Trump renews election fraud claims
VALDOSTA, Ga. — President Donald Trump pressed his own grievances over losing the presidential election at a rally Saturday in Georgia, spreading baseless allegations of misconduct in last month’s vote.
His claims came even as he pushed supporters to cast ballots for a pair of Republican Senate candidates in the state’s Jan. 5 runoff election that will decide thebalance of power in Washington once President-elect Joe Bidentakes office next month.
Mr. Trump rallied thousands of supporters in Valdosta, Ga., on Saturday evening — not long after he was rebuffed by Georgia’s Republican governor in his astounding call for a special legislative session to give him the state’s electoral votes, despite Mr. Biden winning the majority of the vote.
The president’s latest legally dubious attempt to overturn his election loss continued his unprecedented campaign to undermine confidence in the democratic process, but it also overshadowed his stated purpose: boosting Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.
Republicans need just one victory to maintain their Senate majority, while Democrats need a Georgia sweep to force a 50-50 Senate and position Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as the tiebreaking majority vote.
GOP officials had hoped the president would dedicate his energy to imploring their supporters to vote in the Jan. 5 election, when Mr. Perdue and Ms. Loeffler try to hold off Democrats Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, respectively.
Mr. Trump did echo Republican rhetoric that the races amounted to “the most important congressional runoff, probably in American history.” (That is only true because he lost.)
But after Air Force One landed, it quickly became apparent that Mr. Trump’s aim was to air his own complaints and stoke baseless doubts about the conduct of last month’s vote, rather than boost his party.
“I want to stay on presidential,” Mr. Trump said minutes into his speech. “But I got to get to these two.”
He praised both GOP lawmakers — Mr. Perdue for his support for military spending, Ms. Loeffler for pushing for early coronavirus relief spending. But he quickly pivoted back to his own defeat.
“Let them steal Georgia again, you’ll never be able to look yourself in the mirror,” Mr. Trump told rallygoers.
Mr. Trump pulled out a piece of paper and read a list of his electoral achievements, including falsely asserting he won Georgia and the White House. Mr. Biden carried Georgia by 12,670 votes and won a record 81 million votes nationally. Mr. Trump continued to reiterate his unsubstantiated claims of fraud, despite his own administration assessing the election to have been conducted without any major issues.
Chants of “fight for Trump” drowned out the two senators as they briefly spoke to the crowd.
First lady Melania Trump made a rare political appearance to introduce the president and to encourage Georgians to get out to vote.
“We must keep our seats in the Senate,” Mrs. Trump said. “It’s more important than ever that you exercise your rights as a citizen and vote.”
Hours before the event, Mr. Trump asked Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in a phone call to order the legislative session; the governor refused, according to a senior government official in Georgia with knowledge of the call who was not authorized to discuss the private conversation and spoke on the condition of anonymity. A person close to the White House who was briefed on the matter verified that account of the call.
Mr. Kemp tweeted that Mr. Trump also asked him to order an audit of signatures on absentee ballot envelopes in his state — a step Mr. Kemp is not empowered to take because he has no authority to interfere in the electoral process on Mr. Trump’s behalf.
Mr. Trump, though, vented his frustrations with Mr. Kemp on Twitter and at the rally.
“Your people are refusing to do what you ask,” he complained in a tweet, as if speaking with Mr. Kemp. “What are they hiding? At least immediately ask for a Special Session of the Legislature. That you can easily, and immediately, do.”
At the rally, he took aim once again at the governor, claiming he could assure him victory “if he knew what the hell he was doing.” (Even if Georgia would be flipped for Mr. Trump, the state’s 16 electoral votes would not be nearly enough to swing the election his way.)
Mr. Trump’s personal contact with the governor demonstrated he is intent on amplifying his conspiratorial, debunked theories of electoral fraud, even as Georgia Republicans want him to turn his focus to the Senate runoffs and encourage their supporters to get out and vote.
They’re worried that Mr. Trump is stoking so much suspicion about Georgia elections that voters will think the system is rigged and decide to sit out the two races.
In his tweet, Mr. Kemp said: “As I told the President this morning, I’ve publicly called for a signature audit three times (11/20, 11/24, 12/ 3) to restore confidence in our election process and to ensure that only legal votes are counted in Georgia.”
While the governor does not have the authority to order a signature audit, an audit was initiated by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and it triggered a full hand recount that confirmed Mr. Biden’s victory in Georgia. The race has been certified for Mr. Biden and affirmed by the state’s Republican election officials as a fairly conducted and counted vote, with none of the systemic errors Mr. Trump alleges.
But after two pro-Trump lawyers this past week questioned whether voting again is even worth it — in echoes of the president’s baseless accusations of widespread voterfraud — even Vice President Mike Pence betrayed concerns that the Republican coalition could crack under the force of Mr. Trump’s grievances.
“I know we’ve all got our doubtsabout the last election, and I hear some of you saying, ‘Just don’t vote,’ ” Mr. Pence said Friday while campaigning with Mr. Perdue in Savannah, Ga. “If you don’t vote, they win.”
Few Republicans in Washington or Georgia believe wide swaths of the electorate in this newfound battleground would opt out of voting because of Mr. Trump’s false claims or his denigration of the Georgia governor and secretary of state for certifying Mr. Biden’s victory in the state.
The risk for the GOP is that it wouldn’t take much of a drop-off to matter if the runoffs are as close as the presidential contest: Mr. Biden won Georgia by about 12,500 votes out of 5 million cast. There’s enough noise to explain why Mr. Pence felt the need to confront the matter headon.