AND IN WHOSE POCKETS DID THE LOOT FALL?
Going for Broke: Stacey Abrams’s Campaign Can’t Pay Staffers After Blowout Loss
Andrew Kerr • December 19, 2022 2:20 pmStacey Abrams's gubernatorial campaign can't afford to pay its employees and owes over $1 million to vendors, Axios reported Monday.
Abrams amassed over $100 million in her failed bid to unseat Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R.), but suffered cash flow issues in the final weeks of the campaign. Speaking to Axios, two-time Abrams campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo blamed the money problems on a "cavalcade of negative press and negative polling" in the final months of the campaign.
"We did not just lose, we got blown out," she told Axios. "It was the most sub-optimal situation to be in. And we will be dealing with that situation for some time."
The Abrams campaign has resorted to selling its donor and voter contact databases to pay down its debt, and it abruptly cut off salary payments to most of its 180 full-time staffers just one week after the November election. Former campaign staffers said they were shocked that Abrams couldn't pay their salaries after having raised so much money.
"I figured, $100 million? They should be able to pay me until December," a former Abrams staffer told Axios.
"People have told me they have no idea how they're going to pay their rent in January," said another former Abrams staffer, adding that the campaign's decision to stop paying employees "was messed up."
Squandering massive fundraising hauls is par for the course for groups associated with Abrams. The New Georgia Project, a voter registration group founded by Abrams that was tasked with expanding the non-white electorate in the Peach State, raised nearly $25 million in 2020, only to lay off half its leadership team in the weeks before the 2022 election due to a lack of funds, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
A former New Georgia Project executive told the Free Beacon that the group fired its top financial officer in late June after the officer said he couldn't do his job without violating the law. New Georgia Project is now over a month late in filing its 2021 finances to the IRS, and the charity continues to solicit donations without a license in at least nine states, opening itself up to massive fines and criminal inquiries.
Abrams also has a poor track record managing her own personal finances. During her first gubernatorial bid in 2018, she owed $54,000 in unpaid taxes to the IRS, on top of $170,000 in credit card and student loan debt. Abrams resolved those debts before launching her 2022 campaign.
Nolte: Stacey Abrams Raised $100M, Lost (Again), Still In Debt, Screwed Staffers
Former Governor-In-Her-Own-Mind Stacey Abrams (D-Failure) blew through $100 million, lost by more than seven points, is still in debt, and screwed her staffers just in time for the holidays.
Such a nice lady.
From the far-left Axios, minus all their goofy “why it matters” junk:
After raising more than $100 million in her second bid to be Georgia governor, the Stacey Abrams campaign owes more than $1 million in debt to vendors, two-time campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo confirmed to Axios.
Abrams has been heralded for her fundraising prowess and had brought in donations at a presidential level earlier in the year. But money became so tight that most of the 180 full-time staffers were given an abrupt paycheck cutoff date — just a week after the November election.
“People have told me they have no idea how they’re going to pay their rent in January,” one former staffer told Axios. “It was more than unfortunate. It was messed up.”
How do you blow through $100 million in a state with only 10 million people?
And then she got shellacked by 7.5 points, lol.
From the sounds of it, the campaign was as mismanaged as any Stacey Abrams administration would be.
One staff member told these Axios clowns that “compensation was high for campaigns.” Oh. Overpaid to lose. Another source said Abrams has a “well-documented pattern” of “running a campaign where there’s always been more money in the future that can fix the mistakes of the past[.]”
Only Hollywood would make someone with that track record the President of Earth.
And then to screw their own staffers just in time for the holidays. Who does that? Abrams is worth millions. Why wouldn’t she help these people out, especially the low-level staffers who need rent money, through the holidays? You don’t do that. You don’t give people an “abrupt paycheck cutoff date” in November. You especially don’t do that if you are a millionaire like Abrams.
The campaign said that raising money was difficult near the end because everyone knew she would get beaten. Okay, but you still had $100 million.
Little off-topic, but this race is one reason why I don’t buy all the talk about how the GOP has to get tougher with mail-in ballots, ballot curing, etc. I’m not saying Republicans shouldn’t improve there, but look at what happened in Georgia… Republican Gov. Brian Kemp won by 7.5 points. A few weeks later, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker lost by one point. That’s not a situation where the GOP learning how to game mail-in votes will change everything. That’s a situation where one candidate was more tolerable to voters than another.
Candidates matter.
Cure all the ballots you want — candidates still matter.
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