Brian Kemp: Stacey Abrams Struggling with Black Voters Because ‘They’re Seeing Through’ Voter Suppression Lie

BUTLER, Georgia — While Gov. Brian Kemp’s (R) lead in polls grows, his challenger Stacey Abrams is struggling to capture full support from one of Democrats’ most reliable voting blocs.

Across at least three recent polls, Abrams is roughly ten points behind where she needs to be with black voters, who make up nearly one third of Georgia’s active electorate.

Abrams achieved about 93 percent of black voters’ support in her 2018 run for governor, according to exit polls, and even then, the Georgia Democrat narrowly lost to Kemp by a little more than one percent.

Now, Abrams is hovering at about 81 percent support from black voters with less than a month until the election, according to the latest polls from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Survey USA, and Fox.

Asked by Breitbart News at a campaign stop Tuesday at Barrow Gun Shop about Abrams’ polling numbers with the critical demographic, Kemp opined that voters were “seeing through” her false claims about his landmark election integrity bill, which, he said, led to Major League Baseball pulling its 2021 All-Star Game out of the state.

“Stacey Abrams cost us the All-Star Game and cost — especially minority businesses — over $100 million in revenue when we lost the All-Star Game because she was telling a lie,” Kemp said. “We just had record turnout in our primary. Thankfully the Braves won the World Series. So a lot of non-traditional Republican voters, African Americans and so on, they’re seeing through all that.”

Kemp’s remarks came after he met with dozens of supporters, including the Butler mayor, Taylor County sheriff, and district attorney, in the small rural town of Butler in western Georgia.

In 2021, when Kemp signed the Election Integrity Act, the governor was met with a barrage of fallacious attacks from Democrats, and Abrams, whose central focus became voting rights in the aftermath of her 2018 loss, was perhaps the most vocal opponent of all. Abrams repeatedly accused Kemp of instituting a voting law that was restrictive to the point of being suppressive for racial minorities in particular, coining the bill “Jim Crow 2.0.”

The bill, among its many provisions, tightened voter ID laws for absentee ballots and called for the redistribution of ballot boxes based on voter registration data. Ballot boxes had not been used in Georgia at all prior to 2020 and were installed to accommodate increased mail-in voting as coronavirus was peaking. The bill aimed to increase security around the boxes while still allowing them.

Abrams also decried the bill’s restriction on solicitation at polling places, saying it deprived voters — waiting in long lines to vote — of water. That was false, as unattended water coolers are permitted at polling places and people are also allowed to bring their own water if they want.

Abrams, Major League Baseball, and other opponents and boycotters of the bill were forced to face their false notions about the bill after the state’s 2022 primary shattered turnout records, as laid out by a Washington Post op-ed.

In an apparent veiled response to the polling lag among black voters, Abrams’ George Soros-funded One Georgia group came out with a new ad this week repeating claims of voter suppression, warning that Kemp cannot win if minority voters “show up to vote.”

#GeorgiaRemembers when Brian Kemp admitted he targeted millions of voters b/c he didn’t like the 2020 results. He signed SB202, one of the nation’s harshest voter suppression laws.

Complicated applications. Restrictive hours. No free water in lines. That’s the real Brian Kemp. pic.twitter.com/7XbFlRWBkm

— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) October 12, 2022

Kemp noted as he spoke about Abrams that her various attacks on him are an indication she is “desperate.”

“I think Stacey Abrams is a desperate political candidate, quite honestly, right now. I mean, they’re changing their attack just about every other day trying to get something to stick. The problem that she has right now, is that I have a record, and all Georgians know what that record is,” Kemp said. “We have a great economy. We fought hard to make sure we have secure elections, but we’ve also had record turnout.”

Despite polling among black voters appearing problematic for Abrams, and despite several outlets, including the Post, Bloomberg, the Los Angeles Times, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, taking note of the issue, Abrams is calling the observations “manufactured.”

The Georgia Democrat told Fox News’s Shannon Bream in a television appearance on Sunday, “I think it’s a manufactured crisis designed to suppress turnout … I’ve done more than fifty events in the black community.”

Abrams added, “I’m excited about the turnout we’re seeing. I’m excited about the engagement that we’re seeing. I know, however, that every election cycle there has to be some worry, and in this case, it is a worry that’s being manufactured.”