President Donald Trump has urged voters in Georgia to support Republican Senate candidates in the upcoming runoff elections while reiterating allegations that his re-election was “stolen” by Democrats.
“You must vote for David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Go out and vote,” Trump told thousands of people gathered on an airport tarmac in Valdosta in southern Georgia.
“With your help, we are going to continue our mission to save America.”
With the presidential election over, America is now focused on the two runoff elections in January 2021 that will determine which party will control the US Senate. A victory for either Loeffler or Perdue will give Republicans a Senate majority.
President-elect Biden’s party already controls the House of Representatives, and if Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock win the Senate runoff in Georgia, the party will control the White House and both houses of Congress, giving it the power to enact the president-elect’s agenda with minimal disruption from the Republicans.
Trump’s campaign visit was his first appearance at a rally since the November 3 presidential election.
He told his fans to return to voting booths in January even if they thought the system was “unfair” or “rigged”. The president framed voting as “revenge” on his behalf.
“The answer to Democrat fraud is not to stay at home,” Trump said. “Show up and vote in record numbers.”
While Trump did what he came to do, that is campaign for the Senate candidates, his speech wound through a wide array of topics including warning against the threat of socialism and voter fraud.
He criticised immigrants and the news media, called Democrats “communists;” warned of gun confiscation, Democratic court-packing schemes, abortion and pondered whether “Christmas would still exist with Democrats in control.”
President Trump delivered his speech while waging a public fight with Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and other leading Republican officials in the state. Before the rally, the President asked Kemp to call a special session of the legislature in an effort to overturn the results in the state.
Biden won Georgia by 12,670 votes and was the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since 1992. A state-wide recount found no evidence of widespread fraud.
Kemp, the governor, gave no public indication he would go along with Trump’s pressure campaign.
“I’ve publicly called for a signature audit three times,” President Trump wrote on Twitter, “to restore confidence in our election process and to ensure that only legal votes are counted in Georgia”.
But Trump continued to criticise the governor in his speech on Saturday, accusing him of allowing voter fraud. That is despite the president’s own Attorney General William Barr announcing last week that his justice department found no proof of fraud that could have affected a different outcome in the presidential election.
As the large crowd in Valdosta chanted “Stop the Steal” the US president continued his rebuke of Kemp by telling his supporters: “Your governor could stop it very easily if he knew what the hell he was doing.”
