Georgia’s gubernatorial race is another contentious battle. Republican Brain Kemp has a two-point lead, but Democrat Stacey Abrams refuses to concede. She bizarrely talks of a “do-over” when it comes to this race (via The Hill):
Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams offered no signs she plans to concede in the Georgia gubernatorial race during a speech in the early morning hours of Wednesday.
"I want to say this: if I wasn’t your first choice or if you made no choice at all, you’re gonna have a chance to do a do-over," Abrams said during the speech to supporters, alluding to a potential recount.
"Votes remain to be counted, there are voices that remain to be heard," she said. "We believe our chance for a stronger Georgia is within reach."
Abrams's remarks came shortly after her campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo said her campaign believes there are outstanding votes in Democratic areas as well as provisional and absentee ballots that could lead to her victory, Talking Points memo reported.
Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R) led Abrams 51 to 48 percent with 97 percent of precincts reporting when Abrams made her speech.
Abrams seems to be hoping for either a runoff or recount. Under Georgia law, if a candidate fails to clinch over 50 percent, it triggers a runoff that will be held on December 4. Obviously, they want the latter. It’s now about those provisional ballots (via NBC News):
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams' campaign disputed on Saturday her opponent Brian Kemp's claims that there are not enough outstanding provisional ballots for Georgia's governors seat to trigger a recount or runoff election.
Abram's campaign said their findings show a total of 26,846 provisional ballots are uncounted as of Saturday morning. Meanwhile, Kemp's campaign said 21,190 provisional ballots are still outstanding.
[…]
If Abrams is able to gain slightly more than 23,700 votes on Kemp, the race is pushed into a mandatory recount. If she can gain about 25,600, it is forced into a runoff. The Democrat is hoping that once all the votes are accounted for, her opponent's vote share drops below the critical 50 percent threshold, which would trigger a runoff election on Dec. 4.
[…]
Kemp said Thursday that even if Abrams received "100 percent" of the remaining provisional ballots, he would still come out on top.
Abrams' campaign lawyers filed a lawsuit Thursday over absentee ballots in the state's Dougherty County.
Groh-Wargo said Kemp owes the people of Georgia "an explanation" for why accurate and complete information was not being provided. "We need to see lists, we need to see names, we need to see counts of every vote," she said, later adding that the campaign would not stop pressing forward "until we are confident that every vote has been counted."
U.S. District Judge W. Louis Sands said that the county must accept all absentee ballots received by Friday and will not certify the results of the election until Tuesday, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
And now we have surprise ballots that Democrats say put them within reach of sinking Kemp (via Washington Examiner):
The Democratic Party of Georgia tweeted Saturday evening that a "handful" of Georgia counties reported thousands of "new" absentee, early, and Election Day votes not accounted for by Republican candidate Brian Kemp.
[…]
The latest vote tally on the Georgia secretary of state's website shows Kemp leading by more than a percentage point. Kemp had 1,975,806 votes to Abrams' 1,916,931 -- a margin of 58,875 votes -- leading 50.28 percent to Abrams' 48.78 percent. The Libertarian candidate, Ted Metz, had a mere 37,149 votes and 0.95 percent of the vote.
Yeah, I’ll let you debate among yourselves about all of these “new” ballots keep popping up.