In 2018, it was Oprah Winfrey. In 2022, it is Steve Harvey. Democrat candidate Stacey Abrams likes to lean on celebrity support to get out the vote of specific voting demographics.

Oprah’s job in 2018 was to appeal to black women voters in Georgia. Reliable Democrats, black women came out in droves for Abrams. It was all about her race and her gender. She would be the first black woman governor, voters were told. Oprah told Georgians that they should vote for Stacey to honor the men and women “who were lynched…repressed and oppressed.” Despite calling on Oprah to help her win the election, Abrams lost. We have all heard her bitter loser excuses and accusations ever since.

Now Abrams finds herself in need of black men to get out and vote for her. There is a lack of enthusiasm among black men in Georgia, it seems, when it comes to supporting Abrams. So, she called on game show host and comedian Steve Harvey to help her out.

Thank you for always speaking truth, @IAmSteveHarvey. We have extraordinary power and we need a leader who won’t ignore us and our strength. It’s OUR time.

Commit to vote early the first week we can starting October 17: https://t.co/ibvTOo4ok9 pic.twitter.com/M1R1Xb154c

— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) October 7, 2022

Let’s just say that tweet wasn’t well received.

I am sorry but Ms. Abrams said on the 85 South Boys show that she couldn't speak on issues in the black community bc we're only 13% of the voting population and didn't want to risk losing other communuties' votes by discussing them. And black men are not the key to the governship

— Kevin El (@Kev2kevkev) October 7, 2022

Stacey, we have evolved from taking direction from celebrities and athletes and the civil rights icons need to retire to Boca. Thank you, say no more 🙅🏽‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/lNymBOArdg

— TYSON (@first_of_all_06) October 8, 2022

I take all my political advice from…uh…game show hosts.

— Al (@AlBeachGuy) October 8, 2022

When you lose again, please just move on

— michael (@Mortucal) October 7, 2022

And, of course, a tweet that includes Trump.

Yeah hard pass on Steve Harvey … pic.twitter.com/YIeC6gVZvU

— Shadow Cat (@ChiefShadowBlk) October 7, 2022

Oprah campaigned with Abrams and even pretended to get out and block walk for her. Cable news networks carried one live event from Atlanta that included a conversation between Abrams and Oprah. It was all about black women and grievances and Oprah was in her element. Do we think that Steve Harvey is going to do a campaign event with her? No. But a quick video on Twitter? No problem. He doesn’t exactly have a lot of skin in the game, now does he?

Guess who Stacey Abrams is talking to about coming to campaign for her? Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. No, really. You can’t beat this level of irony, can you? Back in January, Joe Biden held a campaign-style event to rally support from Democrats to apply pressure on senators to support the House’s voting rights reform bill. Biden’s poll numbers were tanking so Abrams skipped a chance to appear with Biden. She blamed a scheduling issue as her excuse. It was particularly awkward because voting law reforms are her thing. She has worked on behalf of building up voter registration in Georgia and resisted common-sense election integrity reforms.

Maybe Barack Obama wasn’t available to show his support on Twitter. It seems to me that he would be the perfect well-known black man to encourage other black men to go vote for Stacey. That would be more of the equivalent to Oprah than Steve Harvey. Either way, Abrams isn’t winning this race. We’ll see if she can bring herself to concede the race in a timely manner this time around. I don’t think she ever really did concede the 2018 election. Talk about trying to destroy democracy.

Abrams will appear on Fox News Sunday this week. She told the host that she has been in talks with the White House.

“Yes. We’ve reached out to — we’ve been in conversations with the Biden administration, and we look forward to having folks from the Biden administration, including the president himself if he can make it,” Abrams said ahead of her appearance on “Fox News Sunday” this weekend.

“But we have to understand there are 36 governors races, there’s a little bit of a Senate kerfuffle going on, people are fighting hard, but we look forward to having anyone who wants to come to Georgia to help show up and show everyone what Georgia means,” she added.

See, everyone is really busy right now so the president might not be able to fit it into his very busy schedule. She’s talking about a president who has clocked 40% of his first term in office as vacation time. I would think that Team Biden would leap (I didn’t say ‘pounce’) at the chance to get him to someone’s campaign rally. Democrat candidates are running from having him campaign for them. No one wants to be seen standing next to Joe Biden these days.

The concern is that black men will stay home instead of getting out to vote in November. She’s been courting their vote since she knows that black male voters are trickling over to vote for Republican candidates in recent years. The vast majority still vote for Democrats, of course, but the real concern is that this race may be tight and they won’t vote at all.

“If Black men turn out in the numbers and support me at the levels they’re capable of, I can win this election, because we know Black men sometimes punch below their weight class,” Abrams said at the event. “They’ve got reasons to be distrustful, and they’ve got reasons to be disconnected. And it is not only disingenuous, it would be bad practice, for me to not do the work to show that I understand.”

To maximize Black male support, Abrams has held a series of events targeting them. A recent gathering in an un-air-conditioned warehouse featured free food and T-shirts. Abrams delivered bits of her standard speech in response to questions from Charlemagne, 21 Savage and civil rights lawyer Francys Johnson.

But the topics were tilted toward the audience, with discussions of how Abrams opposes letting prosecutors use rap lyrics in gang prosecutions, how she wants to decriminalize — but not legalize — marijuana because she fears federal criminal charges, and how she believes Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has abandoned efforts to make Georgia’s criminal justice system less punitive.

“We need leadership that sees us, that serves us and that believes in us,” Abrams said. “The current governor has proven on every one of those metrics that he does not care.”

In 2018, Abrams received 94% of the black vote. It was a big turn-out election and she still lost to Kemp. Black voters made up 29% of the electorate in that election. As of today, Real Clear Politics aggregate averaging shows Kemp up by 6.4%.