"Politics is a tool and it's a very important one for getting good done, but it's not the only one," Abrams says. "I am really focused right now on the other tools in my toolbox. ... My focus right now is on sharing information."
A former minority leader in the Georgia House of Representatives, Abrams ran for governor of Georgia as the Democratic nominee in 2018 and again in 2022. Though she lost both races, she drew national attention to issues of voter suppression in the state, particularly during the close 2018 campaign.
After the 2018 election, Abrams founded Fair Fight, an organization credited with boosting voter turnout in Georgia and contributing to Democratic victories in the 2020 presidential and Senate elections. She warns that voter suppression is "all around us" — though it's taken a new form in the 21st century. She says excessive restrictions on mail-in ballots, student voting and early voting can all be examples of voter suppression.
"Many of us grew up with the stories of the civil rights movement and voter suppression of the '60s, guns and dogs and hoses," she says. "The voter suppression in the 21st century is administrative."
Abrams discusses current politics and her concerns about the democratic process on her podcast, Assembly Required. She's also the author of several novels. Her latest thriller, Coded Justice, is the third installment in a series that centers on Avery Keene, a former Supreme Court clerk turned corporate investigator, who steps into the world of AI to examine a system designed to revolutionize veteran health care.
Abrams says she chose to focus on AI because it seems, on its face, like a neutral technology. "I wanted to write a book where the lines are blurred, because sometimes there's good intention, just problematic execution," she says. "This tool that we intend to use for good can be misapplied. ... I wanted to think about what happens when even the intentional pursuit of good can lead to challenges and murder."
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