Politics

Media Applauds ‘Graceful’ Concession By McSally, Ignores Refusal From Abrams To Do The Same

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Jason Hopkins Immigration and politics reporter
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  • Media figures widely praised Arizona GOP senatorial candidate Martha McSally for her concession speech Monday. 
  • At the same time, the establishment media has not criticized Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, a Democrat, for her refusal to concede.
  • Not only has Abrams refused to quit the race, but her campaign has also filed a lawsuit and accused her Republican opponent, Brian Kemp, of voter suppression. 

Numerous media personalities praised GOP candidate Rep. Martha McSally for her concession in the close Arizona Senate election, but these same outlets have seemingly not held Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams to the same standard.

McSally conceded the election on Monday night, bringing closure to a tight race that took nearly a week after Election Day to finally end. McSally posted a video on Twitter, thanking her supporters and congratulating her opponent, Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, for a hard fought victory.

“As I traveled around this state, I was so inspired by the many people that I met, and I am convinced that Arizona is the best state in the country and our best days are still yet to come,” McSally said in the video, bringing the election to a close.

McSally received widespread praise for her “graceful” concession, with numerous people cheering her for bowing out quickly.

However, as the praise for McSally continues, there have been virtually zero calls from establishment media figures for Stacey Abrams to end her gubernatorial campaign in Georgia — despite there being a mathematical impossibility for her to force a run-off election or recount at this point in the election.

Left-wing writer Josh Marshall — who derided the concept of attacking or lying about the voting process  — stated that Abrams’ lawsuit over the Georgia election wasn’t “terribly controversial.”

Self-identified conservative Jennifer Rubin called Republican doubts over the Arizona election results “reprehensible” and an “anti-democratic process of delegitimizing elections” in a Tuesday article for the Washington Post. But Rubin has not reported nor tweeted a thing about Abrams since Election Day.

And Daily Beast reporter Andrew Desiderio has neither tweeted nor reported about Abrams since Election Day. (RELATED: Stacey Abrams Used To Write Steamy Romance Novels — Here Are The Raunchiest Excerpts)

All three praised McSally for her concession.

The silence over Abrams’ conduct comes as she refuses to concede the election to former Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp.

As the election currently stands, Kemp has 1,977,502 votes, or 50.2 percent of the total vote. Abrams has 1,921,680, or 48.8 percent of the total vote. Under Georgia law, a candidate must win an outright majority or else face a runoff election.

The Abrams campaign has acknowledged that there is no way for her to win outright, but they believe they can force a runoff election with the remainder of uncounted ballots. Abrams would need about a 18,500 net gain of the remaining votes in order to force a runoff.

Kemp — who declared victory last Wednesday and has already begun the transition process — has consistently said this would be an impossible feat for Abrams. His campaign has gone so far to say that she could win every single uncounted ballot and still remain short of the 18,500 threshold.

Abrams’ hopes rest completely in a belief that Kemp is lying and that the number of uncounted absentee and provisional ballots are unknown. Her campaign has also been successful in the courtroom, forcing county officials to count error-ridden absentee ballots and prolonging officials from finalizing the election results.

Abrams supporters led a protest at the Georgia capitol on Tuesday, where people alleged without evidence that votes were not being properly counted. The demonstration led to law enforcement apprehending 15 people. The American Civil Liberties Union was present at the event and demanded, without evidence, that a runoff election be held because of election irregularities.

Establishment media — which has criticized Republicans for questioning the process taking place in Florida — has seemingly spent no time examining whether such actions are detrimental to the democratic process in Georgia.

National Review editor Rich Lowry summarized the situation:

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