Stacy Abrams to skip President Biden’s voting rights speech in Georgia due to scheduling conflict

Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams will not be attending the voting rights speech by President Biden and Vice President Harris on Tuesday due to a scheduling conflict.

An aide for Abrams told The New York Times that she will be unable to attend the event in Atlanta. Abrams is currently running to unseat Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R), whom she ran against in the 2018 gubernatorial race.

Despite her absence, Abrams expressed support for the event, welcoming Biden back to Georgia on Twitter. “The fight for voting rights takes persistence. As MLK exhorted, ‘The clock of destiny is ticking out. We must act now before it is too late.’ Thank you, @POTUS, for refusing to relent until the work is finished. Welcome back to Georgia where we get good done,” she tweeted.

The White House said when announcing the speech that Biden and Harris plan to “speak to the American people about the urgent need to pass legislation to protect the constitutional right to vote and the integrity of our elections from corrupt attempts to strip law-abiding citizens of their fundamental freedoms and allow partisan state officials to undermine vote counting processes.”

Other civil rights leaders will attend, including James Woodall, former president of the NAACP of Georgia. Woodall said the following ahead of the meeting; “We don’t need any more photo ops. We need action.”