Democrat Stacey Evans launched the final in a string of TV ads Thursday focusing on her promise to reverse cuts to the HOPE scholarship if she's elected Georgia governor.

The ad focuses on Evans’ father, Keith Godfrey, a working-class truck driver who didn’t have access to tuition-free technical college when he was a student.

“When dad was younger, there were no HOPE scholarships,” she said. “It’s like that today for thousands of Georgia students. As governor, I’ll restore HOPE’s original promise.”

Evans, a former state legislator, faces ex-House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams in Tuesday’s primary for governor. Evans claims her opponent betrayed Democrats by backing a 2011 GOP bill to slash the program’s awards; Abrams said her negotiations helped prevent deeper cuts.

Recent polls show Evans trailing her rival by double-digits in the Tuesday election. Evans released an internal poll alongside the ad that shows she's in striking distance. (Boilerplate: Internal polls should always be taken with a grain of salt.)

In a memo, the Evans campaign said its poll shows Abrams leading Evans 41-33, with about one-quarter of the Democratic electorate undecided.

It cites Evans’ heavy spending on TV advertising, which it said nearly doubles the output by Abrams and outside groups supporting her campaign, as a reason she could catch up in the final days.

Watch the ad below:

More recent AJC coverage of the Georgia governor’s race:

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Fulton DA Fani Willis (center) with Nathan J. Wade (right), the special prosecutor she hired to manage the Trump case and had a romantic relationship with, at a news conference announcing charges against President-elect Donald Trump and others in Atlanta, Aug. 14, 2023. Georgia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, upheld an appeals court's decision to disqualify Willis from the election interference case against Trump and his allies. (Kenny Holston/New York Times)

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