Abrams set new historical marks with a primary victory on Tuesday that made her the first black nominee and first female nominee for governor of either majority party in Georgia.

Voters also picked nominees in Kentucky, Arkansas and Texas ahead of the November midterms. A closer look at key story lines:

Democrats were set to nominate a woman for governor either way, with Stacey Abrams and Stacey Evans battling it out in a pitched primary fight.

But the 44-year-old Abrams stood out in her bid to be the nation's first African-American woman to lead a state.

The former state General Assembly leader was insistent that the way to dent Republican domination in Georgia wasn't by cautiously pursuing the older white voters who had abandoned Democrats over recent decades. Rather, she wanted to widen the electorate by attracting young voters and nonwhites who hadn't been casting ballots.

Abrams was first elected to the Georgia state House of Representatives in 2006, and would later become the first woman to lead either party in the Georgia General Assembly as well as the first African American to lead the state's House of Representatives.

She has been considered a rising star among her party's progressive wing, taking centre stage at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

Australian Associated Press