Stacey Abrams Called Out for 'Wildly Racist' Debate Moment in Which She Targeted 107 Sheriffs
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams met Sunday night in Atlanta for the second of two scheduled debates, nine days before Election Day.
It went pretty much the way you’d expect.
In a segment on law enforcement, the two argued about whether Abrams had expressed support in the past for de-funding police, with Abrams citing her 11 years in state government “working with our Sheriff’s Association.”
Which does sort of make you wonder why most of those sheriffs support Kemp’s re-election. Or maybe it doesn’t make you wonder; maybe it actually answers that question.
“Men and women in law enforcement know who is going to be with them, who has their back and will continue to have their back,” Kemp said. “And that is me, and that’s why we have the endorsement of 107 sheriffs around this state.”
For the record, there are 159 county sheriffs in Georgia, which means that just over two-thirds of the state’s sheriffs have endorsed Kemp. Those are fairly overwhelming odds — which may explain why Abrams resorted to a truly bizarre, and arguably racist, rebuttal.
“As I pointed out before, I’m not a member of The Good Old Boys Club,” she said. “So no, I don’t have 107 sheriffs who want to be able to take black people off the streets, who want to be able to go without accountability.”
That’s what she thinks of Georgia’s sheriffs after working with the state sheriff’s association for 11 years? No wonder most of them are voting against her.
Abrams may have realized that she’d gone too far — after all, it seems to me that Georgia sheriffs already are “able to take black people off the streets,” but there seem to be plenty of black people still on Georgia’s streets — and backpedaled a bit.
“I don’t believe every sheriff wants that, but I do know that we need a governor who believes in both defending law enforcement, but also defending the people of Georgia,” she said. I guess that means she thinks the people of Georgia are at war with their sheriffs — the sheriffs the people of George elected into office in the first place — and that the governor should be standing between the warring factions, like U.N. peacekeepers in Cyprus.
Or something.
Abrams then told a story about her brothers — one a criminal and one a social worker — and claimed to be “running for governor because we lead complicated lives.”
I’m not sure that cleared anything up, but Abrams doesn’t really have a reputation for clarity.
For whatever it’s worth, a list on the Kemp campaign website of Georgia sheriffs who have endorsed Kemp’s re-election has at least one black sheriff on it: Sheriff Charles J. Davis.
You can watch the entire debate here, but we’ve cued it up to the comments transcribed above:
Debate viewers on social media seemed a little dumbfounded by Abrams’ remarks.
WOW… @staceyabrams just accused 107 Georgia sheriffs of wanting to “take Black peoples off the streets.”
What in the world? https://t.co/91qJXgC1Ot
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) October 30, 2022
WOW… @staceyabrams just accused 107 Georgia sheriffs of wanting to “take Black peoples off the streets.”
What in the world? https://t.co/91qJXgC1Ot
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) October 30, 2022
What does all this mean for next week’s election? Not much, probably.
The RealClearPolitics polling average puts Kemp 7.9 points ahead of his challenger, and the site says the race “leans GOP.” The last three polls listed all had Kemp ahead and outside the margin of error. The Cook Political Report agrees that the race “leans R.” FiveThirtyEight gives Kemp a 91 percent chance of winning and predicts he’ll pull in 52.9 percent of the vote.
Even CNN was forced to admit this morning that it looked like the race was Kemp’s to lose, thought it did its usual best to offer some hope to its leftist reader base.
“Kemp has led in most polling of the race, but Abrams — who came within a few thousand votes of pushing their 2018 race to a run-off — has a strong base of support and has succeeded in helping to mobilize Democrats in her campaigns and those of other high-ranking Democratic candidates, including President Joe Biden and Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in their 2020 campaigns.”
Translation: The best predictors of future events say that Kemp will win, but some people will certainly vote for Abrams. In CNN’s defense, that outcome does seem likely: Kemp will indeed win, but not with 100 percent of the vote.
If this debate changed any minds, it’s probably not enough to matter. In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say that anyone who changed their mind after watching last night’s event most likely changed it from “planning to vote for Stacey Abrams” to “planning to stay home and watch reruns on cable.”
Which, if you ask me, would probably be time better spent.
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