Stacey Abrams responds to RNC chairwoman: ‘Concession means to say that the process was fair’

Stacey Abrams said Monday that she won’t concede her loss in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race, arguing that would make her complicit in accepting voter suppression.

Her comments follow remarks from Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel, who tweeted the previous day that Abrams should concede the race to Gov. Brian Kemp (R) if she “actually cared about the integrity of elections.”

Abrams, speaking on “CBS This Morning,” answered why she hasn’t conceded.

“Concession means to say that the process was fair, but when I run an organization that in 10 days between election night and the night I refuse to concede we receive more than 50,000 phone calls for people who were denied the right to vote I am complicit if I say that that system is fair,” Abrams said.

Why haven’t you conceded?

“Because concession means to say that the process was fair… I am complicit if I say that that system is fair.” — @staceyabrams pic.twitter.com/vfvrRkyvHN

— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) August 19, 2019

She noted that she is not denying the “legal sufficiency of the election.”

“I am not claiming to be the governor of Georgia, despite what Breitbart and others like to say,” Abrams added. “What I have said is that we won the battle of making sure more voices are heard because we had the highest record turnout in Georgia history for Democrats.”

{mosads}“Because there are more people in the water that doesn’t mean there are fewer sharks,” she said. “You can have higher turnout, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that voter suppression is real and affecting people across the country.”

Abrams emerged as a kind of political rock star after she came within 2 percentage points of defeating Kemp in last year’s governor’s race in deep-red Georgia.

She has since raised concerns that alleged voter suppression may have been, at least in part, responsible for her narrow loss. Abrams has cited the removal of thousands of people who hadn’t cast ballots in recent elections from the voting rolls, as well as hours-long lines at precincts.

Abrams recently decided against entering the 2020 presidential race and is instead focusing her efforts on a plan to combat voter suppression by expanding her advocacy group, Fair Fight Action.