Stacey Abrams: Trump election wasn't 'seismic shift'
Democrat Stacey Abrams, the renowned voting rights activist and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate, argued the U.S. was nearly "evenly divided" when President-elect Trump won the 2024 presidential election over Vice President Harris.
"Donald Trump won the election, but it wasn’t a landslide," Abrams, who lost two election bids for governor in the Peach State, said in an interview Monday with MSNBC's Chris Hayes. "It was an evenly divided nation. He got more people, but this was not the seismic shift where 57, 58 percent of America said no."
"It was less than 50 percent of the electorate who said this is what we want," she added.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report shows that Trump won 49.8 percent of the popular vote, compared to Harris's 48.3 percent.
Trump won both the Electoral College and the popular vote, though PBS reported his margins over his Harris "were small by historical standards." His win, as reported by PBS, was the fourth-smallest victory since 1960.
According to PBS, Trump beat Harris by 1.62 percent for votes counted through Nov. 20, which is smaller than any victory since 2000 — when then-GOP candidate George W. Bush beat then-Vice President Al Gore, by just over half a percentage point.
However, Trump did secure wins in all seven battleground states, flipping Georgia back into his column, holding North Carolina and shattering the “blue wall.” PBS reported his victories in the critical swing states were secured by "particularly wide margins."
During the MSNBC interview, Abrams also discussed "decency" in politics, arguing that while it's a difficult choice to make, it can have the effect of "boosting confidence."
"Our responsibility is for decency — to show those who stayed home, those who stayed silent that there is a place for decency and a place for them," she told Hayes. "That’s the work that has to be done."
But, Abrams added, "it cannot be by itself the only offering."
She also warned that when decency and ignominy — or shame and disgrace — are in conflict, the latter will always have the leg up.
"Ignominy is willing to do things that decency won't," Abrams said. "But that doesn't mean you abandon decency. I think it means you find other allies."