Stacey Abrams won the 2018 Georgia governor's race
| Stacey Abrams won the 2018 Georgia governor's race | |
|---|---|
| UNSUPPORTED | |
| "Democrat Stacey Abrams actually won the 2018 Georgia governor's election, which was stolen from her through voter suppression by her opponent, Secretary of State Brian Kemp." | |
| Domain | Politics & Elections |
| Tactic | Statistical & Evidentiary Distortion False Context |
| Era | Current |
| First seen | 2018 |
| Origin | Statements by Stacey Abrams and supporters after the November 2018 election, including her refusal to concede and later remarks that she had won |
| Last reviewed | 2026-10-27 |
| Further reading: books on Politics & Elections | |
The claim that Stacey Abrams won the 2018 Georgia governor's race grew out of Abrams's refusal to concede after losing to Republican Brian Kemp by about 55,000 votes, or 1.4 percentage points. Kemp, as Georgia's secretary of state, oversaw the election in which he was a candidate, and critics documented policies that made voting harder, including large-scale removal of inactive voters from the rolls, a strict "exact match" registration rule and polling place closures. Abrams acknowledged that Kemp would be certified as governor but said she would not concede, and later said in speeches that she had won. No evidence showed that these practices cost her enough votes to change the outcome, and in 2022 a federal judge rejected the main voting rights claims brought by her organization after a lengthy trial.
The claim
On November 16, 2018, Abrams said she would not offer a concession because concession would mean acknowledging that the process was right and proper, which she said it was not. In later speeches and interviews, she said that she had won or that the election had been stolen, while also saying she did not contest the legal result. Many Democrats and commentators echoed the claim that the election had been stolen through suppression.
What the evidence shows
- Voter roll maintenance. Georgia removed hundreds of thousands of inactive registrations in 2017 under a "use it or lose it" process, a practice upheld by the US Supreme Court in a separate Ohio case in 2018. Critics said it disproportionately affected minority voters.
- Exact match. Before the election, about 53,000 registrations were placed in "pending" status because information did not exactly match state records; most applicants were Black. Those voters could still cast ballots by showing identification, and a federal judge ordered further accommodations.
- Conflict of interest. Kemp declined to resign as secretary of state while running, which critics, and some election experts, viewed as a serious conflict of interest.
- No evidence of a changed outcome. No study or court found that these practices cost Abrams the roughly 55,000 votes she would have needed to win, or the smaller number needed to force a runoff.
- Court ruling. In September 2022, after a trial in Fair Fight Action v. Raffensperger, US District Judge Steve Jones, an Obama appointee, ruled that Georgia's challenged election practices did not violate the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act.
- 2022 rematch. Abrams ran again in 2022 and lost to Kemp by about 7.5 percentage points. She conceded.
Why it persists
The claim persisted because the concerns about Georgia's election administration were real and because Kemp's dual role created the appearance of unfairness. However, describing the election as stolen went beyond the evidence. Critics on the right pointed to Abrams's statements as a double standard when Democrats condemned claims that the 2020 election was stolen; defenders argued that her complaints concerned access to voting rather than fraud, and that she did not try to overturn the result.
Lessons for readers
- Distinguish between concerns about voting access and claims that an outcome was changed.
- Ask whether documented problems were large enough to affect the result.
- Conflicts of interest deserve scrutiny but are not proof of a stolen election.
- Court rulings after full trials carry weight.
- Apply the same standard to claims of stolen elections from all parties.
See also
- The 2004 election was stolen in Ohio
- The 2020 presidential election was stolen
- Georgia's 2021 election law is Jim Crow 2.0
Sources
- Georgia Secretary of State, certified results of the November 6, 2018, general election.
- Stacey Abrams, remarks in Atlanta, November 16, 2018.
- Fair Fight Action, Inc. v. Raffensperger, US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, findings of fact and conclusions of law (September 30, 2022).
- The Washington Post Fact Checker, analyses of Stacey Abrams's statements about the 2018 election.