With polls displaying Stacey Abrams trailing Gov. Brian Kemp, the Democratic challenger in Georgia’s governor’s race has leaned closely into highlighting her assist for legalizing sports activities betting within the state.
Politics watchers say the trouble is designed to emphasise one other coverage distinction between Abrams and the Republican incumbent — and to assist her make up floor in a race the place polls have proven his lead widening in current weeks.
Abrams’ marketing campaign has launched a sequence of 15-second, 30-second and static advertisements that target her assist for permitting sports activities betting and slam her opponent for his opposition. The advertisements have been timed to the beginning of faculty soccer season, with many working on websites linked to Georgia Bulldogs school soccer and on-line sports activities betting.
“As governor, Stacey Abrams will work to legalize sports activities betting to spend money on schooling for our younger individuals,” a narrator says in a single advert.
In one other, a narrator says, “Whereas Georgians nonetheless place bets, Kemp is forcing them out of state to do it, taking the tax {dollars} with them.”
“Which means even when Georgia wins the wager, states like Tennessee get the tax cash,” the narrator advertisements.
The advertisements adopted a extremely publicized speech by Abrams final month during which she outlined her broad financial agenda. In it, Abrams mentioned that she supported a state constitutional modification to legalize sports activities and on line casino playing and that she would suggest utilizing the monetary proceeds to fund instructional initiatives like common entry to technical school, need-based monetary assist for larger schooling and the funding of HOPE benefit scholarships within the state.
Extra advertisements centered on the difficulty are forthcoming, a supply with data of the Abrams marketing campaign’s plans instructed NBC Information.
Kemp has opposed sports activities betting within the state since 2018, when a landmark Supreme Court docket ruling allowed for states to make it authorized. Final month, Kemp mentioned he remained against any efforts to legalize it or on line casino playing within the state, however a marketing campaign spokesperson downplayed his opposition in an announcement to NBC Information.
“On sports activities betting, Governor Kemp has taken no place and would work alongside legislative management to find out the very best path ahead,” spokesman Tate Mitchell mentioned.
Over the past 4 years, payments that may legalize sports activities betting within the state have stalled within the state Legislature.
In the meantime, a minimum of 31 states, together with New York and New Jersey, have legalized sports activities betting within the years for the reason that Supreme Court docket ruling. California may very well be subsequent, relying on what voters resolve on a pair of measures that may seem on the November poll within the state.
Polling in Georgia has proven broad assist for legalizing sports activities betting. A 2020 survey by The Atlanta Journal-Structure confirmed that almost 6 in 10 Georgia voters supported it.
Georgia political consultants mentioned that Kemp has largely remained against the difficulty to take care of ranges of assist from evangelical voters in his base, who’re staunchly in opposition to legalizing playing.
That, they mentioned, might give Abrams a gap to go after a bit of voters who care concerning the difficulty whereas not alienating any of her personal supporters. That would assist her shut a spot in polls that in current weeks have proven Kemp widening a as soon as slender lead.
“For the Republicans, the issue is that there’s an necessary a part of their base that’s against this, so it is smart for Abrams to place this on the market,” mentioned Alan Abramowitz, an knowledgeable on Georgia elections and a political scientist at Emory College.
Actual Clear Politics’ newest polling common exhibits Kemp main Abrams by 5.5 share factors. The nonpartisan Prepare dinner Political Report has rated the race “lean Republican.”
“The final sense right here is that Kemp is forward, so it is in all probability clever to go after a section of the voters — even when it’s marginal — that cares about it whereas additionally not turning off anybody who would in any other case vote for Abrams,” Abramowitz added.
