Votes remain to be counted.
There are votes left to count but we have a very strong lead.
There are voices that were waiting to be heard.
The math is on our side to win this election.
And I promise you tonight, we are going to make sure that every vote is counted.
Every single vote.
Every vote is getting counted.
Georgia's bitterly fought race for the governor,
was perhaps the most closely watched in the 2018 midterms.
Let's go first to Georgia.
Georgia's secretary of state, Republican candidate for governor Brian Kemp.
His opponent is the Democrat Stacey Abrams,
will be the first black woman governor in the United States.
A contest between a Trump aligned Republican and a firebrand Democrat
vying to bring progressive values to this traditionally conservative
but rapidly diversifying state.
It symbolised many of America's deepest divisions
and the result still hasn't been decided.
My time in Georgia began three days before at a rally Donald Trump held for Brian Kemp
where it was clear fears about progressive politics and
immigration seem to be on most people's minds.
Go Mr Trump!
Tell me a bit why you like Brian Kemp.
He's not a socialist like his competitor.
She is very far left of anyone who's run for the governor ship of the state of Georgia.
She even encouraged illegals to vote for her in the so-called 'blue wave'.
Make no mistakes folks, that's crazy!
Just tell me a little bit about your sign there.
Jobs vs Mobs.
Donald Trump has suggested that one of these mobs might
be this caravan, do you view it as a mob?
It's an invasion.
What if Isis came in, or some foreign country, with things to hurt our population?
They don't have jobs, a lot of them come in and just take our jobs.
This is where we live, this is America.
This is our country.
Polls indicated an extremely tight race here
and Trump went on the offensive by pushing false theories about migrants and illegal voting.
The Democrats want to invite caravan after caravan of illegal aliens,
to pour into our country.
And they think if more people come in, eventually they will be able to vote
and they are going to vote for the Democrats.
But actually, the major controversy with voting rights in Georgia,
relates to Kemp.
He has remained the incumbent secretary of state,
in charge of overseeing the elections here,
despite running himself.
What's the world missing about Brian Kemp?
His honesty and integrity.
He can't be asked to do something that's unethical.
He's kind of being accused of being unethical at the moment, isn't he?
Do you think there's any sort of conflict of interest there?
Do you want to come and have a chat to us?
Let me tell you, Brian Kemp is …
The best, the best, honest, honest, honest.
You can stand up and you know, throw false accusations at anyone.
Look what they did to judge Kavanaugh.
You can say anything but if you don't have any proof or any evidence,
or anything to back it up, it's meaningless.
I'm Brian Kemp, I'm so conservative …
In this deep south state, Trump won comfortably in 2016.
I own guns.
Kemp has modelled himself as a politically incorrect, straight talking Georgian,
who backs the president's agenda.
I got a big truck, just in case I need to round up criminal illegals
and take them home myself.
Yeah, I just said that.
It couldn't be further from the progressive grassroots campaign
that Stacey Abrams ran.
She's pushed expanding healthcare, enforcing a higher minimum wage
and reforming gun laws.
I came to meet some of the young women working for one of America's largest
domestic workers unions,
looking to get the vote out in Atlanta's poorest neighbourhoods.
Y'all already been out to vote?
No, I don't vote down here.
Y'all going tomorrow?
Yeah.
We need everybody out there
I'll make sure they vote.
They're not going to work tomorrow, they'll vote.
Uh, give me some! Do what you got to do.
When I say I am working on the Stacey Abrams campaign,
they're like, 'oh so you think she's going to win?'
And I am like, 'hell, yeah!'
What do you mean? 'cause I've been here, talking to people
who, 'oh, I've never voted before, I've never had someone come to my door before,'
and things like that.
Oh, here it is.
So tomorrow, the line's going to be kind of long,
so I would definitely advise you to go as early as possible,
so you can have the rest of the day to yourself.
Go out there man, we try to make history.
You know what I am saying?
Yeah, I am going to vote.
That's what I wanted to hear, that's all I want to hear.
All right, high five.
Thank you so much for your time.
Is this the first election you might have voted in, or is it …?
Yes, first one.
A lot of her promises sound true like,
seems like she can fulfil a lot of things.
Ok, you want to go to 82 or 83?
Do you think these were people that were maybe ignored in 2016
and in other elections?
I would agree with that, not only does your vote matter and your voice count,
but if you be silent, then you let other people speak for you,
you might not be happy
but what they say …
And I got that from Michelle Obama, she was online speaking to the people
and I was like, 'oh I like that, I'm gonna use that.'
Do you think she's going to win?
Oh, yes, definitely, yes, she has to!
We need her to win, it's not just we want her to,
we need her to win.
But long before election day, experts here warned
that policy may not be the may not be the only thing that determines the outcome.
Carol Anderson is one of America's most prominent civil rights historians and
has been concerned about voter suppression under Kemp for years.
He has been a vote suppressor of the first magnitude,
he has purged over 1.5 million people off of the rolls,
he has blocked registrants from being able to actually register to vote.
70% those blocked were African American.
African Americans aren't 70% of the electorate.
When America is stoked by fear, bad things happen.
You've got this fear of brown people, foreigners, tough people, criminals,
invading the US.
Then, illegally voting to steal the election for a black woman.
It is Hollywood script perfect and it's all a lie.
In the rural outskirts of Atlanta,
I came to see Kemp cast his ballot.
Look what the Democrats wanted me to do is to resign from office
But when I asked him about his record and voting rights,
he struck a defiant tone.
Mr Kemp, you just went and cast your ballot there,
during your tenure as secretary of state here you've made it harder
for tens of thousands of people in Georgia …
I disagree with that.
… to cast their ballots across the state.
I disagree with that completely because you have no factual basis
on making it harder for people to vote.
It has never been easier for people to vote in the state of Georgia
than it is right now.
In fact, right now we're having record turnout did you realise that?
We set a record for midterm turnouts.
So you don't view this election as is being any more problematic
than the previous elections?
No, it has been very smooth all day long.
We're looking forward to a great night tonight
and hopefully a record turnout would be awesome.
All right? Thank you guys.
But for many here, casting a vote has not been that easy.
Rahim Shabazz is a local filmmaker, who was purged from the rolls
by Brian Kemp after he did not vote in in two presidential election cycles.
He was able to cast a provisional ballot but
was unsure if it would be counted.
This is just a clear case of Brian Kemp being
the chief suppressor that he is under the command of the racist in chief,
Donald Trump.
How did it feel, not to be able to vote?
It was disappointing but at the same time I'm not surprised.
The sad part is there's a lot of people who
believe that voting don't count.
When you have an individual like Brian Kemp,
they're gonna do everything that's humanly possible to make sure that
your vote don't count.
If he is declared the winner of this election,
he's going to be an illegitimate governor and me and the hundreds of thousands of other people that
wasn't allowed to vote, is going to file a federal lawsuit.
At Abrams watch party, the mood was born of cautious optimism.
Let's take a look at some of the numbers right now.
It's Brian Kemp at 59%, followed by Stacey Abrams and the libertarian Ted Metz.
But as the night wore on, and Abrams trailed in the count,
it became clear that this was going to go down to the wire.
This was a tale of a divided Georgia.
People of colour and urban voters turned out in huge numbers for Abrams.
But Kemp's base much of it in the rural whiter areas,
also turned up.
I know she's going to win, I'm very excited.
I am expecting that history is going to be made.
Stacey is a dynamic person and she's captured the heart of not just Georgia,
but the nation.
You know what, I am not nervous,
but I have this little excitement, it's bubbling up.
This is a breath of fresh air. This country really needs this right now.
But of course, it's a fight, it's a fight because
we have people who cheat and lie. It's really difficult to fight against that.
I am not going to name names but some have worked hard to take our voices away,
To scare us away.
To distract us.
But our vision is clear and we see the finish line.
If I wasn't your first choice, or if you made no choice at all,
you're going to have a chance to do a do-over.
So let's get it done, thank you so much.
It was always going to be tight, it was always going to be close,
and I think this is just like that … that little push through that we have to do.
We are still here, so if it's still more work to do,
we are going to work.
Whatever happens next, questions about Georgia's democratic
process itself are likely to extend for months if not years ahead
and the battle for Georgia's political future will continue into 2020.