Two days after acknowledging her loss to Republican Brian Kemp in Georgia’s governor’s race, Stacey Abrams on Sunday said she plans to run for office again.
Abrams, a Democrat and former minority leader of Georgia’s House of Representatives, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that she intends to take a hefty break from the political spotlight before deciding her next move.
“I’m going to spend the next year as a private citizen, but I do indeed intend to run for office again,” Abrams said. “I’m not sure for what and I am not exactly certain when. I need to take a nap, but once I do, I’m planning to get back into the ring.”
In a rousing speech on Friday, Abrams announced she was ending her bid for Georgia governor. Kemp, who resigned as the state’s secretary of state on Nov. 8, had declared himself the winner the day after the election.
Though Abrams acknowledged in her speech that Kemp would be certified the victor in the election, she did not concede.
“I will not concede, because the erosion of our democracy is not right,” Abrams said in her speech Friday. “More than a million citizens found their names stripped from the rolls by the secretary of state, including a 92-year-old civil rights activist,” she said, adding that “democracy failed Georgia.”
The Associated Press reported that Kemp’s office put 53,000 voter registration applications on hold ― 70 percent of them from people of color ― because of the state’s controversial “exact match” law.
Abrams on Sunday attacked Kemp as a “horrible actor who benefited from his perfidy” during the gubernatorial race ― the state’s closest in more than 60 years. Kemp has denied any attempts at voter suppression.
“There was a deliberate and intentional disinvestment and I think destruction of the administration of elections in the state of Georgia,” Abrams said.
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