I’m tempted to say she’s nuts for continuing to insist that she’s the rightful winner of last year’s election, a race she lost by more than 50,000 votes and whose chief “voter suppression” measure was enacted by a Democratic governor and legislature 20 years earlier. She comes off like a sore loser at best and a crank at worst. And a hypocrite, of course:

Trump's refusal to concede the election if he loses proves he is a petty man uninterested in our national stability https://t.co/V1alhxLKmn

— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) October 20, 2016

But really, she’d be nuts not to claim she’s the rightful winner. Andrew Gillum got closer to becoming governor of Florida than Abrams got to becoming governor of Georgia but Gillum hasn’t rebranded politically as the man who was cheated out of his due, so he’s momentarily an afterthought in national Democratic politics. Being a martyr to voter suppression has helped make Abrams a prohibitive favorite for the Democratic nomination for Senate in Georgia next year, a vice-presidential shortlister, or possibly a formidable presidential candidate herself — this, despite the fact that she’s never held federal or statewide office. You could power the country for a year with the energy the media expends weekly on Trump’s affront to democratic norms, yet the biggest young progressive star in America not named “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez” routinely insists that the governor’s race in Georgia was rigged against her and her star rises and rises.

Reporter Dave Catanese asks a good question. Is there a Democrat in the United States of any prominence who’d dare concede that Abrams lost her election?

It’s a fair point.

And it calls into question whether any Democrat — running for president or otherwise — would dare disavow her claim. https://t.co/yY9Up6kxui

— Dave Catanese (@davecatanese) April 3, 2019

We can sit here and hammer her for being an election truther but all she’s doing is responding rationally to the political incentives her party has created for her. Not one of the 40 candidates onstage at the first primary debate would dream of challenging her claim to being the rightful winner for fear that they’d be accused of denialism about voter suppression at a minimum and conceivably out-and-out racism in doubting her personally. They’d be savaged for “abetting” the alleged cheating or whatever. The only way to undo the supposed injustice is to uncritically support her narrative and make her a senator/VP/president. I mean, really:

Abrams describes her opponent Brian Kemp as a “cartoon villain”

— Gideon Resnick (@GideonResnick) April 3, 2019

Progressive hero Stacey Abrams vs. “villain” Brian Kemp? Catanese’s question has an obvious answer.

Here she is today celebrating her “victory.”

Abrams on why she didn't concede:

“I refused to concede because, here's the thing: concession needs to say something is right and true and proper. … You can’t trick me into saying it was right.”

Republicans "stole" the election from "the voters of Georgia.” pic.twitter.com/JvvsRSBWkw

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) April 3, 2019