The Stacey Abrams blueprint

The voter engagement movement Stacey Abrams spearheaded has proven so successful that it has inspired new groups built on her model and made fundraising easier for others. Why it matters: That voting turnout infrastructure will be stress-tested once again this year as Democrats — including Abrams in her own second run for governor — seek to prove the high turnout of voters of color last cycle wasn't just a former President Trump-related fluke. And they'll do so amid new Republican-written voting rules and limits on absentee ballot voting. The big picture: Abrams says the rise of similar groups was part of the plan. In an interview, she tells Axios that, in fact, she intended "to build things that are replicable and exportable."

Groups like the New North Carolina Project and the New Pennsylvania Project are trying to duplicate her success in Georgia by working to expand their states' electorate, targeting voters of color and low propensity voters. Even Republicans are trying to learn from her model. Former GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler founded Greater Georgia with that mission last year. At the time, Loeffler noted that in 2020, "We had tremendous efforts in terms of the ground game ... [b]ut what we saw on the other side of the ballot was even more. They had thousands more staffers, thousands more volunteers." There's also been a benefit for other Georgia groups that report easier access to money and donors thanks to Abrams, directly or indirectly. Steve Phillips, a San Francisco-based Democratic donor and early Abrams supporter, tells Axios that Abrams' involvement with a group "automatically just elevates the group in my mind."