Pence calls Georgia ‘last line of defence’
Two runoff elections to decide control of U.S. senate; Trump pressures elections chief to ‘find 11,780 votes’
MILNER, GA. — United States Vice-president Mike Pence warned conservative Christian voters in Georgia on Monday that a pair of high-stakes Senate runoffs might offer “the last line of defence” against a Democratic takeover in Washington.
The vice-president’s visit to a Georgia megachurch launched a day of last-minute headliners, as President Donald Trump and president-elect Joe Biden campaigned in the state ahead of Tuesday’s run-off elections that will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate. It comes two weeks ahead of Biden’s inauguration and as Trump tries to galvanize Republicans around his efforts to subvert his election defeat and keep himself in power for a second term.
“In one more day, we need people of faith in this state to stand with leaders who will support life and liberty and the freedom of every American,” Pence declared at Rock Springs Church in Milner. “We’re going to keep Georgia, and we’re going to save America.”
Republicans need just one victory between David Perdue and Sen. Kelly Loeffler to maintain Senate control and force Biden to contend with divided government.
Biden won Georgia’s 16 electoral votes by about 12,000 votes out of five million cast in November, though Trump continues pushing false assertions of widespread fraud that even his attorney general and Georgia’s Republican secretary of state — along with a litany of state and federal judges — have said did not happen.
The president’s trip Monday comes a day after disclosure of a remarkable telephone call he made to the Georgia secretary of state over the weekend. Trump pressured Republican Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn Georgia’s election results.
The phone call with Secretary of State Raffensperger on Saturday was the latest step in an unprecedented effort by a sitting president to press a state official to reverse the outcome of a free and fair election that he lost. The Republican president, who has refused to accept his loss to Biden, repeatedly argued that Raffensperger could change the certified results.
“I just want to find11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said. “Because we won the state.”
Georgia counted its votes three times before certifying Biden’s win by a 11,779-vote margin, Raffensperger noted.
“President Trump, we’ve had several lawsuits, and we’ve had to respond in court to the lawsuits and the contentions,” he said on the call. “We don’t agree that you have won.”