Trump's efforts to overturn election, rescue
Senate majority collide in Georgia
Both President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe
Biden made a last-minute push on the eve of Tuesday's Senate runoffs.
By ANDREW
DESIDERIO and JAMES ARKIN
01/04/2021
01:16 PM EST
Updated:
01/05/2021 12:02 AM EST
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/04/trump-biden-georgia-senate-runoffs-454533
DALTON, Ga.
— President Donald Trump attacked Georgia elected officials and called the
November election in the state rigged Monday night as he implored his
supporters to turn out Tuesday for the twin runoffs that will decide control of
the Senate.
Trump has
scrambled the GOP's closing messages in the closing days of the election —
creating a rift within his party over disputing his election loss and boosting
stimulus checks, attacking the state’s GOP governor and even calling for him to
resign, and most recently pushing Georgia’s Republican secretary of state in a
private phone call leaked to the press to “find” votes to overturn his November
defeat.
And in a
race that depends on getting loyal Trump supporters to the polls, Republicans
were braced for a cacophony of grievances and attacks from the president when
he took the stage Monday night in Dalton, in the state’s conservative northwest
corner, to support GOP incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.
In the
remarks lasting more than an hour, Trump lambasted Gov. Brian Kemp and
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, saying they were "petrified"
of Democrat Stacey Abrams, and promised to return to the state in 18 months to
campaign against them. He also called the November election "rigged"
within seconds of taking the stage, and falsely asserted that he won Georgia
even though Joe Biden's victory in the state has been certified after multiple
recounts.
But even as
Trump inflamed the intraparty tensions and peddled discredited election
conspiracies, he also continually returned to the message Republicans wanted
him to deliver: telling his supporters to get to the polls on Tuesday.
"This
could be the most important vote you will ever cast for the rest of your
life," Trump said.
Republicans
are counting on high turnout on Election Day to make up a deficit to Democrats
after more than 3 million people voted early in the two races. And while
Trump's the biggest motivator in his party, some Republicans were openly
concerned that an off-message rally that focused too heavily on his false
assertions of election fraud could dampen turnout among conservatives.
“We’re all
kind of scared. I think Democrats are a little scared, too, that the
under-performing turnout is going to affect your party negatively,” said Rich
McCormick, a Republican who was defeated in his bid for a suburban Atlanta
House seat in November. “So I don’t think it’s going to be about Trump. I think
it’s going to be about how people view politics generally.”
Trump was
one-half of a presidential split-screen hitting Georgia on the eve of the
runoffs: President-elect Joe Biden also campaigned for Democrats Raphael
Warnock and Jon Ossoff at a drive-in rally in Atlanta, where he tied Warnock
and Ossoff’s victory directly to the most pressing items on the Democratic
agenda.
Biden said
$2,000 coronavirus stimulus checks, a major point of disagreement over the
latest Covid relief bill, would “go out the door” if the two Democrats were
elected.
“Their
election will put an end to that block in Washington to $2,000 stimulus
checks,” Biden said. “The debate over $2,000 isn't some abstract debate in
Washington. It's about real lives. It's about your lives.”
Biden
continued: “There's no one in America with more power to make that happen than
you, the citizens of Atlanta. The citizens of Georgia.”
But while
Biden opened the evening, it’s the outgoing president who is dominating the
conversation.
Republicans
and Democrats alike were warning this weekend of fatigue among voters who have
been bombarded with advertisements for the better part of a year, noting that
turnout from the early-vote period was lower than it was for the November
election, though Democrats entered Tuesday in a slightly better position than
in the general election.
“I’m glad
the president’s involved. Because when it comes to burnout, he’s one of the
people that gets people motivated,” McCormick added. “So thank God for the
president in that way.”
“The
biggest challenge is to make sure people come out and vote,” Loeffler said
bluntly while campaigning in the Atlanta area Monday morning before rallying
with Trump later in the night.
Republicans
have long viewed Trump as their biggest asset in races like these, in which a
win or loss will be dictated by how many of Trump’s followers turn out on
Election Day. But it comes at a fraught moment for the GOP, when some of
Trump’s fringe supporters are calling for voters to boycott the election
altogether over the president’s unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud
in November’s election.
Several
Republicans close to the White House described the president's recent
broadsides against Georgia GOP leaders as immensely counterproductive, fearing
that his criticism will suppress turnout on Tuesday, when the party is counting
on a surge of in-person voters to offset record early vote totals that have
benefited both Democratic candidates.
Trump
seemed to hint during the rally at the debate within the party about whether
his appearance would ultimately boost or harm the GOP's chances Tuesday.
"The
one thing I know: If they win, I'll get no credit," he said. "And if
they lose, they're going to blame Trump."
Loeffler
declined several times on the campaign trail Monday to respond to Trump's call
with Raffensberger. "My sole focus is on getting Georgians out to vote on
Jan. 5," she said when asked twice in Atlanta Monday morning whether she
had any issues with the call.
Hours
before the Trump rally, Loeffler also announced in a statement she would join
other Republican senators in objecting to the Electoral College certification,
a vote which takes place the day after the runoff election. Her decision to
object to the Electoral College was the first thing Loeffler said to the crowd
when Trump brought her on stage during the rally. Perdue cannot support that
vote because his term ended, and his seat is open until the winner of Tuesday's
race is sworn in.
Ahead of
Trump's departure for Georgia, Club for Growth president David McIntosh said he
planned to encourage him to keep his focus on maintaining a GOP majority in the
Senate, framing it as a legacy booster for the president.
"I'm
gonna tell him I think it's a vindication of him if the two senators win,"
said McIntosh, who was scheduled to join Trump on Air Force One for the flight
to Georgia.
Hours
before Trump landed in Georgia, Vice President Mike Pence spoke to packed house
of supporters at Rock Springs Church in Milner, an hour south of Atlanta,
delivering a similar message he’s had during his handful of trips to the state
down throughout the runoff. Pence said Perdue and Loeffler deserved reelection
because of their accomplishments with the Trump administration.
“And we
need to send David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler back to Washington, D.C., because
a Republican Senate majority could be the last line of defense” to preserve
their accomplishments.
But the
event also underscored how much Republican voters remain angry over Nov. 3. One
attendee shouted that they needed Pence to “do the right thing Jan. 6,”
referencing the Electoral College vote Wednesday in Congress. There were also
“stop the steal” chants as Pence neared the close of his remarks.
“I promise
you: Come this Wednesday we’ll have our day in Congress ...” Pence said to
cheers. “But tomorrow is Georgia’s day.”
Loeffler,
Perdue and their surrogates are openly acknowledging Democrats’ turnout
operation, which has been years in the making courtesy of party leaders like
Abrams, whose work could be critical for flipping control of the Senate to
Democrats.
Sen. Todd
Young (R-Ind.), the National Republican Senatorial Committee chair, told his
colleagues on a Senate GOP conference call last week that the party had a
“distinctly bumpy path to victory” and that the races would be a “jump ball,”
according to two people familiar with the call.
Young said
the wild card was Trump’s visit to the state on Monday, and the effect it would
have on turnout on Election Day, which Republicans are counting on after
largely eschewing the early-vote period. Young added the president has had a
positive impact on GOP turnout in the past and was rallying to “preserve his
legacy.” But he also didn’t overplay expectations.
“I want
everyone to leave this call with hope — but with highly tempered expectations,”
Young said, according to the people familiar with the call.
Republicans
campaigning for Loeffler and Perdue across the state over the weekend
acknowledged that GOP voters — as a result of Trump’s false claims of fraud —
believe the presidential election was stolen, and they took it on directly as
the party worries about Trump’s broadsides having the unintended consequence of
depressing turnout.
“Are they
going to try to steal it? Yes. But I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re
going to win by a big-enough margin. Ain’t nobody stealing the state of
Georgia,” Sen. Ted Cruz told supporters in Cumming, Ga., on Saturday.
Greg
Dolezal, a Georgia state senator, said in an interview after the Cumming rally
that several of his constituents have reached out threatening to stay home on
Tuesday as a protest against Biden's victory. “It does worry me,” Dolezal said.
“No matter how mad you are about what happened in November, you don’t just take
the toys and go home.”
The vast
majority of the Georgians attending rallies and get-out-the-vote events in the
final stretch of the campaign had already voted. Both sides recognized it’s
long past time to persuade people; it’s all about turning out those who haven't
voted yet.
At nearly
every GOP event across the state this weekend, speakers would ask how many
voters cast ballots early, and the majority of hands would go up. The
candidates or their surrogates would offer different varieties of the same
theme: Make sure everyone you know votes, too. Loeffler encouraged supporters
at a small rally in the town of Cartersville to call five friends. Cruz
encouraged a huge gathering of more than a hundred at an amphitheater in Sugar
Hill to make a list of 10 people to call.
Perdue, at
a rally in Lafayette late last week, before he left the campaign trail to
quarantine after coming in close contact with someone who tested positive for
Covid-19, told supporters in a crowded bank parking lot to “call people you
don’t like. I don’t care, call anybody. Get them out to vote.”
Perdue was
not at the rally Monday because he is quarantining after coming in close contact
with someone who tested positive for Covid-19, though the senator delivered a
video message.
By waiting
for Election Day to vote, GOP voters could be influenced by Trump’s last-minute
seesawing rhetoric and overall messaging surrounding the runoffs, which
Republican surrogates have acknowledged could spell trouble for the party.
Bruce
Thompson, a state senator, introduced Loeffler at an event Sunday night outside
a brewery in Canton, in Cherokee County, which Trump carried with nearly 70
percent in November. He told the crowd the number of voters who had voted in
November but not yet in the runoffs was “appalling.” He said there’s “no
do-over if we screw this up Tuesday.”
“I do
realize anything can happen between now and Tuesday, and on the day of Tuesday,
whether someone winds up voting,” Thompson said in an interview after the
rally. “I personally believe that it would have made more sense if we could
have gotten people to say, ‘hey, listen, if you were unhappy with Nov. 3, this
is your opportunity to voice that by voting early.’”
Democrats
have encouraged their voters not to get complacent behind the strong early
voting turnout, or to buy into the notion that GOP voters might stay home.
“Those
early numbers look fabulous. But guess what? The other side does not come out
until Election Day,” Deborah Gonzalez, a newly elected district attorney, told
a crowd outside Athens City Hall before an Ossoff rally this weekend. “Jan. 5,
they are coming out in force. Don’t think that they’re staying home. They’re
gonna come out. We need to come out, too.”
James Arkin
reported from Atlanta. Matthew Choi, Quint Forgey and Gabby Orr in Washington
contributed to this report.
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