White House pressed on Biden comparing Georgia voting law to ‘Jim Crow’ despite record turnout

President Biden has repeatedly compared Georgia’s election reform law to “Jim Crow,” but that hasn’t stopped the White House from touting a “record turnout” in the state’s runoff election on Tuesday that handed Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock a second term. 

The president was among many Democrats in 2021 who criticized Georgia’s Republican-passed Election Integrity Act as a supposed right-wing attempt to suppress Black votes. In October 2021, the president described the law as “Jim Crow in the 21st century.” In January of this year, the president described the law as “Jim Crow 2.0.” 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich pressed White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on how the Biden administration reconciled its past remarks, despite a record turnout in the primary, general and runoff elections. 

Jean-Pierre, citing “reports,” insisted there were still instances of voter “suppression” throughout the Georgia election. 

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“But even with that, the American people came out… in historic fashion to make their voices loud and clear,” she said, declining to comment on the Justice Department’s lawsuit against the State of Georgia over the March 2021 law. 

Warnock defeated Republican challenger Herschel Walker in the Georgia runoff election Tuesday, ensuring Democrats an outright majority in the Senate for the rest of President Biden’s current term and capping an underwhelming midterm cycle for the GOP in the last major vote of the year.

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock speaks during an election night watch party in Atlanta on Tuesday.
(AP Photo/John Bazemore)

With Warnock’s second runoff victory in as many years, Democrats will have a 51-49 Senate majority, gaining a seat from the current 50-50 split with John Fetterman’s victory in Pennsylvania. There will be divided government, however, with Republicans having narrowly flipped House control.

In last month’s election, Warnock led Walker by 37,000 votes out of almost 4 million cast, but fell short of the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff. The senator appeared to be headed for a wider final margin in Tuesday’s runoff, with Walker, a football legend at the University of Georgia and in the NFL, unable to overcome a bevy of damaging allegations, including claims that he paid for two former girlfriends’ abortions despite supporting a national ban on the procedure.

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About 1.9 million runoff votes were cast in Georgia by mail and during early voting. A robust Election Day turnout added about 1.4 million more, slightly more than the Election Day totals in November and in 2020.

Fox News’ Jessica Chasmar and The Associated Press contributed to this report.