Politics

Abrams, Kemp Spar Over 2018 Race, Unproven Voter Suppression Claims

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Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia and Democrat Stacey Abrams clashed during a Monday evening gubernatorial debate over the 2018 election and unproven claims of voter suppression.

“In 2018, I began my speech on Nov. 16, acknowledging that Governor Kemp had won the election,” Abrams said. “I then proceeded to lay out in great detail the challenges faced by voters under his leadership as secretary of state.”

Abrams refused to concede to Kemp in 2018, claiming “concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true, or proper” and that she could not do that, alleging voter suppression.

“I would just say that Miss Abrams is going to do a lot of attacking of my record tonight, because she doesn’t want to talk about her own record in 2018, in the governor’s race we had the largest African American turnout in the country,” Kemp said. “She said that Senate bill 202, our recent election integrity act we passed two years ago, would be suppressive and Jim Crow 2.0. Just this past May in our primaries, we again had record turnout in the Republican primary and the democratic primary in Georgia.”

“In Georgia, it’s easy to vote and hard to cheat,” Kemp said.

Georgia reported record turnout in the May 2022 primary elections, the first after Georgia passed its new election laws.

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Abrams and President Joe Biden were among those who labeled the 2021 election integrity law as “Jim Crow 2.0.” Major League Baseball pulled the 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta over the legislation.

After Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Shane Hazel complained about ballot access for third parties, Abrams again claimed Kemp was suppressing votes.

“We need a governor, who believes in access to the right to vote and not in voter suppression, which is the hallmark of Brian Kemp’s leadership,” Abrams said.

“With all due respect, I was called out, I would like to just the record reflect as my time as secretary of state the person that created the online voter registration system in the state where any Georgian can register to vote 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Kemp said. “So for someone to say that we have been suppressed of in our state or we’ve seen turn out increase over the years, including with minorities like African-Americans, Latinos and others is simply not true. And again, Miss Abrams is going to lie about my record because she doesn’t want to talk about her own.”