Georgia race, still going amid uncounted ballots
ATLANTA— Democrats and Republicans nationwide had their eyes trained on Georgia to see whether the emerging battleground state, would elect the first black woman governor in American history or double down on the Deep South’s GOP tendencies with an acolyte of President Trump.
But they’ll have to wait a little longer.
With more than 3.8 million votes counted, Kemp stood at 50.8 percent, enough for an outright victory under a quirky Georgia law requiring a majority to win a general election without a runoff. But Abrams and Kemp agree there are absentee, mail-in and provisional ballots left to be counted.
Not surprisingly, the two rivals differ on how much that will matter.
Says Kemp: “There are votes left to count, but ... make no mistake, the math is on our side to win this election.”
Abrams says the number of pending ballots is enough to push Kemp’s total below the 50 percent threshold, since a Libertarian candidate is taking about 1 percent of the vote.
“I promise you tonight we’re going to make sure that every vote is counted,” Abrams added.
The Abrams campaign estimated early Wednesday at least 97,000 early votes and mail-in ballots from key counties had not been tallied, based on its tracking. Separately, it’s not yet clear how many provisional and paper ballots were cast at polling places on Tuesday. Neither the Kemp campaign nor Secretary of State Kemp’s office — he happens to be the state’s chief elections officer — has offered its detailed data.
Abrams’ campaign estimates she’d need a net gain of almost 25,000 votes to trigger a runoff, which would be held Dec. 4.
Abrams’ historic candidacy made this a race to watch from the start. She’s already the first black woman in U.S. history to be a major party’s gubernatorial nominee. In Georgia, one of the original 13 states, she’d be the first woman, and the first non-white governor. (Yes, that means nothing but white men for 242 years.)
Beyond breaking barriers, the matchup exhibits the nation’s bitter partisan, ideological divides and underscores the cultural and racial fissures still lingering in the Deep South.
In other races, Democrats wrested control of governorships from Republicans in seven states on Tuesday including Wisconsin, where they ousted Scott Walker after eight tumultuous years as the state’s chief executive, and Kansas, a surprise victory in a longtime Republican stronghold.
The victories expanded the number of states with Democratic chief executives — an important consideration as legislatures begin the process of drawing congressional district lines. In addition to Kansas and Wisconsin, Democrats picked up governor’s seats in Nevada, Illinois, Michigan, New Mexico and Maine.
Still, the results reflected a night of mixed tidings for the party out of power, given that Democrats were hoping to install a rising young star in Florida and sweep the Midwest states where Trump forged the core of his unexpected victory two years ago.
The victory in Florida by Ron DeSantis, a Republican supporter of Trump, turned back the historic effort by Andrew Gillum, the Tallahassee mayor, who was seeking to become the first African American governor of his state.