Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams on Tuesday challenged CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, accusing her of spreading “disinformation” following her refusal to concede her loss in the 2018 election.
Abrams narrowly lost the 2018 gubernatorial election to Republican Governor Brian Kemp and refused to concede, arguing that state election laws violated voting rights. Her refusal to concede has long been likened to former President Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election, which she blamed on fraud, but Abrams disputes that.
“Well, I remember you said to the New York Times, ‘I won,’ and you described it as a stolen election,” Collins told Abrams.
“Caitlan, that’s actually false,” Abrams interjected. “Normally I wouldn’t interrupt you, but you’re repeating disinformation.”
Abrams argued that legal challenges to the election results, even as they upheld the results in Kemp’s favor, were an admission that the state’s election laws were inadequate.
“I’ve never been governor of Georgia, and I’ve never claimed to be governor of Georgia,” Abrams said. “What I’ve said is that voters’ rights were completely denied. Courts agreed with me at the time of the election. They agreed with me after the election. States have changed their laws, and unfortunately some of those laws, too many of them, have been reinstated in various forms.”
“And voter suppression continues, not just in Georgia but across the country, because Republicans, now that they no longer have the protections of the Voting Rights Act, are using their power to change the law to make it harder for ordinary voters to show up to the polls and have their vote counted,” she continued. “That should be our focus.”
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican on the other side of Abrams’ election lawsuit, criticized her comments on Wednesday.
“I have spent much of my time in office holding failed candidates like Stacey Abrams accountable to the voters of Georgia. Stacey Abrams’ recent comments show that she has not yet accepted that she lost in 2018,” he said in a statement. “And the fact that she still cannot accept it means she is not qualified to be on television talking about defending democracy.”
“The fact is, under the established rules of the game, she lost fair and square,” he continued.
