Newt Gingrich: Georgia Republicans must turn out more votes than Stacey Abrams can 'steal'
Former speaker says he's never seen a less organized Georgia election
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Republicans have to "turn out more votes than Stacey Abrams can steal" in Georgia's Senate runoffs, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on Monday.
“They need to vote because the key to a Republican victory is to have more votes than the left can steal,” Gingrich told “Fox & Friends.”
Gingrich's home state is the site of two U.S. Senate runoffs that will determine party control of the chamber in 2021. Sens. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., and David Perdue, R-Ga., are facing challenges from Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, respectively.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Asked by host Steve Doocy what he meant when he said the left would "steal" the votes, Gingrich said there were 1.2 million unverified absentee ballots in the 2020 election and in 2018, 3.5 percent of absentee ballots were thrown out.
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“This year [it] was [0.3 percent]. The difference is three times Biden’s margin, and nobody can explain it. The agreement the Secretary of State [Brad Raffensperger] made with Stacey Abrams was crazy. They have their back now once again with these boxes where you can drop off ballots, which are an invitation to going out and gathering votes, which is illegal under Georgia law,” he said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Georgia officials are investigating several groups, including one founded by Abrams, for illicit voter registration practices. Abrams lost her 2018 bid for Georgia's governor and has since worked on Democratic voter turnout operations in the state.
Gingrich's comments came after Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, R., refused President's Trump request to order a special session of the legislature to overturn President-elect Joe Biden's win there. Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, R., told CNN he is concerned that Trump is presenting misinformation that will hurt Loeffler and Perdue.
On Saturday, four Republican state senators launched a written petition trying to collect the signatures to force a special session.
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State lawmakers could call a special session on their own, but only if 60 percent of members in both houses of the General Assembly demanded a session in writing. That’s unlikely because more than 40% of the state House are Democrats.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Gingrich said, “Republicans have learned they are spending an enormous amount of energy monitoring every one of these drop boxes" and said in his entire career in Georgia politics, he had never seen an election “blatantly in favor of being stolen and unorganized.”
Fox News' Edmund DeMarche contributed to this report.