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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