Stacey Abrams urges voters to unseat Perdue and Loeffler in final plea: ‘Georgia, I’m counting on you’

It’s down to the wire in Georgia - and Stacey Abrams is focused on every single vote

Stacey Abrams has released a final message urging voters to unseat Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler before polls opened on Tuesday for the state’s pair of runoff elections, which will ultimately determine which party controls the Senate.

The former Democratic gubernatorial candidate, who founded the voting rights initiative Fair Fight Action, said in a video message posted to social media: “Georgia, I’m counting on you.”

Ms Abrams also encouraged her more than 1.7 million Twitter followers to support Democratic senatorial candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in the upcoming elections, writing: “Your votes are critical to elect @Ossoff and @ReverendWarnock.”

Arguably one of the organizers most responsible for Georgia’s flip from red to blue in the 2020 presidential elections, Ms Abrams has spent the last several months developing Democratic ground game throughout the state, while helping expand early voter turnout to historic levels.

Georgia had not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992, yet went on to support President-elect Joe Biden in the November race against President Donald Trump.

And with more than three million voters having cast their ballots prior to polls opening on Tuesday, according to data collected by the University of Florida’s US Elections Project, Georgia’s elections were gearing up to be two of the most closely-watched senate races in recent history.

Ms Abrams, who ran against then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp for governor in Georgia in 2018 and declined to concede, citing rampant voter suppression, has since focused her efforts on expanding voter registrations across the state. Her work has been celebrated as having been instrumental in flipping the reliably red state in favor of the Democratic Party.

But not everyone has heralded Ms Abrams and the Fair Fight organization. Mr Trump lambasted her during an unwieldy speech on Monday night ahead of the elections, as well as in a phone call with Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during the weekend. That call, later obtained by the Washington Post, featured Mr Trump pressuring the state official to overturn his electoral loss while attacking Ms Abrams.

Asked about those comments the night before the election in an interview with The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Ms Abrams responded: “I think it’s a bit of an overstatement to assume I’m thinking about them.”

“I’m focusing on winning this election,” she added. “They are not my issue.”