Scoop: Stacey Abrams campaign in debt after blowout loss

[mountaineer]

Scoop: Stacey Abrams campaign in debt after blowout loss
    Emma Hurt
Dec. 19, 2022

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.

Why it matters: 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.”

Driving the news: Groh-Wargo told Axios that a “cavalcade of negative press and negative polling” made fundraising difficult in the final months. She said the campaign had engaged brokers to sell their donor and voter contact databases to try to pay down the debt over time.

   *  “We did not just lose, we got blown out,” she said. “It was the most sub-optimal situation to be in. And we will be dealing with that situation for some time.”  ...

Axios

Related: Judge denies Abrams bid to seek unlimited contributions, Associated Press, April 14, 2022. 

[Hoodat]

A few weeks before election day, the Abrams campaign began moving money from the campaign fund to third party vendors that Abrams controls.

[Hoodat]

Stacey Abrams voting group paid campaign chair’s law firm millions: report

Mark Moore  |  October 24, 2022  |  10:58am

​The law firm of Stacey Abrams’ campaign chairwoman and longtime friend received millions of dollars from the Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate’s voting rights organization to fight an unsuccessful legal case alleging voter suppression in the Peach State’s 2018 governor’s race, according to a report on Monday. ​

Abrams’ group, Fair Fight Action, paid the Atlanta law firm of Lawrence & Bundy $9.4 million in 2019 and 2020, Politico reported, citing federal tax filings from the organization. ​In those two years, Fair Fight Action spent more than $25 million in legal fees. ​

Allegra Lawrence-Hardy– who chaired both Abrams’ losing 2018 campaign for governor and her current ​run against incumbent Republican Brian Kemp — is one of two named partners in Lawrence & Bundy, which employs fewer than two dozen attorneys, and was lead counsel in the case Fair Fight Action v. Raffensperger, the report said.  .  .

https://nypost.com/2022/10/24/abrams-campaign-chairs-law-firm-paid-millions/

[mountaineer]

Stacey Abrams’ spending questioned after manager reveals campaign’s $1M debt
 By Mark Moore   
December 19, 2022 11:51am

​Stacey Abrams’ campaign is $1 million in debt — despite raising more than $100 million in her second straight unsuccessful Georgia gubernatorial bid​, according to a report Monday. 

The Democratic stalwart’s campaign owes the cash to vendors, Axios reported, citing manager Lauren Groh-Wargo. ​ ...

This is not the first time entities linked to Abrams have been questioned about their spending habits.

In October, the Abrams-founded Fair Fight PAC launched an internal investigation after Fox News reported that friends and families of its political director had been given cushy jobs with little to no relevant experience.

Days later, Politico reported that the Atlanta law firm employing Abrams’ campaign chief, Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, was paid more than $9 million to fight a legal case claiming voter suppression in the 2018 governor’s race, raising allegations of a conflict of interest.