Though the Democratic candidates for president debated in Stacey Abrams’ home state of Georgia last Wednesday, surprisingly enough her name was only mentioned twice during the debate itself – once by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (MN) and the other time by Sen. Cory Booker (NJ).
Here’s what each of them said:
Klobuchar: And I can tell you right now, one solution that would make a huge difference in this state would be to allow every kid in the country to register to vote when they turn 18. If we had a system like this, and we did something about gerrymandering, and we stopped the voting purges, and we did something significant about making sure we don’t have money in politics from the outside, Stacey Abrams would be governor of this state right now.Booker: This is a voting issue. This is a voter suppression issue. Right here in this great state of Georgia, it was the voter suppression, particularly of African-American communities, that prevented us from having a Governor Stacey Abrams right now.
In spite of the fact that Abrams wasn’t a focal point of the debate, several of the candidates stuck around the day after the debate for various events, and at each one they repeated an unsubstantiated claim that has been made for over a year now by Abrams and many other Democrats: That the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election was “stolen” from Abrams.
Joe Biden stated in comments made to journalists in Atlanta that”Stacey would be the governor right now, were it not for voter suppression, right this minute.”
During a speech at Clark Atlanta University Thursday that was also attended by Rep. Ayanna Pressley (MA), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA) told the crowd of mostly black voters that Republican Gov. Brian Kemp was “sitting in Stacey Abrams’ chair”:
Touching on last year’s race for governor, Warren said that “Brian Kemp is sitting in Stacey Abrams’ chair,” as a result of voter suppression and the abolishment of the Voting Rights Act, which was designed to protect voters.“And we are all grateful to Stacey for what she’s doing to make sure that never happens again in this country,” Warren said.
Similar remarks were also posted to her Twitter feed:
As I’ve said before, this falsehood has been debunked over and over by conservatives. But the liberal mainstream media won’t do their jobs by reminding Democrats that 1) they have no evidence to support their claims and 2) by their own standards they are undermining democracy by refusing to accept the results of an election.
Even Politifact notes there is “no proof” that voter suppression kept Stacey Abrams from winning in 2018.
Mike LaChance wrote back in June that affirming Abrams’ delusions has become a rite of passage of sorts for 2020 Democrats like Biden and Warren. The national press makes it all the easier for them to do so by refusing to call them out on the lie (instead, they do their own coddling of Abrams).
There’s a twofold strategy at work when top tier candidates like Biden and Warren continue to do this:
1) Biden wants to maintain his comfortable polling leads with black Democratic voters. Warren would like to cut into that. From the looks of things, she’s making inroads.
2) Biden has openly mentioned Abrams as one of several people he’d consider to be his vice presidential running mate. Abrams has said in interviews she would be open to a vice presidential nod.
Elizabeth Warren hasn’t talked about the vice presidential issue much, but there are reports she’s been considering (and talking to) failed Florida 2018 Democratic nominee for governor Andrew Gillum.
Other Democratic presidential candidates like Sen. Kamala Harris (CA) have remarked they believe Gillum’s election was also stolen.
Isn’t it amazing how in 2016 questioning the legitimacy of an election was considered undemocratic, a “direct threat to our democracy“? Guess that’s another one of may unwritten rules that only come into play depending on which party is making the accusation.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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