President Trump and the Republican National Committee said on Sunday that the president will hold a rally in Dalton, Georgia, on January 4, the night before the crucial run-off election for the Senate. Republicans need to hold at least one of these seats in the Senate to hold a majority in the Senate, while Democrats need to win both to tie 50-50, with vice president-elect Kamala Harris as a tiebreaker.
“On behalf of two GREAT senators, @sendavidperdue AND @KLoeffler, I will be going to Georgia on Monday night, January 4th, to have a great and wonderful RALLY. So important for our country that they win! ” Mr. Trump tweeted on Sunday night.
Mr. Trump announced that he would go to Georgia shortly before the White House announced he signed a $ 900 billion COVID-19 economic relief bill along with a $ 1.4 trillion government spending bill. His refusal to sign the bill for nearly a week put the two Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, in a difficult situation before the second round, as both voted in favor. Perdue and Loeffler immediately issued statements thanking Trump for the bill.
Neither Perdue nor Loeffler won 50% of the vote in November, forcing the runoff elections. Perdue led Democratic opponent Jon Ossoff, and while Raphael Warnock received the most votes in his run, Loeffler and Republican Congressman Doug Collins together received more votes than he did.
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The dispute attracted a significant amount of money and, last week, Ossoff became the best-funded Senate candidate of all time, having raised $ 107 million just between October 15 and December 15.
At Trump’s previous rally in Georgia, he falsely insisted that “we won the election” and the state in particular. Trump refused to grant the general election and chose Republican election officials in Georgia, which went wrong for President-elect Joe Biden in making unsubstantiated allegations of widespread electoral fraud and a rigged election.
With the Electoral College on December 14 confirming Biden’s victory and a series of lawsuits questioning election results failing in court, Trump pinned his hopes of overturning election results in both houses of Congress, agreeing to object to the results in several key states when they meet to count the votes on January 6. But Democrats hold a majority in the House of Representatives, and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell asked Republican senators last week not to oppose the election results when the joint session was called.
Senator John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota and a majority leader, said the attempt to withdraw state electoral votes “just isn’t going anywhere.”
“In the Senate, everything would fall like a gunshot,” Thune told reporters on December 21.
Dalton, where the January 4 rally will be held, is in one of Georgia’s most conservative neighborhoods. In January, the district will be represented by Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, who promoted QAnon conspiracy theories and is a loyal ally of Trump.
The Republican National Committee said that all participants in the Dalton rally will have to undergo temperature checks, receive masks that “they are instructed to wear” and will have access to hand sanitizer. The rally is being held in an airport hangar, a familiar place for Trump’s rallies before the election.