Even though Stacey Abrams lost her Georgia gubernatorial bid by more than 50,000 votes, the supposedly moderate Mayor Pete Buttigieg said on Thursday that the failed Democratic candidate is the rightful governor of the state that flatly rejected her.
According to Politico, Buttigieg spoke at the Democratic National Committee’s African American Leadership Summit in Atlanta where he alleged that Abrams lost the election due to voter suppression by Republicans.
“Stacey Abrams ought to be the governor of Georgia,” Buttigieg told his audience, prompting rounds of applause. “When racially motivated voter suppression is permitted, when districts are drawn so that politicians get to choose their voters instead of the other way around, when money is allowed to outvote people in this country, we cannot truly say we live in a democracy.”
Stacey Abrams lost her bid to become governor of Georgia when Republican Brian Kemp defeated her by a margin of nearly 55,000 votes — 1,978,408 to 1,923,685. Despite the gap, she refused to concede by claiming the election had been stolen. Several weeks later, she finally “acknowledged” her loss to Brian Kemp after nearly threatening to sue in order to force a runoff election.
“I acknowledge that former Secretary of State Brian Kemp will be certified as the victor in the 2018 gubernatorial election,” Abrams said at the time. “Let’s be clear: This is not a speech of concession because concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper. As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede that.”
Her opponent Brian Kemp later refuted Abrams’ claims that the election was somehow “stolen” from her, noting that one county she complained about was controlled by Democrats.
“Well, that’s just a mistruth. The county elections officials, the local elections boards have the sole responsibility for how many polling locations they have and where they are,” Kemp told Fox News. “That has been the rule of law and the way it works in Georgia under Republican and Democrat Secretaries of State. So that’s just not true. And by the way, the one county that this was an issue with before the election, they’re controlled by Democrats. She’s blaming me for a problem that they created and it’s just ridiculous.”
“We have laws on the books in Georgia, and I know she may not like some of the laws, but we take an oath of office and the county officials have a duty to follow the law and the elections rules that we have in our state,” Kemp continued. “We check citizenship. We require people to show photo ID when they vote. And we verify this information before people go on the voter rolls.”
Buttigieg has increasingly proven himself to be a radical in contrast to his image of being a middle-of-the-road Democrat.He has now endorsed slavery reparations, late-term abortion, repealing the Hyde Amendment, and even impeaching President Trump.