They can't let 'stolen' election claims go: Now Trump has endorsed liberal Stacey Abrams

Quite a few of my fellow Republicans raised an eyebrow recently when former President Donald Trump seemingly endorsed Stacey Abrams for governor of Georgia. But it didn’t come as much of a surprise to me. In fact, Abrams and Trump have quite a bit in common.

Abrams used false stolen election claims to create a national profile. Trump did the same to maintain his national profile. Now, Abrams is demonstrating how to run a campaign based on the same baseless allegations. It makes perfect sense that she would have Trump’s support.

In the months since November's election, Trump and his allies have followed almost the exact same post-election playbook that Abrams and her allies originated in 2018. Both Abrams and Trump used over-the-top rhetoric to generate headlines and attention; both filed lawsuits that weren’t supported by evidence; and both raised hundreds of millions of dollars off of stolen election claims to keep their political operations going.

Sore losers to the end

Following her loss by over 50,000 votes in Georgia’s 2018 gubernatorial election (a larger margin than the one that gave President Joe Biden his electoral college majority nationwide), Abrams famously said, “Concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper. … I cannot concede.” Following Abrams’ playbook, Trump said after the 2020 election, “We will never concede. … You don’t concede when there’s theft involved.”

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The similarities don’t end there. Trump was impeached by congressional Democrats for "incitement" when he falsely alleged that the 2020 election was stolen. Abrams still claims her 2018 gubernatorial election “was stolen from the voters.”

Earlier this year, speaking about Georgia’s new election law, Abrams said, “We are at war, fighting to protect our democracy from domestic enemies at this moment. And those domestic enemies should be renounced, they should be pushed back against.” Trump called me an “enemy of the people” for likewise standing up for the integrity of Georgia’s elections.

Abrams has funded groups that made unsupported suggestions that Georgia’s voting machines flipped votes from Abrams to Gov. Brian Kemp. Do those claims sound familiar? They were almost the exact same claims raised in the infamous “Kraken” case that got Trump-allied lawyers sanctioned for making frivolous arguments.

Sloppy accusations undermine trust

Lawsuits filed by both Trump allies and Abrams allies failed to support the scorching accusations of stolen elections. Instead, they submitted hastily gathered declarations that fell apart under further investigation.

One voter in the 2018 suit submitted a sworn affidavit that he never received his absentee ballot. He later admitted under oath that he had received his ballot but wanted to vote in person instead. Another 2018 voter who was allegedly suppressed simply refused to accept that his ballot had been received and counted as records indicated. One allegedly suppressed voter was frustrated that she had to vote a provisional ballot at her polling place, but left out that her provisional ballot was actually counted after she was verified as a registered voter.

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Unsurprisingly, both Abrams and Trump planned their stolen election claims well in advance of their elections. Trump began pushing the idea that the election would be stolen months before November's election. Evidence brought to light during Abrams’ lawsuit against my office showed that her allies started planning to use “themes of voter suppression” as a get-out-the-vote tool as early as 2014.

The inflammatory rhetoric and baseless but headline-generating lawsuits paid off for both Abrams and Trump. According to Georgia’s Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, the Abrams-founded political action committee Fair Fight raised almost $100 million during the 2019-20 election cycle. According to The New York Times, Trump raised over $250 million in the months following the 2020 election.

So I, for one, was not surprised to see Abrams receive Trump’s endorsement. Abrams created the blueprint that Trump followed to raise hundreds of millions and maintain a national profile after losing an election. Now, Abrams is creating the playbook for turning stolen election claims into a campaign for political office.

Brad Raffensperger is the secretary of state of Georgia.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump, Stacey Abrams are twin liars: Georgia secretary of state