GOP voters ready for Georgia runoffs despite Donald Trump’s claims
Many Republican voters in Georgia are angry. They’re convinced that widespread voter fraud — claims that are baseless — cost President Donald Trump the election to Democrat Joe Biden. But will those concerns put them on the sidelines for runoff elections Jan. 5 that will determine party control of the U.S. Senate? No way, said Trump supporter Lori Davis. “Everyone that I’m around, we’re ready to vote now,” said the 57-year-old businesswoman, as she awaited the arrival of Vice President Mike Pence at a rally for GOP Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in Augusta on Thursday. Trump has relentlessly promoted false claims that the election was rigged against him and he has savaged Republican elected officials he perceives as standing in the way of his quest to subvert the results. Some Trump allies have gone as far as calling for voters to skip the Georgia runoffs altogether — alarming words for the GOP campaigns banking on a strong turnout. But interviews with voters and party activists in the state suggest there’s little sign that Trump’s voters are planning to stay home in protest. Most Republican voters interviewed said they were prepared to put their skepticism aside to vote for Perdue and Loeffler in their races against Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, respectively. “There are people who are discouraged about (Trump) losing Georgia or being behind. But I haven’t talked to people who’ve said, ‘Oh, the heck with this, it’s all rigged anyway,’” said Tim Phillips, president of the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, which has done canvassing of GOP-leaning voters. Phillips was among those who worried that the distrust could affect Republican enthusiasm. But he said his group’s weeks in the field, combined with a recent visit from Trump, have eased his worries. Trump’s Dec. 5 campaign stop in Valdosta, Georgia, was his first since he lost the state to Biden by about 11,700 votes — a result that was confirmed by two recounts, including a hand tally of all ballots. But those recounts haven’t stopped the president from blasting Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Kemp has rebuffed Trump’s call for a special session of the legislature to subvert the election results, while Raffensperger has repeatedly said there is no evidence of systemic fraud or irregularities in the November election. Trump’s allies have continued to push false claims of fraud. Sidney Powell, who was removed from Trump’s legal team last month, has teamed up with Georgia attorney Lin Wood, who is known for his representation of several high-profile clients, particularly in defamation cases. The lawyers have repeatedly encouraged Georgia Republicans not to vote in the runoff election and questioned whether Perdue and Loeffler have sufficiently backed Trump’s efforts. “Why would you go back and vote in another rigged election?” Wood said during a recent rally in a suburb north of Atlanta. Trump has asked his supporters to get out and vote. The “seats are the last line of defense to save America and protect all that we’ve accomplished,” he said at the recent Georgia event. During the rally, Trump weaved back and forth between pressing his own grievances about the election and encouraging the crowd to turn out for Perdue and Loeffler. “You know a lot of people, friends of mine, say ‘Let’s not vote. We’re not going to vote because we’re angry about the presidential election,’” Trump told the crowd. “But if you do that, the radical left wins,” he said. Phillips said he believes that message is getting through to the conservative base much more so than any isolated calls for boycotts or even the president’s broadsides against Kemp and Raffensperger. “These aren’t people taking their cues from CNN or conventional political media. They listen to the president directly. And they’re open to his message and our message of not letting (Democratic Senate leader) Chuck Schumer finish the job,” Phillips said. Republicans are depending on voters such as Terry McCreary, a 65-year-old retiree in Cherokee County. McCreary calls himself a “conservative independent,” but he’s voted almost exclusively for Republicans since casting presidential ballots for Democrat Bill Clinton in the 1990s. McCreary says he finds it “hard to believe” Biden won the election fair and square. McCreary cites several misleading and disproven theories that Trump and his allies have pushed in recent weeks. “It just doesn’t feel right,” he said from his home in the Atlanta suburbs. But none of that, McCreary said, will keep him from voting in the runoffs. “I’m concerned about the election on Jan. 5” being legitimate, he said. “But I always vote. Every time.” Perdue and Loeffler have tried to placate Trump and his supporters by backing a lawsuit from Texas that sought to overturn Biden’s win but was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, and by calling for Raffensperger to resign, citing unspecified “mismanagement” in the election. Nonetheless, they’ve faced pushback from hardcore Trump supporters. As the pair strained to speak at Trump’s rally in Valdosta, cries of “Fight for Trump” filled the crowd, largely drowning out the senators. Jeanne Seaver, a Republican activist in Georgia who worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign, said she believes that Republican voters will still come out to support Perdue and Loeffler despite the anger on the ground. “I think if Donald Trump says get out and vote for Kelly and David, then the Trump folks are loyal to Donald Trump and will get out and vote,” Seaver said. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
University of Alabama student takes center stage in Georgia lawsuit and rally
C.J. Pearson began his career in politics at an early age after being inspired by a mock election in his Georgia elementary school. Since then, he has become a well-known political activist and the president of the Free Thinkers, a group he founded. He’s currently a freshman at the University of Alabama and was recently nominated to serve as an elector for the state of Georgia. On Wednesday, Pearson spoke at a Stop the Steal rally in Alpharetta, Georgia, led by Sidney Powell. While Powell has helped Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani, she doesn’t work directly for Trump. According to Fox News, Powell has made several unsubstantiated claims that the presidential election was fraudulent and that Dominion’s voting machines were to blame. At a press conference Wednesday, Powell and fellow pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood told the crowd to not vote in the upcoming U.S. senate runoff on Jan. 5 in Georgia until the state changes its procedures and ends the use of Dominion voting machines. “I would encourage all Georgians to make it known that you will not vote at all until your vote is secure – and I mean that regardless of party,” Powell said. “We can’t live in a republic, a free republic, unless we know our votes are legal and secure. So we must have voter ID, and we probably must go back to paper ballots that are signed and have your thumbprint on them. We certainly should be able to find a system that can count them, even if it has to be done by hand.” Pearson tweeted a video of the rally and stated, “We are no longer the party of John McCain. We are no longer the party of Mitt Romney. We are no longer a party of cowards. We are the party of @RealDonaldTrump.” https:// We are no longer the party of John McCain. We are no longer the party of Mitt Romney. We are no longer a party of cowards. We are the party of @realDonaldTrump. pic.twitter.com/tqx6aiNgfd — CJ Pearson (@thecjpearson) December 2, 2020 Trump’s legal team, headed by Giuliani, has made several unsuccessful court challenges in several states, arguing voter fraud. Attorney General William Barr stated that the Justice Department hasn’t found widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the election. Pearson is named as a plaintiff in Pearson v. Kemp, a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. The lawsuit alleges voting irregularities in the presidential election. Governor Brian Kemp is named as one of the defendants. Pearson isn’t without controversy. In 2015, when he was just 13 years old, he gained notoriety for criticizing then-President Barack Obama in a highly viewed youtube video. After that, he accused Obama of blocking him on his official presidential Twitter account. Obama hadn’t blocked him, and a backlash ensued. Benji Backer, a young political activist who left the public spotlight, commented on the controversy, “I tried to give CJ advice,” Backer wrote. “And I know he’s going to lash out at me now. But we used to work together. I told him he had promise but that he had to keep it in perspective, truth [sic] and stay humble. Stardom can ruin those things and it did for him. CJ & I (when I was still in politics) were going to work on some things. But he didn’t like advice and he wanted ‘his brand’ to grow instead. People, including myself, tried to help CJ. I really thought he could do great things. But he wasn’t willing to listen. Most of all, CJ lied to me. Numerous times. And many people I know and love. That’s when I knew there was a problem.”
