Stacy Abrams Spent $100 Million On Her Sad Failure of a Campaign; Her Lavish and Stupid Expenditures Include a Pricey "Hype House," In Which She Envisioned She'd Film TikTok Videos, and a "Swag Truck"

Oh and despite raising $98 million, she's still in "deep debt."

She has a Democratic eye for economizing.

Despite surpassing her 2018 fundraising record, Stacey Abrams's 2022 Georgia gubernatorial campaign fell into deep debt due to reckless expenditures, according to staffers and operatives who worked on the failed campaign.

The campaign still owes more than $1 million to vendors, Abrams campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo confirmed to Axios.

Some of the campaign's lavish expenditures included the rental of a home near Piedmont Park in Atlanta, which Abrams envisioned as a "hype house" for TikTok videos but which was ultimately underutilized, staffers told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Some aides occupied the empty large house as a work space. It can now be rented for $12,500 a month, the publication noted.

A hype house.

A hype house.

The campaign's youth outreach strategy also proved pricey. Against the better judgement of many staffers, who found the idea irresponsible, Abrams launched a pop-up shop and "swag truck" to hand out merchandise, such as T-shirts and hoodies.

A swag truck.

Every entry in her campaign expenditures disclosure is a punchline in an In Living Color sketch.

...

Many employees in the campaign were given generous salaries compared to other candidates' teams. For example, the campaign advertised paid canvasser jobs at $15 an hour, higher than the typical rate, according to a Georgia Tech blog discovered by the Journal-Constitution.

Benefitting from glossy, identity-focused coverage, Abrams brought in nearly $98 million as of early November. Yet, her campaign nearly ran out of money in the final stretch. Most of the 180 full-time staffers who worked for her were told they'd receive their last paycheck just a week after Election Day, according to Axios.

"People have told me they have no idea how they're going to pay their rent in January," one former staffer said. "It was more than unfortunate. It was messed up."

...

"It's incredibly bad planning, and it shows where their values are at," a senior Democratic official told the Journal-Constitution his impression of the campaign's financial situation. "You can't look up one day and realize you can't pay the bills."

So does that mean she won't be on Star Treck any more?

posted by Ace at 03:35 PM

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