For Immediate Release  
April 25, 2023
New Georgia Project Action Fund
[email protected]

 

(Atlanta, GA) — New Georgia Project Action Fund (NGPAF) released the following statement in response to President Biden’s announcement that he will run for a second term. 

“New Georgia Project Action Fund congratulates President Biden on his decision to run for re-election. He has made progress on key policies, like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, that will bring more resources and investment to American communities, including here in Georgia. But our congratulations come with some advice: do not forget about the South. More and more states in the South are becoming increasingly competitive, with Georgia topping the list. Black folks, brown folks, young people, women, and LGBTQ+ Georgians helped the President win his first term. Now, as he makes his case for a second, he can’t ignore that fact if he wants four more years in the White House.  

‘We talk to Georgians every day, especially Black folks, and what they’ve told us is that they haven’t heard enough about what the Biden administration has done for them and their communities,’ said NGPAF Chief Organizing and Field Officer, Keron Blair. ‘If the President wants to capture the hearts and minds of voters here, including the voters who sent him to the White House in 2020, he needs to, as he has said, “finish the job” and make sure we know about it down south. 

For President Biden, that includes finishing the job on student debt cancellation, finishing the job on marijuana reform, finishing the job on federal voting rights protections, and finishing the job on making sure folks have control over their own bodies, health, and lives. The President has 18 months before Georgians decide if they want to vote for him again. That’s 18 months to erase any doubt in Black voters’ minds that he has and will continue to show up for them.’  

Georgia has repeatedly proven its status as a key battleground state after voters here elected President Biden to office in 2020 and decided the balance—and margin—of power in the U.S. Senate not once, but twice. In each of those contests, Black Georgians turned out in large numbers and will be looking for reasons to do so again in 2024. 

‘NGPAF and our grassroots organizations have done the work to turn Georgia into the battleground state that it is today,’ said NGPAF CEO Kendra Cotton. ‘Since last year, NGPAF and our affiliated organization, New Georgia Project, knocked more than 3 million doors, had nearly 400,000 conversations with Georgia voters, registered more than 63,000 people to vote, and mobilized more than 200,000 Georgians to pledge to vote in every election in which they are eligible. These are Black folks, brown folks, young people, the voters we know will turn out in support of progressive issues and values. We have made Georgia competitive. If the President—and any other top-of-the-ticket candidate—wants to keep it that way, he needs to put in this kind of work, now. Not next month, not next year. Right now. The President must compete in Georgia starting now.’ 

The South, and Georgia in particular, has something to say. We know what it takes to win, and we’ll keep making noise about it. NGPAF will never stop listening to and centering the needs, concerns, and solutions of Black, brown, and young Georgians to build power around the issues they care about and to make their voices heard at the ballot box. As President Biden kicks off his re-election campaign and finishes out his first term, we invite him to do the same. We invite him to spend time, resources, and energy in the South, just as we do every day. We invite him to finish the job voters in Georgia and across America hired him to do and to make sure he’s letting folks know about it. We are ready for this moment, and we hope the President is too.”  

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