Georgia Democrats Grow Further Divided As Gov Primary Escalates

Georgia’s bitter and divisive Democrat gubernatorial primary between Stacey Evans and Stacey Abrams took another turn for the worse earlier this week as the two candidates met on the same stage for the first time. At an event hosted by Georgia Win List, Abrams and Evans re-opened wounds left at August’s Netroots Nation Conference meltdown, which was marred by protests and jeers during Evans’ remarks and even scuffling among the candidates’ supporters. At the event, the two candidates showed no interest in setting the past aside, choosing instead to rehash the events from August.

After Evans berated Abrams for refusing to condemn the protests, which she later claimed were “not peaceful,” Abrams doubled down on her position, saying she would “never condemn” those who protest. While Georgia’s Democrat primary race continues to grow more and more divisive, already inspiring comparisons to the last year’s bitter contest between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, the party’s chances of uniting for victory in 2018 continue to plummet as its candidates take aim at one another.

STACEY EVANS: “…And I support the right of folks to peacefully protest. That wasn’t what happened at Net roots and if something like that happened to my opponent, whether the group was affiliated, unaffiliated, slightly affiliated, not affiliated at all I would have stood up and said that it was wrong. Because it was wrong. And I commit to all of you in this room, that if anything like that happens, I will be the first to jump up and say it was wrong and no one will have to ask me to do it.”

STACEY ABRAMS: “This is a place where you and I are going to disagree because I think when you judge the…protest is a disruptive, it’s uncomfortable, but for communities that have been silenced it is sometimes their only way to make themselves heard. I will condemn anyone who turns this into a racial conversation, I will condemn anyone who turns this into a misogynistic conversation, but I will never condemn a person for speaking in for protest, especially at a protest conference. My belief is this, I’ve enjoyed privileges in this country because of protest, and I may not always agree with the content of the protest, or the way it was done, and certainly my campaign had nothing to do with it, and would never ask for it, but what I will say is, I do not believe that you silence those who feel that they are voiceless, because the minute we do that we are no better than those who tell people they can’t kneel in protest.”

STACEY EVANS: “I think we’ll continue to disagree about the characterization, but I will just say this, I had a right to be heard on that stage, as did the protestors, and unfortunately that didn’t get to happen because it wasn’t a peaceful protest.”