Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) confirmed Monday he is considering a run for the White House in 2020, and was already making national headlines again just two days later.
On Wednesday, while speaking on stage at a National Action Network event, Brown questioned the integrity of Georgia’s election process as legal maneuvering plays out in that state’s gubernatorial race between Democrat Stacey Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp.
“If Stacey Abrams doesn’t win in Georgia, they stole it,” Brown said. “It’s clear. They can’t win elections fairly.”
At last count, Kemp was up by 55,000 votes with 100 percent of the approved ballots counted, but Abrams filed suit in federal court seeking to force counties to count ballots initially unapproved under Georgia election rules, such as absentee ballots that lacked signatures or were mailed in after the deadline. The suit also seeks to include votes that were cast in the wrong county by voters who had moved but failed to update the address on their voter registration.
Kemp, meanwhile, has argued that even if all of the questionable ballots were counted, Abrams still would not have enough votes to surpass him and win the election.
But Brown could not resist weighing in with his analysis of another state’s election process, said Mandi Merritt, the Ohio spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, calling his comments “irresponsible and outrageous.”
These comments come at the same time Democrats across the country are accusing Republicans of undermining the elections process in Florida, though there is mounting evidence of incompetence and lack of accountability in two south Florida counties, if not outright fraud.
Brown’s comment may be a harbinger of things to come in a crowded Democratic presidential primary, where candidates try to out-do each other in an effort to appease their progressive base, Merritt said.
“Sherrod Brown’s comment is just another example of the unhinged left, doing and saying whatever necessary to try and win elections,” she said. “Brown’s irresponsible rhetoric provides a glimpse of what 2020 is going to look like in the Democrats’ ever-persistent race to the left – and it’s not going to be pretty.”
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Anthony Accardi is a writer and reporter for The Ohio Star.
