Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that Democrat Stacey Abrams would be governor-elect of Georgia today if the state had a “fair election.”
As The Statesman reports, Clinton made her latest assessment of election integrity in America while speaking at the LBJ School of Public Affairs of the University of Texas, where she received the first “In the Arena Award.” The facility is named after President Lyndon Johnson, who was also a representative and senator from the Lone Star state. (RELATED: Hillary Clinton Says Bill Didn’t Need To Resign Over Affair With ‘Adult’ Lewinsky)
“If she had a fair election, she already would have won,” the former secretary of state said in reference to the tightly contested gubernatorial fight between Abrams and Republican candidate Brian Kemp.
Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams addresses supporters at an election watch party on Nov. 6, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)
The race has been closely watched, not only because the opposing candidates were in a dead heat through much of the campaign, but because if Abrams wins, she would be he first black woman governor of Georgia. Abrams also attracted adverse publicity when the Black Panthers marched to support her candidacy and when she refused to rule out gun confiscation if she became governor.
Critics of Kemp contend that he contributed to voter suppression through his policies as secretary of state for Georgia, which reportedly flagged certain people registering to vote as non-citizens inaccurately.
In her address, Clinton also commented on the political dynamics of the Johnson era, which she claimed was more idealistic than the present day. “It was a different feeling,” Clinton said. “There wasn’t the devaluing of government and politics and the cynicism that is used to turn people away from common effort.” (RELATED: Hillary Clinton Crashes High School Football Game Takes Selfies)
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responds forcefully to intense questioning on the September attacks on U.S. diplomatic sites in Benghazi, Libya, during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington Jan. 23, 2013. REUTERS/Jason Reed
The former first lady suggested her political career was not guided by self-interest but by that same idealism. “If you’re not there for a cause larger than yourself … it is hard to keep going,” she told the crowd, according to The Statesman.
Abrams filed a lawsuit Sunday to try to force a runoff election. The Abrams-Kemp race will not be certified by the state’s election authorities until Friday afternoon because a federal judge decided that some absentee ballots should not have been rejected because the documents were not fully completed by voters.