New York Daily News

Prez urges Ga. gov to ‘call off’ Sen. runoffs

- BY DAVE GOLDINER

President Trump demanded Tuesday that Georgia “call off” its upcoming runoff elections over his claims of fraud, giving Republican­s a new headache in their fight to keep control of the Senate.

Repeating his attacks about mail-in voting, Trump angrily urged Republican Gov. Brian Kemp to “do something” about absentee votes that are expected to be cast predominan­tly by Democrats in the pair of makeor-break Senate contests.

“You allowed your state to be scammed,” Trump warned Kemp on Twitter, presumably referring to the presidenti­al election.

“Call off election. It won’t be needed. We will all WIN!” Trump tweeted.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that hundreds of thousands of mail-in votes were fraudulent­ly cast.

His campaign has lost dozens of lawsuits challengin­g the results, but he insists he will eventually win vindicatio­n from the conservati­ve Supreme Court.

In Georgia and elsewhere, the president is claiming that election officials failed to match voters’ signatures to those on file.

Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensper­ger, a onetime Trump supporter, has dismissed those claims as false.

Trump has branded Kemp as “hapless” and now says he regrets ever backing him for the post. He derided the mild-mannered Raffensper­ger as an “enemy of the people.”

The GOP infighting could backfire on the party in the mustwin Senate runoffs set for Jan. 5.

Trump is planning a campaign rally on Saturday to support Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, neither of whom managed to clear 50% of the votes against Democratic challenger­s on Nov. 3.

Republican­s are clinging to a 50-48 lead in the Senate, meaning they need to win at least one of the runoffs to keep control in the new Congress.

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