trump s meddling in the 2020 election, a deep rural urban divide and unending drama between the trump wing of the republican party and the local gop establishment. it s on those last few points where tonight s results will give us some important answers potentially to these questions. what is the power of a trump endorsement these day, and does the big lie have staying power here? the republican schism over those two points are at play in the republican gubernatorial primary right now. current georgia governor brian kemp fighting to keep his seat, keeping it from trump-endorsed former senator david purdue. both of them were on the campaign trail last night. purdue has the backing of the former president. and kemp last night on stage with former vice president mike pence who fell out of trump s favor himself after, of course, january 6th. now, whoever wins that race will face off against democrat stacey abrams in november. she held an event in the last 30 minutes and said this
his decision to lift covid restrictions in connecticut. all in starts right now. good evening from new york. i m chris hayes. as the biden administration, the democratic congress, and the country as a whole try to claw our way out of an unprecedented set of national crises, the republican party coast to coast has found its mission for the year 2021 make it harder for americans to vote. right now we re on track to see the largest rescue bill in recent memory signed into law by president biden this week. it would provide direct relief to americans, billions for vaccination programs, money to reopen schools, keep restaurants open, and not a single republican in either house or the senate has voted for it. instead, after losing the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections going all the way back to 1992, republicans are laser focused on restricting voting access. brennan center s tracking all the state bills aimed at restricting access to the polls. the
elections going all the way back to 1992, republicans are laser focused on restricting voting access. brennan center s tracking all the state bills aimed at restricting access to the polls. their list includes 253 bills introduced, prefiled or carried over this year in 43 states. in georgia, of course, already notorious for having absurdly long lines to vote with residents waiting up to 11 hours to cast their ballots last fall, republican governor brian kemp has waged a long battle to make the voting process even more difficult. in his previous role as georgia s secretary of state, he oversaw the closing of polling places and the purging of hundreds of thousands of registered voters from the polls. thanks, in part, to the efforts of stacey abrams and other activists on the ground registering hundreds of thousands of new voters, turnout in 2020 in georgia in the election was unbelievably high, smashing records and, of course, also helping to propel joe biden to the white house
lie, today s georgia primary will be democrats first major test of running in the state since it passed last year s restrictive election law. that 2020 law signed by governor brian kemp does everything to require id to vote by mail, to banning bringing snacks to people waiting if line to vote. for more, i want to bring in congresswoman niekma williams, . great to see both of you. congresswoman, as you see early voting and hearing what s going on at the polls right now, are you feeling, seeing any of the impact from these new voting laws? one of the things that we noticed is there was a surge in early voting, but a lot of people that we re hearing from voted early because they didn t want to risk the chance of what might happen on election day. so it s yet to be seen if those early voting surges were a replacement for election day. what we know is that we
everyone knows that. there s no sense in us fighting about it. right now what s going on in the state of georgia, what s going on in this country, we can t live like this. let s be honest. the inflation the way it is. let s be honest. that s what we ve got to do. the only way we ll get it done is quit fighting among ourselves. so, look, herschel walker is making it clear right there that he wants to be the candidate who is going to bring people together, right, something that worked for joe biden and frankly donald trump before him in a very different way, that he was representing people who weren t represented, but he talked about the economy. when push comes to shove and you look at all these races, you look at the governor s race, you look at the senate race, you didn t look at some of the other congressional races, is that what it s going to come down to. as the democratic chair, is your