What is Stacey Abrams's Net Worth?
Stacey Abrams is a Democratic politician, lawyer, author, and voting rights activist who has a net worth of $3 million. When Stacey first ran for Governor in 2018, she disclosed a net worth of $109,000. In April 2022 she released an updated disclosure that showed her net worth had grown to $3.2 million, thanks almost entirely to book royalties. She also earns income from paid speeches and around $250,000 per year as a director of the Southern Economic Advancement Project.
Stacey Abrams served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017. After narrowly losing the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election to Republican Brian Kemp due to alleged voter suppression, she founded the nonprofit Fair Fight Action to address the problem. As an author, Abrams has written both fiction and non-fiction books, many under the pen name Selena Montgomery.
Early Life and Education
Stacey Abrams was born on December 9, 1973 in Madison, Wisconsin as the second of six children of Carolyn and Robert. She was raised in Gulfport, Mississippi, where her father worked in a shipyard and her mother was a librarian. In 1989, the family moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where Abrams's parents were pursuing divinity degrees at Emory University. They eventually became Methodist ministers and moved back to Mississippi with their three youngest children while Abrams stayed in Atlanta with the other siblings.
Abrams attended Avondale High School, from which she graduated in 1991 as valedictorian. She went on to attend Spelman College, graduating magna cum laude in 1995 with a BA in interdisciplinary studies. Abrams subsequently earned a Master of Public Affairs degree at the University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs, which she attended as a Harry S. Truman Scholar. After that, she obtained a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School.
Career Beginnings
Following her graduation from Yale Law, Abrams worked as a tax attorney at the Sutherland Asbill & Brennan law firm in Atlanta. She focused on health care, public finance, and tax-exempt organizations during her time there. In 2002, Abrams became a deputy city attorney for the City of Atlanta.
Georgia General Assembly
In 2006, Abrams ran for the 84th district in the Georgia House of Representatives and won the seat. She began representing the district in the 2007 session. In 2010, Abrams was named the new minority leader of the Georgia General Assembly, a position she held until the end of her House tenure in 2017. During her time as a Georgia House Representative, Abrams helped stop the largest tax increase in the state's history, worked on criminal justice reforms to reduce prison costs, and helped with Georgia's largest-ever public transportation funding package.
2018 Gubernatorial Campaign
In 2018, Abrams ran for governor of Georgia and won the Democratic nomination. This made her the first black woman in US history to be a major party's gubernatorial nominee. Abrams went on to win the primary and face Republican nominee Brian Kemp in the general election. As Georgia's secretary of state, Kemp had a notorious reputation for voter suppression, and his tactics allegedly resulted in his narrow victory over Abrams in the 2018 gubernatorial election. In a ruling against Kemp, district judge Amy Totenberg determined that Kemp's office had violated the Help America Vote Act.
Fair Fight Action
After the 2018 gubernatorial election, Abrams announced in her campaign-ending speech that she would be creating a non-profit voting rights organization to address the problem of voter suppression in Georgia. The organization, called Fair Fight Action, went on to sue the secretary of state and state election board in federal court. In early 2021, a federal judge ruled that the organization's claims about certain voter suppression tactics were either resolved in Georgia's election law or had been invalidated due to lack of standing to sue. The following year, a federal judge ruled against Fair Fight's remaining claims.
Abrams continues to argue that the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election was unfairly conducted, and has refused to call Kemp the state's legitimate governor. Election law expert Richard L. Hasen has corroborated her claims by stating that "Kemp did everything in his power to put in place restrictive voting policies that would help his candidacy and hurt his opponent, all while overseeing his own election." Abrams has continued to advocate for voting rights through Fair Fight. Her efforts have been widely credited with increasing voter turnout in Georgia, including in the 2020 presidential election and the 2020-21 US Senate elections, both of which resulted in Democratic victories.
(Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for The Hollywood Reporter)
2022 Gubernatorial Campaign
Abrams ran again for governor of Georgia in 2022. After going unopposed in the primary, she lost to the incumbent Kemp on election night, this time by a much larger margin than her previous loss.
Business Endeavors
In 2010, Abrams co-founded the financial services firm NOW Corp. and the beverage company Nourish and Now. The latter company was later rebranded as Now and became an invoicing company for small business. Elsewhere, Abrams has sat on the boards of directors of various organizations, including the Center for American Progress, Gateway Center for the Homeless, and the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education. She has also served on several advisory boards. A prominent public speaker, Abrams has completed multiple international fellowships and spoken at numerous forums.
Books
Abrams has been a successful author of both fiction and non-fiction books. From 2001 to 2009, she wrote a series of romance novels under the pen name Selena Montgomery, with titles including "Rules of Engagement," "Hidden Sins," "Reckless," and "Deception." In 2021, under her real name, Abrams published the legal thriller "While Justice Sleeps." Her non-fiction books include "Minority Leader: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change" and "Our Time is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America." Abrams also penned the children's book "Stacey's Extraordinary Words."
