Stacey Abrams’ campaign said Wednesday that they “remain committed to making sure every vote is counted” in the too-close-to-call Georgia governor’s race against Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp, moving ahead with preparations for a possible runoff.
“The onus is on our campaign to fight for fairness,” Abrams campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo told reporters in a morning call.
“We will fight for those votes and those voters,” she added.
Abrams herself made the same case to a rowdy crowd of supporters in the pre-dawn hours on Wednesday, promising to look into any irregularities and ensure that all absentee and mail ballots are counted.
Per Groh-Wargo’s count, Kemp was 15,539 votes ahead of the runoff threshold as of 9:52 a.m. ET Wednesday. The Republican Secretary of State, who will oversee the election results after refusing to recuse himself, needs more than 50 percent of the vote to win the election outright and avoid a runoff. The New York Times put his total at 50.5 percent as of 10:43 a.m. ET.
The Abrams campaign thinks it can keep him from that threshold once all mail and provisional ballots are processed, and rejected absentee ballots are reviewed.
Groh-Wargo said that counties have a deadline of the Monday after Election Day to canvass all their results, which will then go to the Secretary of State’s office for certification. Criticizing Kemp’s oversight of the process, she said his office did not advise counties on whether they still needed to adhere that deadline though Monday is a federal holiday, or if they’d be given a one-day extension.
