Watch: MSNBC's Rachel Maddow explains why Brian Kemp is so desperate to rig Georgia election

Georgia has a reputation as a deep red state, but the past few gubernatorial elections have been much closer than casual observers might guess. In fact, in the last election Republicans won by just 200,000 votes.

Pundits have been eyeing the state as the next Democratic pick-up, and Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams might be the one to do it.

On Friday, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow explained why the numbers have made Abrams' opponent, Brian Kemp, so desperate to abuse his power as the Secretary of State of Georgia to rig the election by kicking qualified voters off the rolls.

"Brian Kemp has taken a meat axe to the voter rolls in Georgia, trying to disqualify as many voters as possible," she said.

The narrow margin if Republican victory and the massive turnout of early voters has put him in grave danger, she said. More than twice as many people cast early ballots as did in 2014.

Beyond that, in Georgia there is a wide gender gap between female and male voters, with 56 percent of the ballots being cast by women compared to jusy 44 percent by men.

"I don't know if it's a symptom of that or a cause of that when the Democratic candidate, Stacey Abrams, at a blockbuster political event like she did last night with Oprah Winfrey—if there was not already a 123 point gender gap in the vote in Georgia, that might have helped create one," she said.

Watch below.