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Although he has given his strongest indications to date that he has come to accept the loss of the White House to challenger Joe Biden, Donald Trump’s continued reluctance to step down and the claims without a basis on electoral fraud increasingly worried his own party.
In particular, Republicans fear that the chaos caused by Trump’s stance and his false comments on the conduct of elections in Georgia’s main swing state, which Biden won for the Democrats, could hamper his party’s efforts to retain the Senate control.
Control of the main upper house of the US Congress is on the line as the second-round races for the two state Senate seats roll on through the remainder of 2020, with an election slated for early January. If Democrats win those seats, they take over the Senate, while if Republicans emerge victorious, they remain in control and can seriously hamper Biden’s agenda, including his ability to freely choose his cabinet.
Trump attacked Georgia’s electoral system, even though it is led by Republicans, after Biden returned the southern state to Democrats for the first time since 1992.
Thanksgiving Day – a day usually reserved for presidential platitudes – Trump broke with tradition and repeated the attacks in a now rare confrontation with reporters. “I’m very worried about this,” Trump said when asked about his previous allegations of baseless fraud in Georgia. “You have a fraudulent system.” He then called Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who defended the state’s electoral process, “an enemy of the people.”
Such attacks worry Republicans as they seek to motivate Georgian voters to go to the polls in January, to volunteer for their Senate campaigns and – perhaps most important of all – to dig deep into their pockets to pay for unexpected second-round races.
In particular, Trump’s comments sparked conspiracy theories that the state’s electoral system is rigged and prompted some of his supporters to call for a boycott of the upcoming vote – something local Georgia Republicans desperately want. not. “His demonization of the entire Georgian electoral system is hurting his party’s chances of keeping the Senate,” warned an article published by Politico.
Even Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. jumped into the fray by tweeting: “I see a lot of speech from people who are supposed to be on our side telling GOP voters not to go out and vote. It’s absurd. IGNORE these people.
The president also pledged to travel to Georgia to organize rallies in support of the two Republican candidates, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. The first of these events is set to take place on Saturday, December 5 and could be a double-edged sword. Trump is still a powerful force with a loyal following whose endorsement is a key mobilizing tool for the race. On the other hand, by rotating his rallies freely, Trump can reject conspiracy theories that undermine their campaigns.
Trump’s mood certainly became more and more erratic even as he made the clearest signs that he was finally going to leave the White House, which he convincingly lost to Biden in the popular vote and of the vital electoral college that actually chooses the next president.
On Thanksgiving Day, Trump grumpily said he would leave the White House when the Electoral College voted for Biden. He has so far defied tradition by refusing to concede defeat and launching legal attempts to challenge the results in battlefield states including Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan. So far, these efforts have largely failed.
Trump declined to say whether he would attend Biden’s inauguration, which is due to take place on Jan.20, and called a reporter “light,” telling him, “Don’t talk to me like that.”
Trump continued his rant on Friday, producing a long string of retweets and tweets making false statements about the election and its opponent. “Biden can only enter the White House as president if he can prove that his ridiculous ‘80,000,000 votes’ were not obtained fraudulently or illegally,” he tweeted.
He even retweeted a video of a fight between a lion and a pack of attacking hyenas, which featured a piece of film dialogue by actor Christopher Walken from the movie Poolhall Junkies. “So much truth,” Trump remarked.
The Republican Party has shocked many observers by mainly continuing to join Trump and backing his fierce demands and legal efforts, though daylight has started to appear between some prominent figures in the party and the White House.
“We are going to have an orderly transfer from this administration to the next,” Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader in the Senate, told reporters recently. “What we’re all saying about it, frankly, is irrelevant.”
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