Report: Abrams' campaign $1M+ in debt following defeat

"They have no idea how they’re going to pay their rent in January"

Stacey Abrams (right) and Lauren Groh-Wargo (left)

Stacey Abrams’ campaign owes over $1 million to vendors and contractors following the Democrat’s loss to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, according to a new report from Axios.

Abrams, one of the most prolific fundraisers in the Democratic Party, raised more than $100 million in her rematch with Kemp. But as the election drew closer, there were signs that the campaign was strapped for cash.

Her campaign began reducing ad spending by more than half in the final weeks before the election:

“After long spending more than $2 million each week to bombard the airwaves, records show Abrams shelled out roughly $800,000 [in late October] on broadcast ads. Her campaign said the total bumps up to $1 million when including cable TV purchases.”

Some advisors said that they received their final paychecks a week after the election. “People have told me they have no idea how they’re going to pay their rent in January,” one former staffer told Axios.

Gov. Kemp’s campaign staffers were paid through November and were given holiday bonuses. Staffers for both Herschel Walker and Sen. Raphael Warnock are earning paychecks through December.

Lauren Groh-Wargo @gwlauren

In the end, Stacey leveraged her time, talents and organizations to secure the wins of 2020 in the major battleground states as well as Georgia in 2020 and 2021. In doing so, she also made the 2022 gubernatorial race against a well-funded incumbent nearly impossible. 37/52

Lauren Groh-Wargo, a longtime Abrams confidante who managed both her 2018 and 2022 campaigns for governor, said that a barrage of negative news headlines and bad polling numbers in the fall made it difficult for Abrams to raise money in the final stretch. She said on social media that the Democrat faced “nearly impossible” odds to defeat the popular Republican incumbent.

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

We will learn more about the campaign’s finances when disclosures are filed in January, but advisors are pointing to “lavish spending” as a reason for the cash crunch.

Others said that the campaign spent heavily on private polling to counter the public surveys that largely pointed to a lopsided race.

Abrams has kept a low profile since the election — she held no public events with Sen. Warnock during the U.S. Senate runoff. But she recently released a children’s book and plans to co-produce a music documentary with actress Selena Gomez.

But it is her low public profile that has frustrated many former staffers, who believe she is going on a “publicity tour” at a time when bills are going unpaid.