Fair Fight, the once-powerful voting rights group founded by two-time failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams in Georgia, is laying off nearly all of its staff amid continuing struggles with millions in debt, according to a report earlier this week.
Fair Fight, which played a pivotal role in recent Democrat victories in the state by helping boost voter turnout, has racked up massive legal bills from its court battles pertaining to voting rights, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
As a result, around 75% of its staff will be cut, which includes slashing its grassroots organizing, voting rights, fundraising and media efforts, as well as cutting back on the use of outside consultants and vendors.
Then-Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams speaks to supporters and members of the Rabun County Democrats group on July 28, 2022 in Clayton, Georgia. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)
Lauren Groh-Wargo, the former campaign manager for Abrams’ unsuccessful bid to unseat Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in 2022, told the AJC that she would be returning to the group as its interim leader in a “restructuring” effort in the face of its $2.5 million in debt and only $1.9 million on hand.
Additionally, Salena Jegede, Fair Fight’s board chair, told the AJC that slower fundraising, coupled with increasing litigation costs had left the group with a “serious funding deficit that makes our current trajectory unsustainable.”
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Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp speaks at an event hosted by radio host Erick Erickson in Atlanta, Georgia, on August 18, 2023. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)
“While we are disappointed by these realities, we are not discouraged,” Jegede told the outlet. “We will adapt to this new phase of the fight for democracy by restructuring the organization to focus on how we serve Georgia and American voters for the 2024 cycle and beyond.”
Abrams founded Fair Fight in 2018 to address alleged voter suppression in the wake of her first loss to Kemp. The group’s operation expanded in 2019 to include a political arm in the form of Fair Fight PAC.
It played an outsized role in President Biden’s victory in the state in 2020, as well as those of Democrat Sens. John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, who were both elected in tight runoff races in Jan. 2021.
Georgia Democratic Senate candidate U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (L) (D-GA) and Sen. Jon Ossoff (R) (D-GA) confer after a Get Out the Vote rally December 3, 2022 in Hephzibah, Georgia. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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Fair Fight most notably challenged Georgia’s 2021 voting law aimed at ensuring election integrity, something Abrams frequently referred to as “Jim Crow 2.0.” Its suit against the law was ultimately unsuccessful, and the group was ordered to pay a quarter million dollars in legal costs by a federal court last year.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Fair Fight for comment.
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