US political discourse has a habit of elevating figures without knowing anything about them. Barack Obama became president with nary a discussion of his ties to finance, thanks to his speeches and charm. Beto O’Rourke, a centrist, business-friendly Democrat, was briefly a top contender for president on the back of his youth and mastery of viral videos. And then there’s Stacey Abrams.

For the past two years, Abrams has been a leading recipient of this hopscotching swarm of liberal adoration, moving like O’Rourke, from losing a high-profile statewide race to becoming one of the leading Democratic officeholders in the country, despite no longer holding any office. Abrams has been floated as everything from a future president to a future attorney general.

She delivered the party’s official State of the Union response in 2019, and her every public utterance tends to set off a flurry of fevered speculation about the exact shape of her political future. The subject of countless glossy profiles, Abrams has been one of the more high-profile names on Joe Biden’s vice presidential short list, and was even briefly floated as a possible appointee to the late John Lewis’s House seat.