South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg theorized that former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams lost her Georgia race in 2018 because of “racially motivated patterns of voter suppression.”
The Democratic presidential candidate made the comments during the unveiling of his new policy, “Building Power: A Women’s Agenda for the 21st Century” in Bow, New Hampshire.
“If one party has decided that in order for them to succeed that fewer people vote I would think that’s a sign that maybe your policies need a look,” he said. “But, there’s a kind of cynical decision, and it’s happening across the country, whether it’s the racially motivated patterns of voter suppression are responsible for Stacey Abrams not being governor of Georgia right now [applause] or whether it’s the effort to suppress the student vote that we saw in New Hampshire.”
.@PeteButtigieg, 2018 truther: “Racially motivated patterns of voter suppression are responsible for Stacey Abrams not being governor of Georgia right now” pic.twitter.com/NaU4gUG61A
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 25, 2019
Author James Hasson called Buttigieg’s claim “provably false.” (RELATED: Democrats Are Misleadingly Blaming The GOP For Racist Voter Suppression In The Georgia Gubernatorial Battle)
This is a provably false claim that almost every Dem 2020 candidate has made but our fearless firefighters oddly have no interest in fact-checking.
But keep fact-checking the Babylon Bee, guys. Bang-up job of saving the republic. https://t.co/BqhbygCdCM
— James Hasson (@JamesHasson20) October 25, 2019
Abrams has more than once pressed the voter suppression angle as a way to explain her narrow defeat, even insisting that the race was “stolen” from her. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp refuted his former Democratic opponent’s claim in a “Fox & Friends” appearance last November, explaining the historic turnout at the polls and the fact that Abrams’ own voter registration initiative caused many of the problems at some polling locations.