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It doesn’t matter whether the two candidates are essentially in tune with Trump, or whether there is any evidence of links to electoral mischief. On Twitter and its less restrictive Talking alternative, Trump’s more diehard followers have linked the duo to the president’s favorite – and bogus – election fraud theories. Hashtags like #CrookedPerdue and #CrookedKelly are flying everywhere. The Talking accounts of the two lawmakers are replete with messages accusing them of being secret “Liberal DemoRats.”
The flaming anger doesn’t just come from the daily QAnon believers in the MAGAverse. It also comes from prominent lawyers working on Trump’s behalf, including Sidney Powell, who was briefly one of Trump’s main advocates for overturning the election.
The growing chorus has caught the attention of some of Trump’s best surrogates, who have struggled to fight the move. “I see a lot of people who are supposed to be on our side telling GOP voters not to go out and vote for @KLoeffler and @Perduesenate. It’s absurd. IGNORE these people, ”implored Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son and generally a MAGA world leader, in a tweet Monday.
The main comments below the tweet ignored the plea: “We tell everyone to write in Donald J. Trump!” a lecture.
The tensions symbolize the wider battles likely to erupt as Trump’s presidency wears off. Trump has always been an insurgent figure who grafted his loyal base onto the GOP. Once Trump is no longer the main elected Republican, that base can simply follow him wherever he goes – attack anyone who shows the light of day with Trump, produce “evidence” of Trump’s favorite conspiracies, and, like in Georgia, boycott the political system as a punishment for betraying their leader.
And while it’s hard to say exactly how much of the online gossip reflects general voter sentiment, some Republicans are concerned that the conspiracy talks will shrink just enough MAGA voters to give Democrats a close run.
“Anytime you have a close election, any distraction can be decisive, and obviously the second round in Georgia is going to be near, just as they were in November,” said Alex Conant, political strategist and former director. communication for Senator Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign in 2016. “I think Republicans should focus the second round on stopping Joe Biden’s program. If it is about Trump and conspiracy theories, it only divides our party and emboldens Democrats.
The Loeffler campaign did not return a request for comment, and the Perdue campaign declined to comment.
Statewide races in Georgia have become tossups in recent years.
Trump lost by about 12,000 votes in the Nov. 3 election, two years after Georgia Governor Brian Kemp narrowly defeated Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams by just under 55,000 votes. The 2020 Senate races were no different. Both went to the second round after no candidate could achieve the state-required 50% threshold on election day.
But the races are not the same. Perdue ran against an opponent, Democrat Jon Ossoff, and won 88,000 more votes on November 3.
Loeffler, meanwhile, was running in a special election after Kemp nominated her to a vacant Senate seat last year. In the 20-candidate field, Loeffler secured the second-highest number of votes behind Democrat Raphael Warnock and faced a powerful Republican challenger in Rep. Doug Collins, a popular congressman among all of MAGA.
With Collins not going to the second round, Loeffler was clear to potentially inherit from his supporters. But Loeffler, a multimillion-dollar financial executive and part-owner of the WNBA franchise, came to the Senate seen as a political moderate, even though she has since clung firmly to the president. For example, Loeffler recently joined Purdue in calling on the state’s Republican Secretary of State to step down over unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud in the November 3 election.
Yet Trump’s staunchest supporters haven’t always flocked to Loeffler’s side. And now they’re being encouraged by some of the president’s close allies.
Powell, the former attorney for Trump, turned parts of the MAGA community against Loeffler when she began pushing a false claim that Loeffler had somehow conspired with a voting technology company, Dominion Voting Systems, to suppress the votes for Collins.
The QAnon-leaning MAGA community has long viewed Powell as a leading authority on such deep state plots against Trump supporters, especially after she took over as an attorney from Michael Flynn . Trump’s national security adviser had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, but Powell walked in and began to allege authorities had indeed duped and coerced him, a narrative that played well for the Trump base. Trump on Wednesday officially pardoned Flynn after months of speculation.
And Powell isn’t the only lawyer affiliated with Trump to humiliate Loeffler and Purdue in front of the MAGA crowd.
Lin Wood, a prominent Georgian lawyer who filed his own complaint to overturn the state’s results, has repeatedly called on Loeffler to withdraw from the race, urged Perdue to show more loyalty to Trump and for them both are starting “inquiries” into the elections.
“Threat to withhold your votes and your money,” he directed his Twitter followers.
Wood appears to have a particular anger for Loeffler, tweeting about unrealistic scenarios in which she could be replaced by Collins and threatening to turn his “patriots” against her.
Vitriol isn’t necessarily prevalent in the MAGA crowd, however.
Debbie Dooley, founder of the Tea Party movement in Atlanta and supporter of Trump, had backed Collins in her race against Loffeler. While still undecided on whether to vote for Loeffler in the second round, she called the gossip of boycotting the race “the dumbest thing I have ever seen in my life”.
“When you call on the Republican Secretary of State to step down, that’s pretty loud,” Dooley said in an interview. “I don’t know what people want them to do?”
It may seem counterintuitive that the adherents of QAnon, a hardline pro-Trump group, are actively trying to harm its Republican allies. Still, the Q mythology has little to do with Loeffler and Perdue’s fortunes, let alone the Republican Party. Basically, it’s a theory that Trump is the sole savior of an elite Washington pedophile cabal worshiping satan.
“It’s really hard to put that worldview aside, even for just a few months, to support a conventional election,” said Mike Rothschild, a conspiracy theories writer and researcher working on a book on QAnon.
“When you spend years thinking that all elections are rigged, the deep state controls everything, nothing you do matters and the only way to stop it is for Donald Trump to win all states, be president for life and destroys its enemies – you are so caught up believing this drastically huge thing, that you miss the tiny little thing right in front of you, ”he said.
Even the endorsements of senators from popular QAnon figures, such as MP-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene, would not be enough, Rothschild noted.
And calls from people like Trump Jr. have done little to stop the disagreements.
“Some leaders of the GA and the national GOP complain that I am hurting the chances of @KLoeffler &@sendavidperdue to win the second round and save control of the Senate, “Wood tweeted Wednesday to its 613,000 followers. “They are the ones who are hurting those chances by not publicly calling for a fraud investigation and a special session of the legislature.” Look in the mirror.
For Dooley, the Tea Party activist, the fighting is illogical.
“It’s like cutting your nose to annoy your face,” she said. “Republicans must win one of these seats. … If the Democrats win those two seats, if you boycott the second round or write with names, you give the Democrats control of the Senate and they will have full control of the government.
But pragmatism, Rothschild warned, might not be enough to sway conspiratorial Trump supporters.
“They’re still so deeply rooted in mythology and conspiracies, double-dealing and chicanery,” he said. “It’s like they can’t go out of their own way to see what an opportunity they have here, and how bad it will be for them if things go wrong.”
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