(RoyalPatriot.com )- Despite raising over $100 million for her second failed gubernatorial bid, the Stacey Abrams campaign is in debt to the tune of $1 million, according to a report in Axios.
Campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo told Axios that the “cavalcade of negative press and negative polls” hitting the Abrams campaign in the final months of the race hindered fundraising efforts. As a result, the campaign still owes vendors and has been forced to sell donor and voter databases to help pay them.
After suffering a humiliating defeat to Brian Kemp four years ago by fewer than 55,000 votes, Abrams was crushed in their rematch, losing by over 299,000 votes.
Groh-Wargo told Axios, Abrams didn’t just lose in 2022, “we got blown out.” Calling it “the most sub-optimal situation to be in,” she said the campaign will be dealing with the fallout “for some time.”
The excuse-making Groh-Wargo said she wanted to “do a lot of things differently” during the race, “but I had to move as fast as possible.”
Meanwhile, the campaign’s 180 full-time staffers received their last paychecks on November 15, just one week after Abrams lost again to Republican Brian Kemp.
Groh-Wargo told Axios that some campaign staffers have said they don’t know how they will pay their rent in January, adding “It was more than unfortunate. It was messed up.”
She said the campaign covered the cost of its staffers’ health benefits through November, explaining that they wanted to do their best “to make sure that help would be there for folks.”
Axios noted that Kemp’s campaign staff was not only paid through the month of November but also received bonuses.
One disgruntled Abrams staffer told Axios that with $100 million raised, the campaign should have been able to pay staff until December.
Georgia Democrat operative Chris Huttman told Axios that both of Stacey Abrams’ gubernatorial campaigns had a “well-documented habit” of throwing money around. He said that Abrams ran the campaigns assuming that there will always be enough future money to “fix the mistakes of the past.”
