Female Dems blaze trails on ballots
Candidates confront resistance in own party
WASHINGTON – Tuesday’s primary elections feature three high-profile female Democratic candidates, who each challenge conventions and their own party.
Stacey Abrams, a Georgia gubernatorial candidate, aims to become the first female African-American governor in the country’s history.
In Texas, Laura Moser, battled primary opponents — and Washington Democrats.
Amy McGrath, a former Marine, turned a primary against the mayor of Lexington, Ky., into a competitive race.
Abrams or ‘Selena’?
You may know her by “Selena Montgomery.” That’s Abrams’ pen name for eight romantic suspense novels she wrote, which she said sold more than 100,000 copies. Her real story may be better than fiction.
A Yale Law School graduate, Abrams was the first woman to lead a political party in the Georgia General Assembly and the first African American to lead in the state’s House of Representatives.
Abrams is in a primary against another Stacey — former state representative Stacey Evans. Abrams raised more money, and polls ahead of Evans. She has the endorsement of liberal groups, including Our Revolution, the activist spinoff organization of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, along with Sanders.
Abrams focuses on expanding the electorate by building a statewide coalition and mobilizing non-voters, including those whom she said her party has taken for granted — people of color. In 2013, she founded the New Georgia Project, which she said submitted registrations for more than 200,000 voters of color from 2014 to 2016.
Rejecting ‘party bosses’
Moser is in a runoff race against lawyer Lizzie Pannill Fletcher in Texas’ 7th Congressional District.
In February, the Democratic Con- gressional Campaign Committee — the House campaign arm — released opposition research against Moser, branding her a “Washington insider.” The committee pointed to her writing in 2014, “I’d sooner have my teeth pulled out without anesthesia” than move back to Texas. She referred to living “directly next door to a deaf-mute drug addict.” She apologized for the language.
Liberals who endorsed Moser were furious, arguing that Washington Democrats interfered with the will of the voters. Moser, who came in second in the primary, saw her fundraising increase.
The DCCC’s chairman, Rep. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, said last month that he remains “deeply concerned” about Moser’s “offensive” writing, and he defended the intervention. Democrats hope to flip the seat held by Re- publican John Culberson in November.
In her last ad before the primary, Moser talked about taking on the establishment. “We have to fix our broken politics, and that starts by rejecting the system where Washington party bosses tell us who to choose,” she said.
The fighter pilot
Retired Marine lieutenant colonel Amy McGrath’s introductory ad went viral last year. The Naval Academy graduate and former fighter pilot described her 89 combat missions after her congressman told her when she was 13 that women shouldn’t be allowed to serve in combat.
The political newcomer runs in a competitive primary against Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, a millionaire businessman, for the chance to take on Republican Rep. Andy Barr. She surpassed Gray in fundraising.
Reports that the DCCC aggressively recruited Gray prompted sharp disapproval from a previous DCCC chairman, Martin Frost of Texas, who argued the organization made the “same mistake” with McGrath as they had with Moser.
McGrath told USA TODAY last month she blames an “old boys network” for her lack of party support, lamenting that it’s easier for wealthy men to become candidates in her party.
“It’s really sad,” she said. “There’s no Democratic woman, ever in this state, who has ever held federal office, so it is very much old-school type of stuff.”