Stacey Abrams, the founder of Fair Fight, said Sunday that Democrats are experiencing a “great urgency” surrounding Georgia’s two by-elections Tuesday, which will determine the balance of power in the Senate, just as President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
‘We did very well with the vote by mail, we did very well in the early vote, but we know that election day will be the probable day for the Republicans, so we have to let Democrats who did not cast their votes apparently, ‘Abrams told ABC’s co-anchor Martha Raddatz,’ This Week ‘.
Recent polls show that the rivalry between Republican Senator David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff in their run-off and between GOP Senator Kelly Loeffler and Rev. Raphael Warnock played in the special election. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has appointed Loeffler to replace former Senator Johnny Isakson, who retired in late 2019.
The races attracted national attention, and both parties mobilized their supporters. Under-elected Vice President Kamala Harris will campaign in Savannah, Georgia, later Sunday. Both President Donald Trump and Elected President Joe Biden will be stumped in the state on Monday, with Biden fighting in Atlanta and Trump leading a rally in Dalton.
More than 3 million Georgians voted early, a record for nationwide by-elections in the Peach state. And according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 76,000 people registered to vote between the November general election deadline and the expiration date. Abrams said they are ‘very sure’, and most are democratically based on demographics.
“We have not stopped reaching the voters. Millions of contacts have been made, thousands of new registrations have been kept,” she said. “We know that at least 100,000 people who did not vote in the general election are now voting in this election.”
Raddatz urged Abrams that Biden outperform the Democratic Senate candidates in the general election and asked if she thinks so because Biden’s victory is more about dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump. Abrams attributes the difference to voters’ familiarity with Biden.
“Joe Biden has been a part of American politics for over 40 years. And for a number of new voters, they will only vote if they are confident,” she said. “That’s why we’ve spent the last nine weeks teaching educators about Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.”
“They have traversed the state and we believe that we have closed the distance and that the voters who are now showing up know them absolutely and that they stand by their side and vote for them,” she added.
Abrams also said recent Republican moves, such as Senate Leader Mitch McConnell blocking $ 2,000 stimulus checks, are convincing Democratic voters of the importance of this election.
In a breach of the Republican Party’s fiscal conservatism, Loeffler and Perdue, as well as most Democrats, supported Trump’s call for $ 2,000 stimulus checks. Both Democratic challengers blew them away for the change in their views.
“The hypocritical idea that it’s good to support affairs, but not to support government affairs, and to serve people, has really galvanized voters. They feel the real consequences of COVID-19 here in Georgia,” he said. she said.
Since Abrams lost to Kemp in the 2018 government election, Abrams has launched Fair Fight to combat voter oppression and encourage voter turnout. During the 2020 general election, Fair Fight and The New Georgia Project helped register hundreds of thousands of voters in the state.
When Raddatz Abrams insisted on some comparisons between her refusal to concede in 2018 to Kemp and Trump’s rhetoric about the 2020 election, Abrams said it was like comparing “apples and bowls”.
Abrams claims voters are oppressed following her loss to Kemp in 2018, who was then Georgia’s secretary of state. She pointed to aggressive purge of voter rolls, long queues and faulty machines at polling stations and the state preventing voters from registering in her election as a sign of oppression of voters.
“I have pointed out that a series of actions have been taken that have hampered the ability of voters to cast their ballots,” Abrams said on “This Week” Sunday. “And in almost all the circumstances, the courts agreed, just like the state legislature.”
“By contrast, President Trump has lost every challenge in the state of Georgia and he has no evidence,” she added. ” An audit, I think, the fourth of this election – found that there was no fraud in our process of signing contests. One person accidentally – or accidentally – signed for her husband against the rules, but otherwise we know that the signatures match and that the process works. “
Raddatz asked if Trump continues to advance unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud could hurt Republicans in the run-up to the election, for example, by a decline in turnout.
“I think it’s always dangerous to undermine the integrity of elections without evidence,” Abrams said. “When we challenged voter oppression, we could prove it.”