3:07
Speaker 2: to as the architect of voter suppression. This speech, this race,
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Speaker 2: and this candidacy would shift Georgia and impact American politics
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Speaker 2: for years to come.
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Speaker 4: Parents stood in the fitful rain in four-hour lines, watching
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Speaker 4: as less fortunate voters had to abandon democracy in favor
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Speaker 4: of keeping their jobs and collecting a paycheck. Under the
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Speaker 4: watch of the now former Secretary of State, democracy failed Georgia.
3:34
Speaker 4: Georgians of every political party, every race, every region, again.
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Speaker 2: From Tenderfoot TV and Crooked Media, this is Gaining Ground,
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Speaker 2: The New Georgia. In this limited series podcast, we'll tell
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Speaker 2: the story of this historic moment, from how Georgia went
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Speaker 2: blue and what took so long, to the upcoming Senate
3:59
Speaker 2: runoff and what's next once we know the results. I'm
4:02
Speaker 2: your host, Rembert Brown. Where was I the last time
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Speaker 2: Georgia went blue? It was 28 years ago.
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Speaker 5: 415 Matthewson Place.
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Speaker 6: Okay, where do you live? In Georgia. What part of Georgia?
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Speaker 7: Matthewson Place.
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Speaker 8: Do you know how to count to 100?
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Speaker 2: That's right. 416 Matthewson Place, Southwest Atlanta. It's a brick house...
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Speaker 2: less than two miles away from where my mother went
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Speaker 2: to high school and where I first swung a tennis racket.
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Speaker 2: Only a few turns away from streets that make you
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Speaker 2: feel something if you're from Black Atlanta. Ben Hill, Cascade, Beecher, MLK, Abernathy,
5:05
Speaker 2: Benjamin E. Mays. I took to local politics early. I
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Speaker 2: wrote a letter to then-Mayor Bill Campbell when I was
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Speaker 2: 10 and tacked it on a bulletin board, hoping he'd
5:14
Speaker 2: walk by and see it. Six years later... When then-Mayor
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Speaker 2: Shirley Franklin came to my high school, the Paideia School,
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Speaker 2: she asked the student body who was interested in public service.
5:24
Speaker 2: I raised my hand, and she actually called on me,
5:26
Speaker 2: asking what job I'd like to pursue. Yours, I said.
5:30
Speaker 2: That dream didn't exactly pan out, but I stayed close,
5:34
Speaker 2: becoming a journalist that went to Ferguson in 2014, Selma
5:37
Speaker 2: in 2015, and by 2016 was covering the presidential election.
5:42
Speaker 2: Growing up, I'd always heard the phrase, there's Atlanta, and
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Speaker 2: then there's Georgia. I'd listen to adults talk about the
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Speaker 2: prospect of Georgia flipping every state and national election my
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Speaker 2: entire life. But when it came down to it, I
5:55
Speaker 2: was used to Georgia being called for Republicans by dinnertime.
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Speaker 2: But this year, not only has Georgia flipped blue, but
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Speaker 2: the two Georgia Senate races are headed to runoffs and
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Speaker 2: will decide the balance of power in Washington. NPR estimated
6:09
Speaker 2: that about 158 million Americans voted in this year's general election,
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Speaker 2: 20 million more than in 2016. With 66.5% of eligible
6:19
Speaker 2: voters mailing in ballots or turning out at the polls,
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Speaker 2: voter turnout was the highest it's been since 1900. Even
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Speaker 2: outside of Georgia, this election was historic in many ways.
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Speaker 8: Turning back now to our election coverage over the past
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Speaker 8: three weeks, we have seen record early voting here in Georgia,
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Speaker 8: and it is not expected to slow down today.
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Speaker 2: Good morning to you, Michael.
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Speaker 9: I just want to underline something here. I have lived
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Speaker 9: in this state for more than 20 years, and if
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Speaker 9: Joe Biden is able to win this state, he will
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Speaker 9: have accomplished something that we rarely see here.
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Speaker 3: It's official.
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Speaker 10: Georgia has certified Joe Biden as the state's 2020 winner
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Speaker 10: after hand-counting nearly 5 million ballots.
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Speaker 2: The Trump campaign has until Tuesday to request.
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Speaker 2: When we started asking people why they thought Georgia flipped blue,
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Speaker 2: more often than not, the answer was Stacey Abrams, who
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Speaker 2: has become a patron saint of voting rights since her
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Speaker 2: 2018 loss. But there are two things that Stacey Abrams
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Speaker 2: has continuously reminded us of since this year's general election.
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Speaker 2: The first is that flipping Georgia blue is not something
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Speaker 2: that happens overnight, over months, or even over a year.
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Speaker 2: It takes years of collective effort, fighting on many fronts.
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Speaker 2: The second is that this wasn't her fight alone.
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Speaker 1: I think that the work of organizing is organizing people
7:41
Speaker 1: and organizing resources to address an issue. And I say issue,
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Speaker 1: not necessarily in the negative way, but what is of importance?
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Speaker 1: What are your hopes for yourself, for your family, for
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Speaker 1: your community? What are your fears and concerns for yourself,
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Speaker 1: for your family and your community?
8:03
Speaker 2: Again, this is Nse Ufa from that story about thinking
8:07
Speaker 2: Stacey was crazy and never turning down brunch.
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Speaker 1: I am the CEO of the New Georgia Project and
8:13
Speaker 1: the New Georgia Project Action Fund. and the founder of
8:17
Speaker 1: the New South Super PAC. New Georgia Project is a
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Speaker 1: nonpartisan civic engagement organization. We're probably best known for having
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Speaker 1: registered half a million young people and people of color
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Speaker 1: to vote in all 159 of Georgia's counties. The work
8:39
Speaker 1: of the New Georgia Project is year round, right? 365.
8:44
Speaker 1: We are party to dozens of lawsuits, thousands of memes,
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Speaker 1: all a part of our organizing to build a better Georgia,
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Speaker 1: to build a better country. But elections are only opportunities
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Speaker 1: for us to test the power that we're building, that
9:01
Speaker 1: we're constantly building power. And so Leader Abrams' election was
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Speaker 1: a big opportunity to test our power, but it was
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Speaker 1: also an opportunity to stress test Georgia's election systems. And
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Speaker 1: the truth of the matter is that voter suppression was
9:16
Speaker 1: very much alive and well. And we'd been talking about
9:20
Speaker 1: it for quite some time. And people, particularly like the
9:25
Speaker 1: national press, ignored it. Like, no one cared. I spent
9:31
Speaker 1: the better part of 2017 and 2018 talking about all
9:35
Speaker 1: of the weaknesses in Georgia's elections infrastructure and talking about
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Speaker 1: all of the ways that white Republicans steal votes. and
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Speaker 1: mute or neutralize this sort of voter enthusiasm, and no
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Speaker 1: one wanted to cover it. They started covering it around
9:53
Speaker 1: Halloween of 2018, a couple of days before the general election.
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Speaker 1: And even then, it was only covered in the context of,
10:02
Speaker 1: is Brian going to count every vote?
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Speaker 2: And by Brian, she means then Secretary of State Brian Kemp.
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Speaker 1: The person that's the chief elections officer who's supposed to
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Speaker 1: ensure the integrity of the election. was also a candidate
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Speaker 1: at the top of the ticket, people were questioning whether
10:18
Speaker 1: or not that was going to have an impact.
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Speaker 2: Of course it was.
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Speaker 1: It allowed people to see in real time what modern
10:26
Speaker 1: day voter suppression looked like. I think, too, it radicalized
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Speaker 1: a whole new generation of young voters who are like
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Speaker 1: democracy defenders and democracy crusaders. We got to register 18,000
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Speaker 1: 18-year-olds in 2018.
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Speaker 2: It was a boom.
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Speaker 1: It was an explosion. Most of them wanted to vote
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Speaker 1: for Stacey Abrams. And then they saw their votes basically
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Speaker 1: being invalidated. And they have become some of our most vocal, aggressive,
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Speaker 1: loyal volunteers. So now the folks that were born in 2001, 2002,
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Speaker 1: and they were voting for the first time in these
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Speaker 1: presidential elections, they've seen themselves flip a state. They are
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Speaker 1: on their way to flipping control of the United States Senate.
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Speaker 1: So connecting the dots between the vote and the change
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Speaker 1: that they want to see, like there's no amount of
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Speaker 1: focus group messaging that we could have done that connects
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Speaker 1: the dots in the minds of a new voter the
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Speaker 1: way Flipping Estate has and the way the entire country
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Speaker 1: is talking about Georgia. They know their vote is powerful,
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Speaker 1: and that's going to have implications for elections to come.
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Speaker 2: Even though she didn't become Georgia's governor in 2018, Stacey
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Speaker 2: Abrams still wanted to make an impact. Frustrated by the
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Speaker 2: results of an election she believed was largely impacted by
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Speaker 2: voter suppression tactics, she launched the voting rights organization Fair Fight.
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Speaker 2: To understand how we got here, we have to go back,
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Speaker 2: beyond the most recent past, and look at the larger
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Speaker 2: history of voter suppression in the South.
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Speaker 6: Well, I grew up in the South. I was born
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Speaker 6: in 1949. Obviously, if you do the math, you realize, hmm,
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Speaker 6: In 1954, when Brown versus Board came down, which was
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Speaker 6: all about school desegregation, he was just about to enter
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Speaker 6: the first grade. I was in Alabama, and Alabama resisted.
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Speaker 6: It wasn't until I was a junior in high school
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Speaker 6: that we desegregated. By the time I've landed my first
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Speaker 6: job in journalism, voting rights was just sort of the
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Speaker 6: most pervasive topic You couldn't be a reporter in Mississippi
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Speaker 6: without covering voting rights any more than you could be
13:14
Speaker 6: a reporter in Iowa and not cover agriculture. My name
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Speaker 6: is Hank Klibanoff, and I teach at Emory University. I'm
13:24
Speaker 6: in the creative writing program. And I am here, I'm sure,
13:30
Speaker 6: because I teach this course called the Georgia Civil Rights
13:34
Speaker 6: Cold Cases Project.
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Speaker 2: Hank is here for that reason and about 20 more.
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Speaker 2: He's won a Pulitzer, a Peabody, and is the former
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Speaker 2: managing editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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Speaker 6: It's an examination of unpunished, racially motivated killings in Georgia history.
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Speaker 6: The efforts were legion, first of all. They were constant.
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Speaker 6: They were ongoing. White people who were satisfied with the
13:59
Speaker 6: status quo did not want African Americans to have the vote.
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Speaker 6: and community after community in the South, county after county
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Speaker 6: after county was heavily, predominantly Black. I mean, you had counties,
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Speaker 6: Holmes County, Mississippi is 76% Black, and there are 12
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Speaker 6: registered voters who are Black. That's why white people didn't
14:28
Speaker 6: want to give it up, because they would lose, and
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Speaker 6: Uncle Charlie wouldn't who'd been sheriff for 32 years, wouldn't
14:36
Speaker 6: be sheriff anymore. And Uncle Billy, he wasn't going to
14:40
Speaker 6: be a county commissioner anymore. And if Uncle Billy is
14:43
Speaker 6: not the county commissioner, then, you know, where's Aunt Reba
14:47
Speaker 6: going to work? And, of course, I don't know if
14:51
Speaker 6: it's an underlay, an overlay, I think it's an all-around
14:55
Speaker 6: lay of fear. That was demagogic fear. That was fear
15:01
Speaker 6: that was whipped up by the politicians who wanted to
15:04
Speaker 6: to win election and to hold on to their office.
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Speaker 6: And that's what they learned to do. You needed to
15:09
Speaker 6: have somebody you could bully. In the early years, I mean,
15:14
Speaker 6: there were some really offensive things done in the 50s,
15:16
Speaker 6: not redistricting for racial purposes isn't offensive, but you know,
15:20
Speaker 6: you've heard the stories of the county registrars who would
15:25
Speaker 6: sit at a table on the other side of black
15:28
Speaker 6: people trying to register to vote. And there'd be a
15:30
Speaker 6: jar of jelly beans there and say, okay, can you
15:32
Speaker 6: guess how many jelly beans are in this. That was
15:36
Speaker 6: the technique. Or to recite sections of the Constitution backwards
15:41
Speaker 6: from memory. And they would just laugh and laugh and laugh.
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Speaker 6: And I think about how when the U.S. Commission on
15:47
Speaker 6: Civil Rights was created by the 1964 Civil Rights Act,
15:52
Speaker 6: and they go into the South, they're holding a bunch
15:54
Speaker 6: of hearings. And there was one, and I think this
15:57
Speaker 6: was in Jackson, in which they had some county registrar
16:00
Speaker 6: from a rural county in He's just talking about, here's
16:04
Speaker 6: how we do it. You know, if they can't read,
16:05
Speaker 6: then we can't have them register. And, you know, somebody
16:09
Speaker 6: on the Civil Rights Commission, I think, handed over a
16:11
Speaker 6: piece of paper to him. Said, OK, would you mind
16:13
Speaker 6: reading the following? He couldn't.
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Speaker 2: He couldn't.
16:20
Speaker 6: So we shouldn't be shocked now when people say things
16:22
Speaker 6: that we think are so obviously going to be viewed
16:25
Speaker 6: by everyone as either dissembling or just an outlight fabrication.
16:30
Speaker 6: Or a real twisting of things, you know, because I'm
16:34
Speaker 6: sure that registrar was able to go back to that
16:36
Speaker 6: county and get easily reelected after that. There was no
16:39
Speaker 6: shame in those techniques. And that's, I mean, the poll
16:43
Speaker 6: tax is almost mild compared to those sorts of things
16:49
Speaker 6: that were designed to humiliate people. So when I'm coming
16:54
Speaker 6: of age as a young reporter, it would be things
16:56
Speaker 6: like moving certain offices from being elective to being appointed.
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Speaker 6: Shutting polling places without notice, you know, on election day.
17:10
Speaker 6: Making people stand outside in the rain when there was,
17:14
Speaker 6: you know, a gym that they could go seek shelter in.
17:17
Speaker 6: I mean, anything to discourage Black people from voting. I
17:21
Speaker 6: cannot emphasize enough how purposeful it was. Okay. These weren't just, oh,
17:29
Speaker 6: what a coincidence. We happen to think of a strategy,
17:32
Speaker 6: come up with a strategy because we don't have enough
17:34
Speaker 6: poll workers or this, that, and the other. This was craftiness.
17:38
Speaker 6: And there was a toolbox. There was a toolbox of
17:42
Speaker 6: techniques to use. Very effective. The people who would do
17:48
Speaker 6: that are a little sad. sharper than they used to be.
17:50
Speaker 6: They're more media savvy. When our Governor Brian Kemp was
17:55
Speaker 6: then running for governor, and he's the Secretary of State,
17:58
Speaker 6: there's a county down near these counties that I do
18:01
Speaker 6: my podcast and my civil rights cold cases on, Randolph County.
18:06
Speaker 6: The last minute, they close all these polling places. And
18:10
Speaker 6: every one of them, to my memory, most of them
18:13
Speaker 6: or all of them, were in African-American neighborhoods. You know,
18:16
Speaker 6: it was so And they said, no, no, no, that's
18:21
Speaker 6: not what we had. You know, we're trying to consolidate.
18:24
Speaker 6: And they reversed themselves, you know, because they got caught.
18:28
Speaker 6: But guess what? How many times are people not being caught?
18:41
Speaker 11: I've really been politically active since I was a teenager.
18:44
Speaker 11: I mean, I loved, I've always loved politics. batting for
18:49
Speaker 11: the other team. The first campaign I actually remember volunteering
18:55
Speaker 11: for was Newt Gingrich. It's kind of cliche, but I
18:58
Speaker 11: saw Obama on Oprah and I went and purchased both
19:03
Speaker 11: of his books and read them. And I was like, huh,
19:06
Speaker 11: I kind of feel the same way that this guy does.
19:09
Speaker 11: I kind of agree with a lot of stuff that
19:11
Speaker 11: he's saying, but it was something that I had never
19:15
Speaker 11: like really considered.
19:18
Speaker 2: This is Tamara Stevens of Roswell, Georgia. She's been a
19:22
Speaker 2: volunteer and organizer for decades. In recent years, she's helped
19:26
Speaker 2: mobilize thousands of women in the metro Atlanta area.
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Speaker 11: So I did a lot in 2008. I actually ended
19:35
Speaker 11: up being asked to be a surrogate for the Obama campaign.
19:38
Speaker 11: They would send me to go and speak country club
19:40
Speaker 11: of the South men's groups and that kind of stuff.
19:44
Speaker 11: Because I spoke fluent Republican.
19:47
Speaker 2: So in 2012, I did a little bit more.
19:50
Speaker 11: In 2016 for Hillary, I did nothing.
19:53
Speaker 6: Nothing.
19:55
Speaker 11: I'm embarrassed to say that, but I think like myself,
19:59
Speaker 11: like a lot of other women and men, we just
20:02
Speaker 11: took it for granted that there's no way that this
20:06
Speaker 11: buffoon is going to beat the most qualified person to
20:10
Speaker 11: ever run for president. It was shocking. And so when
20:16
Speaker 11: I was up in New York on election night in
20:18
Speaker 11: 2016 at Javits Center and we saw the returns going in,
20:23
Speaker 11: it was devastating.
20:25
Speaker 12: When I got back to Atlanta the day after the
20:28
Speaker 12: election that night, we kind of crawled up into the
20:32
Speaker 12: fetal position and cried and worried. And then all of
20:38
Speaker 12: a sudden, We had a special election here in.
20:41
Speaker 11: Georgia, thanks to Trump, you know, nominating Tom Price. It
20:45
Speaker 11: gave us a place to focus our energy.
20:48
Speaker 2: Congressman Tom Price had been nominated to lead the Department
20:51
Speaker 2: of Health and Human Services. Running to replace him in
20:54
Speaker 2: a special election was a candidate named John Ossoff, someone
20:57
Speaker 2: all eyes would turn to yet again in 2020.
21:00
Speaker 11: It was a jungle election, so there was, I think
21:05
Speaker 11: there was eight or nine candidates. He came very, very
21:09
Speaker 11: close to getting over that 50% threshold in the initial election.
21:15
Speaker 11: And that was actually the first time that we noticed
21:18
Speaker 11: there might be some irregularities with Georgia's voting. But he
21:22
Speaker 11: ended up going into a runoff with Karen Handel. Karen
21:26
Speaker 11: Handel was, you know, a Republican stalwart. Like, she had
21:30
Speaker 11: been around forever. She had been Secretary of State.
21:34
Speaker 6: Very well known.
21:37
Speaker 11: We were just all thrown into the fire. It was
21:39
Speaker 11: an amazing experience, but it was exhausting. And John came
21:46
Speaker 11: so close, so, so close. Unfortunately, Karen Handel won. And
21:53
Speaker 11: John grew so much during that campaign. And it's been
21:58
Speaker 11: amazing to watch the transformation in him from 2017 now
22:03
Speaker 11: to this Senate race in 2020. just to watch how
22:10
Speaker 11: he has matured and is just a great, great candidate.
22:14
Speaker 11: And I think he'll be a fantastic senator. But during
22:19
Speaker 11: that time, it allowed us to build an infrastructure that
22:24
Speaker 11: prepared us in 2018. Next person to run for that
22:31
Speaker 11: seat and challenge that seat, which was our now Congressman
22:34
Speaker 11: Lucy McBath. So Lucy is now in that seat, which
22:38
Speaker 11: is amazing, considering it is the seat that was once
22:41
Speaker 11: held by Newt Gingrich.
22:48
Speaker 2: As Tamara mentions, Lucy McBath, a former flight attendant, managed
22:52
Speaker 2: to flip Georgia's 6th District following Ossoff's defeat. Her victory
22:56
Speaker 2: signaled that Democrats were gaining ground in Georgia's historically Republican suburbs.
23:01
Speaker 2: Crooked Media interviewed McBath in 2018 as she was beginning
23:04
Speaker 2: her campaign.
23:06
Speaker 3: I say that my neighborhood is one of those old-fashioned
23:10
Speaker 3: neighborhoods where, you know, all the people that I live among,
23:14
Speaker 3: we know their names. Jordan really liked living in Marietta.
23:20
Speaker 3: He really was a leader among his friends. We would
23:24
Speaker 3: have discussions about who he was going to be, and
23:26
Speaker 3: I'd always say, Jordan, I see you as an activist.
23:29
Speaker 3: I see you as somebody in the community. I see
23:31
Speaker 3: you as someone standing.
23:33
Speaker 4: Up for a cause.
23:35
Speaker 2: McBath's son, Jordan, was killed on the day after Thanksgiving
23:39
Speaker 2: in 2012 when a 45-year-old white man fired 10 shots
23:43
Speaker 2: into his car at a gas station after complaining that
23:46
Speaker 2: Jordan and his friends were playing loud thug music. Jordan
23:51
Speaker 2: Davis was 17 years old.
23:54
Speaker 3: I just remember screaming, crumbling on the floor. Everything went black,
23:59
Speaker 3: and I just started screaming loud. I remember hearing this
24:04
Speaker 3: wail come out of me, something so ugly that I
24:08
Speaker 3: didn't really think it was coming from me. But the
24:16
Speaker 3: fact that everything I tried to protect Jordan from, every
24:20
Speaker 3: fear that I had, that one day he would be
24:24
Speaker 3: hit by a car or be in an accident or
24:26
Speaker 3: get in a fight or all those things, everything came
24:30
Speaker 3: down on me at that one very moment.
24:35
Speaker 2: Jordan's death and the subsequent response helped motivate Macbeth to
24:39
Speaker 2: run for office.
24:41
Speaker 3: It just began to dawn on me that everything that
24:45
Speaker 3: my father and my mother worked for, all those experiences
24:49
Speaker 3: had probably, without my knowing, prepared me for what I
24:54
Speaker 3: believe God was calling me to do now. And that's
24:58
Speaker 3: the reason why I started speaking out about the gun culture.
25:02
Speaker 3: Why were our legislators not talking about these tragedies? Why
25:06
Speaker 3: were they not working to protect the people that put
25:09
Speaker 3: them in office? Why was the clergy silent?
25:12
Speaker 2: In order to.
25:13
Speaker 4: Change the culture, people need to hear me.
25:16
Speaker 3: Because I'm not a number, I'm not a statistic, but
25:19
Speaker 3: I'm a real human being that can tell you earnestly
25:23
Speaker 3: and honestly what this devastating culture looks and feels like.
25:31
Speaker 3: This is me carrying on the mantle of my father
25:34
Speaker 3: and my mother. All the work they did in the
25:37
Speaker 3: civil rights movement to make sure that people had equality
25:40
Speaker 3: and access to everything that, you know, democracy is supposed
25:44
Speaker 3: to afford us in this nation, that I now get
25:47
Speaker 3: to carry on their mantle. And I kept thinking how
25:50
Speaker 3: proud they would be of me, how proud Jordan would be.
25:53
Speaker 4: I think.
25:59
Speaker 3: That sometimes people have felt like they didn't have a
26:02
Speaker 3: voice or people have felt disengaged. For whatever their reasons,
26:09
Speaker 3: they believe that maybe the politics didn't speak to them.
26:17
Speaker 3: People are anxious. They're afraid. They're concerned about their futures.
26:23
Speaker 3: I think that the people that are standing up now
26:25
Speaker 3: are willing to fight on behalf of their communities.
26:28
Speaker 2: We're not career politicians.
26:30
Speaker 3: Most of us haven't been trying to figure out for
26:32
Speaker 3: all of our lives how to be in, you know,
26:34
Speaker 3: in office. But we've decided to stand up and to
26:37
Speaker 3: fight for our communities.
26:39
Speaker 2: Lucy McBath wasn't the only person to be inspired to
26:42
Speaker 2: run for public office for the first time in 2018.
26:46
Speaker 2: This is my Gaining Ground co-host, Jewel Wicker. She's an
26:49
Speaker 2: Atlanta native and has reported on news and politics for
26:52
Speaker 2: Teen Vogue.
26:54
Speaker 5: So one of the things that really stood out about
26:56
Speaker 5: Lucy McBath's story and I think the 2018 midterms in
26:59
Speaker 5: general was that she was a part of an election
27:02
Speaker 5: during which women played a historic role. Time reported that
27:06
Speaker 5: a record number of 117 women were sworn into Congress
27:10
Speaker 5: in 2019. And this is in comparison to the 89
27:13
Speaker 5: women who were elected in 2016. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became one
27:17
Speaker 5: of the youngest women ever to be elected to Congress.
27:20
Speaker 5: Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar also became the first Muslim
27:24
Speaker 5: women elected to Congress that year. Now, of course, this
27:27
Speaker 5: group of women varies when it comes to political leanings,
27:29
Speaker 5: even amongst the progressive congresswomen. But it's worth contextualizing the
27:33
Speaker 5: moment during which Macbeth and even Abrams campaigns were taking place.
27:38
Speaker 5: Women were at the forefront, organizing, running, and winning. It's
27:42
Speaker 5: a trend that would continue through this year when Kamala
27:45
Speaker 5: Harris was elected as the first woman and the first
27:49
Speaker 5: South Asian and Black woman to the role of vice president.
27:57
Speaker 13: I grew up enjoying politics, but knowing that I wanted
28:02
Speaker 13: to go to school, I wanted to become a lawyer,
28:03
Speaker 13: and that's how I wanted to serve people.
28:06
Speaker 2: This is Matthew Wilson, the state representative for House District
28:09
Speaker 2: 80 in Georgia, covering the North Atlanta suburbs of Brookhaven,
28:14
Speaker 2: Sandy Springs, and Chamblee.
28:17
Speaker 13: Being an out and proud gay Georgian, when we would
28:21
Speaker 13: have these nasty bills that popped up at the legislature,
28:25
Speaker 13: I would go down and I would testify. I'd go
28:27
Speaker 13: talk to my legislators. They would send me to talk
28:30
Speaker 13: to other legislators, try to share my story with them.
28:33
Speaker 13: And I was watching and just sort of lobbying as
28:37
Speaker 13: a citizen. Fast forward to 2016, Trump gets elected. Everyone
28:42
Speaker 13: in my world is devastated, including me. I stayed on
28:45
Speaker 13: the couch for three days trying to figure out what
28:47
Speaker 13: does this mean? And one of the things that I
28:50
Speaker 13: couldn't get over was that the House district where I
28:53
Speaker 13: lived had flipped from blue back to red. We had
28:57
Speaker 13: just flipped it in a special election the year before
29:00
Speaker 13: and felt that demographics were destiny and we were going
29:04
Speaker 13: to keep it blue for the foreseeable future. And lo
29:08
Speaker 13: and behold, it had flipped back to red by only
29:11
Speaker 13: 286 votes. Out of 24,000 votes cast, 286 votes flipped
29:13
Speaker 13: it back red. And I had to be real honest
29:20
Speaker 13: with myself. You know, I worked on campaigns before. I
29:23
Speaker 13: know what's involved. And I hadn't done a single thing
29:27
Speaker 13: to help my House candidate, who I knew personally, other
29:31
Speaker 13: than I wrote him a check. And I voted for him.
29:34
Speaker 13: And so me and my friends sort of had this
29:36
Speaker 13: similar story. Well, I voted, but that wasn't enough. And
29:40
Speaker 13: that was the big takeaway for me in 2016 is
29:43
Speaker 13: voting is not enough. You've got to do more. So
29:46
Speaker 13: fast forward a year and we're looking at 2018, looking
29:50
Speaker 13: at this particular house race. I'm like, we got to
29:53
Speaker 13: find somebody to run. So I jumped in the race.
29:56
Speaker 13: We went from 286 vote deficit to, to me winning
30:00
Speaker 13: by five percentage points. And fast forward two more years,
30:03
Speaker 13: I just won re-election by 18 points. In addition to
30:09
Speaker 13: me flipping my House seat in 2018, the Northern Atlanta
30:13
Speaker 13: suburbs were really ground zero for the blue wave in Georgia.
30:18
Speaker 13: That's when Lucy McBath won her congressional seat. We flipped
30:22
Speaker 13: my House race, but we also flipped 10 other House races,
30:26
Speaker 13: mostly in the Northern Atlanta arc. as you go from
30:30
Speaker 13: one end of the city to the other. To the
30:33
Speaker 13: extent that there are themes and takeaways, it's that we
30:36
Speaker 13: all went door to door and spoke to voters in person.
30:41
Speaker 13: That was a major part of what we did, was
30:44
Speaker 13: canvassing and having real conversations at people's doors with them
30:48
Speaker 13: about why they need to vote and what in particular
30:51
Speaker 13: is at stake. It's not just talking to Democrats, not
30:55
Speaker 13: just talking to Democrats who vote every election, If you
30:58
Speaker 13: do the math, there's not enough of them to win
31:01
Speaker 13: in Georgia, in particular statewide races. We've got to talk
31:05
Speaker 13: to people who don't vote all the time, find out
31:07
Speaker 13: why they're not voting and make sure that we're tailoring
31:09
Speaker 13: a message that speaks to them. We've got to talk
31:12
Speaker 13: to Republicans. As we've seen, Biden was able to successfully
31:17
Speaker 13: pull away enough traditionally Republican voters to kind of build
31:21
Speaker 13: this new coalition system. So I think that's proof that
31:24
Speaker 13: we've got to continue talking to them and not being
31:26
Speaker 13: afraid to engage with them on the issues.
31:29
Speaker 2: Republican leaders in Georgia made national news this year for
31:32
Speaker 2: their handling or mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. But this
31:36
Speaker 2: certainly isn't the first time all eyes have been on
31:39
Speaker 2: the Georgia GOP. Last year, Republicans passed a law that
31:42
Speaker 2: would ban most abortions at six weeks. A federal judge
31:46
Speaker 2: blocked the law earlier this year. Issues like these likely
31:49
Speaker 2: played a major role in galvanizing voters ahead of the
31:52
Speaker 2: general election and helping to flip the state.
31:55
Speaker 13: For a lot of modern history, Georgia has sort of
31:58
Speaker 13: had an outsized impact on the dialogue and the conversation.
32:02
Speaker 13: And I think that does have something to do with
32:05
Speaker 13: how people voted in this particular election in 2020. For sure,
32:09
Speaker 13: I know people came out and voted blue because they
32:14
Speaker 13: were upset about some of the laws the legislature passed
32:17
Speaker 13: over the last two years. I know that for a
32:18
Speaker 13: fact because I've talked to voters and they have told
32:21
Speaker 13: me that. A lot of people I talked to said,
32:25
Speaker 13: you know, well, I grew up Republican, but the more
32:28
Speaker 13: and more I see these social issues put in the middle,
32:31
Speaker 13: this anti-abortion bill or whatever the particular social issue is,
32:36
Speaker 13: to have one party who just hearkens on those time
32:39
Speaker 13: and time and time again every election cycle, I really
32:42
Speaker 13: just want people to go back to governing. I heard
32:45
Speaker 13: that a lot.
32:49
Speaker 2: Of course, Democrats fighting against the anti-abortion so-called heartbeat bill
32:54
Speaker 2: are also governing on social issues, just in the opposite direction.
32:58
Speaker 2: This is State Representative Shelley Hutchinson, who was elected in
33:02
Speaker 2: 2018 to Georgia's 107th House District, serving parts of Snellville, Lawrenceville,
33:07
Speaker 2: and Lilburn in the North Atlanta suburbs. Obama endorsed Hutchinson,
33:12
Speaker 2: identifying the area, a conservative stronghold, as flippable in the elections.
33:18
Speaker 8: I met my husband, we got married in 96. And
33:20
Speaker 8: that's when we moved to the district that I represent now.
33:24
Speaker 8: We had our first child in 2000. When I graduated,
33:29
Speaker 8: I didn't want a nine to five. I didn't want
33:31
Speaker 8: to put her in daycare all day long. So I
33:33
Speaker 8: started a business, only intended to be enough to keep
33:36
Speaker 8: me busy. So after that, I started teaching at UGA,
33:41
Speaker 8: got more active civically.
33:42
Speaker 2: I was like, what?
33:45
Speaker 8: Are so many seats uncontested. There was at least like
33:48
Speaker 8: 10 or 12 seats that were never, ever contested. Every
33:52
Speaker 8: time I would vote, I was like, one day I'm
33:53
Speaker 8: just going to write my name in because I assume
33:56
Speaker 8: that's how you ran. You just write your name in
33:57
Speaker 8: because I never saw signs or people even working in
34:01
Speaker 8: this district because it was on lock. Nobody even ran
34:05
Speaker 8: against them. I thought it would be very easy. And it,
34:08
Speaker 8: of course, was not. It was a huge, huge undertaking. Very,
34:12
Speaker 8: very expensive. In Georgia, it's supposed to be a citizen legislature.
34:21
Speaker 8: But when you only pay $ 17, 000 a year, the only
34:26
Speaker 8: citizens that can do this are people who are independently
34:29
Speaker 8: wealthy or have the most flexible schedules. And I was
34:33
Speaker 8: just lucky that I have a business. So I looked
34:36
Speaker 8: into the person who represented us for 16 years, and
34:40
Speaker 8: he was ultra-conservative. That year, my district voted for Hillary
34:47
Speaker 8: by double digits, by 11%. So I was like, well,
34:50
Speaker 8: at the very least, I can give them competition. So
34:54
Speaker 8: I signed up. And as soon as I signed up,
34:57
Speaker 8: he retired. But he convinced his neighbor to run against me.
35:02
Speaker 8: So I ran against his neighbor and I won by
35:05
Speaker 8: 18 percentage points. Pay attention to who is representing you,
35:10
Speaker 8: because in this case, the person who represented us for
35:12
Speaker 8: 16 years was not at all representative of what this
35:16
Speaker 8: district was looking for.
35:18
Speaker 2: Representative Hutchinson was elected in both 2018 and 2020. But
35:22
Speaker 2: she still can't shake the fact that this job simply
35:25
Speaker 2: isn't accessible for most Georgians.
35:27
Speaker 8: When we were in the last session, they voted to
35:30
Speaker 8: reduce our salaries. And nobody's really in this for the money. No, no,
35:34
Speaker 8: nobody can be in this for the money. But The
35:37
Speaker 8: person who did it said this was his way of
35:41
Speaker 8: helping our budget crunch. But the flaw in that logic
35:45
Speaker 8: is when you take away 10% from nothing, you get nothing.
35:51
Speaker 8: Reduction in our pay did not even touch the budget.
35:55
Speaker 8: What it did, though, is further reduce the salary, which
36:00
Speaker 8: further restricted actual average citizens from running for any kind
36:06
Speaker 8: of office because that Reduction came.
36:08
Speaker 6: In the House and in the Senate.
36:10
Speaker 8: It's just interesting being here in this seat to see
36:15
Speaker 8: kind of the thought that goes behind some of the
36:18
Speaker 8: shenanigans they pull. I heard the saying once that Democrats
36:22
Speaker 8: have to fall in love, like they have to be
36:24
Speaker 8: in love with the person that they're supporting, and Republicans
36:27
Speaker 8: just fall in line. The only thing I can say
36:31
Speaker 8: that would help really is that everyone votes and knows
36:35
Speaker 8: who they're voting for and what they're getting when they
36:37
Speaker 8: vote for this particular person. Statistics and history tells us
36:42
Speaker 8: if everyone votes, everyone's voice is heard. Everyone has to
36:48
Speaker 8: vote and talk about it. You know, we don't talk
36:50
Speaker 8: about politics generally, but talk to your neighbors, your children,
36:54
Speaker 8: talk to everyone about how important it is to vote.
36:59
Speaker 8: Some communities, it's not if I'm gonna vote, but what
37:02
Speaker 8: time are you gonna vote? And in other communities, it's like, yeah,
37:05
Speaker 8: our vote doesn't really matter. It doesn't really count. If
37:09
Speaker 8: we're still having those conversations, that's the problem. We need
37:13
Speaker 8: all the help we can to change the culture around voting.
37:17
Speaker 8: Because if there's a loophole or if there is any
37:21
Speaker 8: place that people can exploit, they will. And if we
37:25
Speaker 8: don't vote, then we're going to be powerless.
37:36
Speaker 2: This story of shifting the culture around voting and flipping
37:39
Speaker 2: Republican strongholds sounds simple in hindsight, clean even. But organizers
37:45
Speaker 2: like Nse Ufot, Stacey Abrams, and the countless others who
37:48
Speaker 2: mobilize voters have been doing this work for years. They
37:52
Speaker 2: started long before our mailboxes were flooded with flyers and
37:55
Speaker 2: our phones were inundated with texts asking us about our
37:58
Speaker 2: voting plan. Still, before November 3rd, it was unclear if
38:02
Speaker 2: any of these mobilization tactics would guarantee a victory for Democrats.
38:07
Speaker 2: especially when you consider the election that had occurred in
38:10
Speaker 2: Georgia just two years earlier. Again, Stacey Abrams after her
38:14
Speaker 2: 2018 loss.
38:16
Speaker 4: I acknowledge that former Secretary of State Brian Kemp will
38:21
Speaker 4: be certified as the victor in the 2018 gubernatorial election.
38:25
Speaker 4: But to watch an elected official who claims to represent
38:28
Speaker 4: the people in this state baldly pin his hopes for
38:31
Speaker 4: election on the suppression of the people's democratic right to
38:35
Speaker 4: vote has been truly appalling.
38:38
Speaker 2: So let's be clear.
38:39
Speaker 4: This is not a speech of concession. We deserve a
38:43
Speaker 4: state that elects leaders who will not tolerate the erosion
38:46
Speaker 4: of our values. Fair fight, Georgia. Because these votes are
38:53
Speaker 4: our voices. And we are entitled to our choices, each
38:56
Speaker 4: of us. And we have always been Georgia at the
39:00
Speaker 4: forefront of speaking truth to whatever power may lay claim
39:04
Speaker 4: to leadership, if only for a moment. And we will
39:08
Speaker 4: win because we are Georgia.
39:15
Speaker 2: This season on Gaining Ground, The New Georgia.
39:18
Speaker 8: There are distinct times in history where the paradigm shifts.
39:25
Speaker 3: And we are living in that moment right now.
39:29
Speaker 2: As Georgia flips blue, we follow the count and the
39:33
Speaker 2: recount and the other recount.
39:35
Speaker 10: The Secretary of State said, all right, we're going to
39:37
Speaker 10: move forward with the audit, which was essentially a hand recount.
39:43
Speaker 10: And then after that was done, Trump was allowed to
39:46
Speaker 10: request a full recount and A second recount because the
39:51
Speaker 10: margin was so close.
39:53
Speaker 2: We take you to the front lines of the political
39:55
Speaker 2: fight for two key Senate races.
40:00
Speaker 6: Hello, Warner Robins, Georgia. It's Sunday.
40:12
Speaker 4: And they placed the preacher behind a microphone.
40:18
Speaker 2: And we hear from voters like you who have mobilized
40:20
Speaker 2: to create change.
40:22
Speaker 7: We want a fair due process through everyone. We want
40:26
Speaker 7: everyone to have an opportunity to have good health care,
40:29
Speaker 7: you know, to be able to have good paying jobs.
40:32
Speaker 7: I am an absentee voter because of my age. And
40:37
Speaker 7: if I have to go in person, I'll.
40:38
Speaker 2: Do that, too.
40:47
Speaker 5: Gaining Ground, the new Georgia, is brought to you by
40:51
Speaker 5: Tenderfoot TV and Cricket Media, in association with Cadence 13.
40:56
Speaker 5: Donald Albright and Payne Lindsey are executive producers on behalf
40:59
Speaker 5: of Tenderfoot TV. Jon Favreau and Tanya Sominator are executive
41:04
Speaker 5: producers on behalf of Cricket Media. Executive produced, written, and
41:08
Speaker 5: hosted by Rembert Brown. Written and co-hosted by Jewel Wicker.
41:13
Speaker 5: Our lead producer is Christina Dana. Gaining Ground, The New Georgia,
41:18
Speaker 5: is produced by Jamie Albright, Mike Rooney, Matthew Pusty, Julia Beverly,
41:24
Speaker 5: Tracy Leeds Kaplan, Annie Rustin, Christina Toni Schmidt, and Stephanie Booker.
41:31
Speaker 5: With additional production support from Shaniqua McClendon and Justine Happ.
41:35
Speaker 5: Edited by Christina Dana and Mike Rooney. Mixed and mastered
41:39
Speaker 5: by Cooper Skinner with additional mixing by Devin Johnson. Original
41:43
Speaker 5: music is by Makeup and Vanity Set. Special thanks to
41:47
Speaker 5: Chris Corcoran and the team at Cadence 13, Oren Rosenbaum
41:51
Speaker 5: and Grace Royer from UTA, Ryan Nord, Jesse Nord, and
41:56
Speaker 5: Matthew Papa from the Nord Group, and the teams at
41:59
Speaker 5: Tenderfoot TV and Crooked Media. And an extra thanks to
42:02
Speaker 5: all our guests and contributors who helped make this show possible.
42:05
Speaker 5: Check us out online at gaininggroundpodcast.com. And for more information
42:10
Speaker 5: on how you can become politically active, Check out VoteSaveAmerica.com
42:15
Speaker 5: slash volunteer. Thanks for listening.