Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said that a victory from Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams would lead to a “Cold War” between the two states.
DeSantis made the remarks during a recent press conference, where he commented on the Masters golf tournament and referenced the upcoming elections in Georgia, which lies immediately to Florida’s north. DeSantis made a jab at Abrams — a progressive who narrowly lost the 2018 gubernatorial race to Governor Brian Kemp (R-GA) — by comparing her to communist Cuban dictator Raúl Castro.
“If Stacey Abrams is elected governor of Georgia, I just want to be honest, that will be a cold war between Florida and Georgia,” he said. “I can’t have Castro to my south and Abrams to my north, that would be a disaster. So I hope you guys take care of that and we’ll end up in good shape.”
Castro succeeded his brother, Fidel Castro, as Cuba’s leader in 2011. Raúl Castro stepped down as first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba in 2021 and was replaced by Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Abrams announced her intention to run in the 2022 race at the end of last year. “Regardless of the pandemic or the storms, the obstacles in our way or the forces determined to divide us, my job has been to just put my head down and keep working toward one Georgia,” she said. “Because in the end, we are one Georgia.”
Among other facets of her platform, Abrams promises to implement “high-quality, affordable child care” for children from kindergarten through fourth grade, to “cultivate school programs that proactively support LGBTQ+ kids,” and to “defend the rights of women and families” to exercise their “reproductive rights.”
Abrams has spent the better part of the past four years insisting that she actually won Georgia’s last gubernatorial race. Indeed, Abrams’ recent announcement immediately provoked mockery from conservatives. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) fired: “Wait I thought you said you were already the Governor.”
In 2019, Abrams told MSNBC: “I think the election was stolen from the people of Georgia.”
“I don’t know that empirically, I would have won,” she explained. “But if you add together the thousands of people who faced extraordinary long lines, who faced hurdles that should not happen in a democracy, the votes that we know were not counted, the secretary of state who was also my opponent in the race purged more than 1.4 million voters over basically an eight-year period.”
In October 2021, Abrams said she came from a state where she was not “entitled” to become governor, again hinting that the election was stolen from her.
“Just because you win doesn’t mean you won,” Abrams said while campaigning for former Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe. “We’ve got folks who are ready to take back what they think is theirs, but they are not entitled to our progress. They are not entitled to our justice. They are not entitled to our vote.”
“I come from a state where I was not entitled to become the governor, but as an American citizen and a citizen of Georgia, I’m going to fight for every person who has the right to vote to be able to cast that vote,” she continued.