Back in 2018, Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams was the toast of the Democrat/media elite. After nearly 16 years of Republican rule in the Peach State, she would be the candidate who brought the governor’s mansion back home to Democrats.
Except when all was said and done, Abrams was the one who lost.
Unhappy with the outcome, Abrams refused to concede and proceeded to allege without evidence that her Republican opponent — then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp — rigged the election in his favor by purging voters from the voter rolls.
Abrams’ refusal to admit she lost the election catapulted her to rock star status with Democrats and their media allies. Her claims that the election was “stolen” from her were treated with the utmost reverence by the same people who now accuse former President Donald Trump of being a threat to democracy for his refusal concede the 2020 presidential election.
In the four years since Abrams lost her election, she was floated as a contender for the U.S. Senate, a vice presidential possibility for Joe Biden, and some even suggested she run for president.
Instead, Abrams decided to run for governor again, apparently thinking the second time would be the charm.
So far, it hasn’t been. Abrams’ 2022 campaign for governor has been plagued with problems, all of which can be blamed on Stacey Abrams herself.
To date, Abrams hasn’t led in a single poll taken on her rematch with Kemp, and over the last two weeks Kemp has expanded his lead over Abrams to well outside the margin of error in most polls with just a few weeks to go before election day.
So why hasn’t Abrams been able to recapture the supposed magic of her 2018 gubernatorial run?
One can only speculate, but for starters I believe both her insistence on playing word games over her refusal to concede the 2018 gubernatorial election to Kemp and how she keeps trying to differentiate her claims about a “stolen” election to Trump’s have not helped her at a time when Democrats have conveniently become election-year absolutists on questioning elections and refusing to accept the results.
Further, it was Abrams who along with Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock and President Joe Biden sabotaged her state by falsely claiming that the 2021 election reforms bill signed into law by Gov. Kemp was “Jim Crow in a suit and tie.”
As a result of Democrat demagoguery about the bill, Major League Baseball pulled the All-Star game out of the state and along with it an estimated $100 million in revenue that could have helped minority-owned businesses in the Atlanta area, many of which were struggling due to the COVID restrictions that were still in place at the time.
Also, Abrams took a nasty swipe at her home state earlier this year during a speech she gave to Gwinnett County Democrats, where she said, “I am tired of hearing about how we’re the best state in the country to do business when we are the worst state in the country to live.” It was an astonishing claim considering she reportedly owns two homes in Georgia.
As I’ve said before, after all Abrams has said and done to disparage her state, she doesn’t deserve the vote of a single person. Though she’ll get some, if current polls are a reliable indicator what she gets won’t be near enough votes to defeat Kemp who, if he continues on his current electoral trajectory, will beat her by so many votes in his bid for reelection that there will be no question — not even from Abrams’ most ardent defenders — as to who legitimately won the race.
Maybe then she’ll finally concede.
North Carolina native Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a media analyst and regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.
