Politics

‘Disturbing’ And ‘Distressing’: Stacey Abrams Once Had Different Views On Not Recognizing Election Outcomes

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Jason Hopkins Immigration and politics reporter
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Failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams once had very critical views of people who refused to accept the outcome of elections.

Speaking to CNBC’s Andrew Sorkin during an October 2016 interview, Abrams responded harshly to an article that indicated many Trump supporters would not accept the results of the 2016 presidential election if Hillary Clinton were to be declared the victor.

WATCH:

“You’re in a state that if it does go to Trump, we may still have a national election in which Hillary Clinton were to win. One of the articles in USA Today this morning, suggest that 4 out of 10 Trump supporters would not recognize such a win if that were the case. What does that mean for a state like this?” Sorkin asked Abrams in a video obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“I think what it signals is a shifting of our politics that we’re going to have to work together to shift back,” Abrams responded. “The rancor that pervaded this campaign is disturbing and it is distressing, but it is also a fixable problem.”

The comments, which were made shortly before the 2016 election, where Hillary Clinton lost in an unexpected upset, fly in the face of Abrams’ actions since her own electoral defeat two years later.

Abrams ran and lost against Republican Brian Kemp in the Georgia gubernatorial election by over 54,700 votes. Instead of conceding, the former Georgia House minority leader has maintained that she was the victim of malicious voter suppression by Kemp, who served as Georgia’s secretary of state before becoming governor.

As recently as Wednesday, Abrams gave a speech to Al Sharpton’s National Action Network Convention and said she wouldn’t concede because it would imply that the race was “proper.”

Stacey Abrams, former Georgia Gubernatorial Candidate, is at the National Action Network (NAN) convention in New York City. (Photo by Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Stacey Abrams, former Georgia Gubernatorial Candidate, is at the National Action Network (NAN) convention in New York City. (Photo by Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

“We had this little election back in 2018 and despite the final tally and the inauguration and the situation we find ourselves in, I do have one very affirmative statement to make: we won,” she said Wednesday, despite not actually winning the election. (RELATED: Stacey Abrams’ Nonprofit Slapped With IRS Complaint)

The October 2016 interview wasn’t the first time Abrams was critical of people refusing to concede to elections. In a tweet, first unearthed by TheDCNF, Abrams called then-candidate Donald Trump “petty” and “uninterested in national stability” for suggesting he might not recognize the outcome of the presidential election.

“Trump’s refusal to concede the election if he loses proves he is a petty man uninterested in our national stability,” she wrote on Oct. 20, 2016.

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