The 2018 gubernatorial election in Georgia drew national attention when Georgia state representative Stacey Abrams became the first Black woman to be nominated for governor in a majority-party in the United States. A Yale graduate, Abrams faced off against Georgia's then-Secretary of State, Republican Brian Kemp.
As Secretary of State, Kemp controversially oversaw his own election. From 2016, Kemp's office purged over 300 thousand voter registrations, and put an additional 53 thousand voter registration applications on hold—three-fourths of which were filed by minorities. Kemp's office was later found to have violated the law.
Abrams lost the election by only 50 thousand votes, with many—including Abrams herself—believing Kemp used his position as Secretary of State to conduct the election in his favor.
Flash forward two years later, and now-Governor Kemp is making headlines again for all the wrong reasons.
As virus cases in Georgia continue to surge, numerous cities in the state have issued mandatory mask mandates in an effort to slow the spread of the virus. Kemp, who sparked outrage when reopening his state as early as April, issued an executive order explicitly forbidding mask mandates in Georgia.
Stacey Abrams—who launched a massive voting rights initiative after her narrow 2018 loss—didn't mince words when criticizing Kemp's virus response. She also recalled his acknowledgment that the virus can spread through asymptomatic carriers—a fact he said he'd just learned months after it became common knowledge.
Watch below.
"From the beginning of this catastrophe, Brian Kemp has demonstrated that he has absolutely no competency in this process," Stacey Abrams says of the governor's decision to void local mask mandates. "What he continues to do is downplay ... the deaths of Georgians." pic.twitter.com/6gl5GPs2GB
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) July 16, 2020
Abrams said:
"From the beginning of this catastrophe, Brian Kemp has demonstrated he has absolutely no competency in this process. This is the same man who didn't understand weeks after the world knew that asymptomatic people could spread the disease...What he continues to do is downplay not only the challenge to Georgians but the deaths of Georgians. More than 300 Georgians have perished, disproportionately Black and Brown Georgians, and he continues to fiddle while Rome burns."
She concluded:
"This is not a man who is capable of leadership, but he is following the lead of the incompetency and the immorality of the President of the United States."
Twitter users concurred with her assessment.
Abrams's competence led many to long for the Governor Georgia could have had.
Abrams is reportedly under consideration to be on the ticket with Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
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