CUMMING, Ga. The outgoing president, Donald Trump, throws one grenade after another into the heights of the Georgia Senate in the last days before Tuesday’s election.
And it is not clear who will be the victims of his explosions.
First, it was his refusal to accept a defeat in the 2020 election that dulled his party’s message here about the need to keep the Senate in Republican hands. He then pushed the GOP leaders to pass $ 2,000 stimulus checks, forcing Senator David Perdue and Senator Kelly Loeffler to change their position on the matter to suit him.
He too describe the ‘Republican Senate’ as ‘pathetic’ because he rejected his demands to pass an Internet liability law, known as Article 230, in a military bill that Perdue and Loeffler missed.
On Friday, Trump falsely claimed that the entire 2020 election in Georgia, including the two Senate races, was “illegal and invalid.” On Saturday, Trump again questioned the legitimacy of the state’s electoral system.
His recent series of tweets comes moments after Loeffler urged rallies in this suburb of Atlanta to vote and encourage people they know across the state to vote.
“We have to keep the line,” she said. “We are the firewall to stop socialism in America.”
The impact of Trump’s bombing is unpredictable in the highly polarized environment of a rival state and an election outside the year. His allegations seem to have raised eyebrows in both parties, and with polls showing both races neck-and-neck, it is not clear which side will come out on top. Trump will appear at a rally for Perdue and Loeffler in the city of Dalton on Monday night.
The end of Tuesday will form the administration of President Joe Biden’s administration. If the Democrats win both seats, they will take control of the Senate and set the agenda. If at least one of the two presidents of the Republic wins, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Will have a business veto on Biden’s legislative agenda, top administration staff and judicial appointments.
“Tuesday is it. Tuesday is everything,” said Jon Ossoff, the Democratic candidate facing Perdue, during a campaign rally in Stone Mountain, just outside Atlanta. “And the work you do today to mobilize the community to come out and vote will make the difference.”
As Ossoff boasts a full program, Perdue was forced out of the campaign and said on Thursday he would be quarantined after having close contact with a member of his team with Covid-19. He expects to miss Trump’s rally on Monday, he told Fox News.
Rich McCormick, the 2020 Republican candidate for the city’s congressional district who narrowly lost to a Democrat, said ‘the danger exists’ that Trump’s attacks on Republicans running the Senate could harm Perdue and Loeffler politically.
“His ability to excite people is what chose him,” McCormick told reporters after performing here with Loeffler and Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas. “He tries to get people who normally only show up for him to pull up for them, and I think that’s a good thing.”
The race in Georgia was thrown into more uncertainty on Saturday after 11 Republican senators announced they would reject voters from certain states unless a commission was set up to investigate the election results – part of a recent attempt by Trump’s allies to to reverse the election result.
The January 6 attempt will be virtually guaranteed, as the senators conceded in a joint statement. Perdue’s term will then have expired, regardless of the outcome of the election, so he will not run. Loeffler declined to say how she was going to vote, telling reporters that “everything is currently on the table” and promising to “keep fighting for this president”.
Her Democratic rival, Raphael Warnock, tore her apart.
“We are still reaching new lows. It is outrageous and it is outrageous that the sitting unelected senator from Georgia, Kelly Loeffler, is not standing up for the votes of people in Georgia,” Warnock told CNN. “We have a democratic system. And the most powerful four words are that the people spoke.”
The attempt to stop the counting of some votes won by President-elect Joe Biden has been blown up by numerous Republicans, including Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Senator Mitt Romney of Utah. McConnell urged GOP senators not to take part in the effort.
Later on Saturday, Trump marked McConnell tweeted in Congress to pass $ 2000 payments, citing a Republican pollster who said they were popular. This again suppresses the GOP message on Senate control.
McCormick described Trump as the political equivalent of a character played by Adam Sandler in a popular 1996 film.
“He’s like the Happy Gilmore of golf. He’s the man who should not be there, who has an incredible unorthodox following,” McCormick said. ‘Here’s this guy who can only drive the long ball, but all of a sudden he really is. And he wins. ‘
Stacey Khizder and Julia Jester contributed.