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    Georgia Officials Review Trump's Phone Call to Raffensperger

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Campaign to Subvert the 2020 ElectionTrump’s RoleKey TakeawaysExtremist Wing of G.O.P.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGeorgia Officials Review Trump Phone Call as Scrutiny IntensifiesThe office of Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, has initiated a fact-finding inquiry into Donald Trump’s January phone call to Mr. Raffensperger pressuring him to “find” votes.Former President Donald J. Trump boarding Air Force One on Jan. 12. He made several attempts to pressure top Republican officials in Georgia to help reverse the outcome of the election.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesRichard Fausset and Feb. 8, 2021Updated 5:33 p.m. ETATLANTA — The office of Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, on Monday started an investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to overturn the state’s election results, including a phone call he made to Mr. Raffensperger in which Mr. Trump pressured him to “find” enough votes to reverse his loss.Such inquiries are “fact-finding and administrative in nature,” the secretary’s office said, and are a routine step when complaints are received about electoral matters. Findings are typically brought before the Republican-controlled state board of elections, which decides whether to refer them for prosecution to the state attorney general or another agency.The move comes as Fani Willis, the Democratic district attorney of Fulton County, which encompasses much of Atlanta, is weighing whether to begin a criminal inquiry of her own. A spokesman for Ms. Willis declined to comment on Monday.The January call was one of several attempts Mr. Trump made to try to persuade top Republican officials in the state to uncover instances of voting fraud that might change the outcome, despite the insistence of voting officials that there was no widespread fraud to be found. He also called Gov. Brian Kemp in early December and pressured him to call a special legislative session to overturn his election loss. Later that month, Mr. Trump called a state investigator and pressed the official to “find the fraud,” according to those with knowledge of the call.“The Secretary of State’s office investigates complaints it receives,” Walter Jones, a spokesman for the office, said in a statement on Monday. “The investigations are fact-finding and administrative in nature. Any further legal efforts will be left to the Attorney General.” David Worley, the sole Democrat on the state elections board, said Monday that administrative inquiries by the secretary of state’s office could result in criminal charges. “Any investigation of a statutory violation is a potential criminal investigation depending on the statute involved,” he said, adding that in the case of Mr. Trump, “The complaint that was received involved a criminal violation.” Mr. Worley said that now that an inquiry had been started by the secretary of state’s office, he would not introduce a motion at Wednesday’s state board of election meeting, as he had originally planned to do, in an effort to refer the case to the Fulton County district attorney’s office.Not long after the call to Mr. Raffensperger became public, several complaints were filed. One came from John F. Banzhaf III, a George Washington University law professor. Former prosecutors said Mr. Trump’s calls might run afoul of at least three state laws. One is criminal solicitation to commit election fraud, which can be either a felony or a misdemeanor; as a felony, it is punishable by at least a year in prison. There is also a related conspiracy charge, which can be prosecuted either as a misdemeanor or a felony. A third law, a misdemeanor offense, bars “intentional interference” with another person’s “performance of election duties.”Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Mr. Trump, said in a statement: “There was nothing improper or untoward about a scheduled call between President Trump, Secretary Raffensperger and lawyers on both sides. If Mr. Raffensperger didn’t want to receive calls about the election, he shouldn’t have run for secretary of state.” Mr. Biden’s victory in Georgia was reaffirmed after election officials recertified the state’s presidential election results in three separate counts of the ballots: the initial election tally; a hand recount ordered by the state; and another recount, which was requested by Mr. Trump’s campaign and completed by machines. The results of the machine recount show Mr. Biden won with a lead of about 12,000 votes.Mr. Biden was the first Democrat to win the presidential election in Georgia since 1992. Mr. Trump accused Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensperger, both Republicans, of not doing enough to help him overturn the result in the weeks after the election. Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensperger had each resisted numerous attacks from Mr. Trump, who called the governor “hapless” and called on the secretary of state to resign.Maggie Haberman More

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    As Trump Seeks to Remain a Political Force, New Targets Emerge

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAs Trump Seeks to Remain a Political Force, New Targets EmergeAs Donald Trump surveys the political landscape, there is a sudden Senate opening in Ohio, an ally’s bid for Arkansas governor, and some scores to settle elsewhere.Former President Donald J. Trump has an enduring base of Republican support across the country.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesMaggie Haberman and Jan. 25, 2021Updated 10:00 p.m. ETFormer President Donald J. Trump, determined to remain a force in G.O.P. politics, is gaining new opportunities with a crucial Senate seat unexpectedly coming open in Ohio, an ally announcing for governor of Arkansas and rising pressure on Republicans in Congress who did not stand with him during this month’s impeachment vote.The surprise announcement on Monday by Senator Rob Portman of Ohio that he would not seek a third term sparked a political land rush, with top strategists in the state receiving a flood of phone calls from potential candidates testing their viability. One consultant said he had received calls from five would-be candidates by midday.That opening, along with another statewide contest next year in which Gov. Mike DeWine is expected to face at least one Trump-aligned primary challenger, is likely to make Ohio a central battleground for control of the Republican Party, and an inviting one for Mr. Trump, who held on to Ohio in the election while losing three other Northern battleground states.Mr. Portman’s announcement came hours after Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Mr. Trump’s former White House press secretary, began her campaign for Arkansas governor. The Republican primary there already includes the state’s lieutenant governor and attorney general, but private polling indicates that Ms. Sanders is beginning well ahead, and Mr. Trump endorsed her candidacy on Monday night. Mr. Trump has only been out of the presidential office five days and has little in the way of political infrastructure. He has told aides he would like to take a break for several months. But the former president has remained the party’s strongest fund-raiser, with tens of millions in PAC money at his disposal, and he retains an enduring base of Republican support across the country. Perhaps most important, he harbors a deep-seated desire to punish those he believes have crossed him and reward those who remain loyal.So far he has focused primarily on Georgia, where he believes the Republican governor and secretary of state betrayed him by certifying his loss there. Both are up for re-election in 2022. And he took something of a test run over the weekend by getting involved in the leadership fight in Arizona’s Republican Party, after Kelli Ward, the firebrand chairwoman, asked for his help in gaining re-election, according to a person familiar with the discussions.Already there is a movement at the state and local levels to challenge incumbent members of Congress seen as breaking with the former president, starting with the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach him this month.The overwhelming consensus among Ohio Republicans is that a Trump-aligned candidate would be best positioned to win a competitive Senate primary, and no potential candidate has a better claim to Mr. Trump’s voters in the state than Representative Jim Jordan, who was Mr. Trump’s chief defender during his first impeachment trial and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom during the former president’s final days in office.“Jim is well positioned if in fact he’s ready to take that leap; I’m not sure there’s anybody that would beat him,” said Ken Blackwell, a former Ohio secretary of state and longtime Portman ally who last month served as an Electoral College voter for Mr. Trump. Referring to Mr. Trump’s legion of supporters, Mr. Blackwell added: “In Ohio, it’s going to be who has the track record to show that their agenda respects the newly realigned party base.”Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio was Mr. Trump’s chief defender during his first impeachment trial and could seek the Republican nomination for an open Senate seat in 2022.Credit…Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesMr. Trump is now ensconced at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where aides are building something that can serve as an office. He’s been golfing several times, and was spotted by people at his club in Florida playing with the brother of the former tennis star Anna Kournikova on Sunday.His advisers have had discussions about whether to get him back on some form of social media platform, although they insist that he does not need to be on Twitter or Facebook to raise money, and that his email solicitations continue to work well. On Monday he formally opened the Office of the Former President, to manage his “correspondence, public statements, appearances, and official activities.”As President Biden’s inauguration approached, Mr. Trump began telling some allies that he was considering forming a third party if Republicans moved to convict him in the Senate trial. But by Saturday, after his own advisers said it was a mistake, Mr. Trump started sending out word that he was moving on from his threat.“He understands that the best thing for his movement and conservatism is to move forward together, that third parties will lead to dominance by Democrats,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who is a close ally of Mr. Trump.Advisers to the president say he has just over $70 million in his PAC, Save America, with few restrictions on what he can do with it. For now, most of his staff is on a government payroll afforded to former presidents for a period of time after they leave office.Officials are working to mend Mr. Trump’s relationship with Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the House minority leader, whom Mr. Trump called a vulgarity for his House floor speech denouncing the former president’s rally address before the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6. A senior Republican said that aides to the two men were trying to arrange a meeting or a call in the coming days.Mr. Trump would like to seek retribution against House members who voted against him, and he has been particularly angry with Representatives Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio and Fred Upton of Michigan, advisers said. He will also at some point focus on the governor’s race in Arizona, where Doug Ducey cannot seek re-election; Gov. Greg Abbott’s re-election bid in Texas; and the Senate race in North Carolina, as places where he can show strength, the advisers said. (One adviser disputed that Mr. Trump would have an interest in the Texas race.)In Ohio, Mr. Gonzalez faces a potential primary challenge from Christina Hagan, a former state legislator whom he defeated in a 2018 primary. Ms. Hagan lost in the general election last year to Representative Tim Ryan, a Democrat, in a neighboring district. She said in an interview Monday that she would decide which, if any, race to enter in 2022 after Ohio redraws its congressional districts; the state is likely to lose one seat and Republicans control all levers of redistricting.“A lot of people elected what they thought was conservative leadership and now are witnessing somebody cutting against their values,” Ms. Hagan said, alluding to Mr. Gonzalez’s vote to impeach. Mr. Gonzalez’s office did not respond to emails seeking comment.Mr. Trump’s deepest hostility is reserved for Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, advisers said, and they expect he will expend the most energy trying to damage Mr. Kemp’s re-election bid. The governor’s original sin was in choosing Kelly Loeffler over Mr. Trump’s favored candidate, Doug Collins, to fill a vacant Senate seat in 2019, but it evolved into something more consuming as Mr. Trump repeated his debunked claims of widespread fraud in the state and held Mr. Kemp responsible for not doing enough to challenge the election results.Mr. Collins, a hard-line Trump backer, hasn’t decided whether to challenge Mr. Kemp or seek the Republican nomination against Senator Raphael Warnock, the Democrat who defeated Ms. Loeffler in a special election and will face voters again in 2022, or if he will choose not to run for anything, a Collins aide said Monday.Mr. Trump is likely to support a primary challenge to Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, in Georgia.Credit…Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesNext on Mr. Trump’s personal hit list is Representative Liz Cheney, the Republican from Wyoming, people close to him said. Ms. Cheney was the only member of the House G.O.P. leadership to vote to impeach. It’s unclear whether Mr. Trump will target her seat, or simply her leadership post in the House, but advisers said they anticipated that he would take opportunities to damage her.Sarah Longwell, the executive director of the Republican Accountability Project, an anti-Trump group, said she and her colleagues planned to raise and spend $50 million to defend the 10 pro-impeachment House Republicans in primary contests and attack those who voted to object to the Electoral College results after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. She said the group would aim to defeat Mr. Jordan in an Ohio Senate primary if he runs against an establishment-minded Republican.Mr. Jordan’s spokesman did not respond to messages on Monday.The 2022 map will be the first real test of Mr. Trump’s durability in the party. While Ms. Sanders is running for governor in Arkansas, rumors that his daughter Ivanka would run for Senate in Florida are unlikely to develop further. And though his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, was said to be considering a Senate run in North Carolina, people close to the family say it is less clear what she will do now that Mr. Trump lost.Mr. Trump’s advisers are more focused on the looming impeachment trial. He is working closely with Mr. Graham, who has argued to his colleagues that Mr. Trump’s Senate trial sets a bad precedent.Mr. Graham helped him retain a South Carolina-based lawyer, Butch Bowers, who is also working to fill out a legal team with colleagues from the state, Mr. Graham and others said. Mr. Bowers is expected to work with a Trump adviser, Jason Miller, on some kind of response operation.Unlike his first impeachment trial, when the Republican National Committee engaged in a constant defense of the president, including paying for his lawyers, this time it is expected to focus only on rapid response, including calling the Senate trial unconstitutional and a procedural overreach, two people familiar with the committee’s plans said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Georgia Certifies Senate Victories of Warnock and Ossoff

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGeorgia Certifies Senate Victories of Warnock and OssoffThe certification by the secretary of state paves the way for Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock to be sworn in as senators.The Rev. Raphael Warnock, left, and Jon Ossoff thanked the crowd at a rally last month in Columbus, Ga.Credit…Audra Melton for The New York TimesJan. 19, 2021Updated 6:07 p.m. ETATLANTA — Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, on Tuesday certified the runoff election victories of Senators-elect Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, setting in motion the formal legal process that will seat the two Democrats and give their party control of the U.S. Senate for the first time since 2015.The swearing-in of Mr. Ossoff, Mr. Warnock and Alex Padilla, who will fill the California Senate seat left vacant by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, will create a 50-50 tie in the Senate, giving Democrats de facto control of the chamber because the tiebreaking vote will be held by Ms. Harris. She will be sworn in as vice president on Wednesday, and the three new Democratic senators are expected to be sworn in on Wednesday afternoon.Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, who like Mr. Raffensperger is a Republican, also signed off on the certification of the races. Gabriel Sterling, a top official in Mr. Raffensperger’s office, noted on Twitter last week that a representative of Georgia state government must then go to Washington to hand the certification documents over to the secretary of the Senate.Despite a flurry of recent drama and unfounded allegations of voter fraud in Georgia, there was little doubt that Mr. Raffensperger would eventually certify the results of the Jan. 5 contests in which Mr. Ossoff defeated David Perdue, a one-term Republican senator, and Mr. Warnock beat Kelly Loeffler, a Republican who was appointed to the Senate seat by Mr. Kemp in December 2019.The margins in both races were outside the half-percentage point threshold that allows the trailing candidate to demand a statewide recount under Georgia law. With about 4.4 million ballots cast, Mr. Ossoff won his race by about 55,000 votes, giving him a 1.22 percent lead, and Mr. Warnock won by about 93,000 votes, giving him a 2.08 percent lead, according to the secretary of state’s website.Those results stood in contrast to those of the Nov. 3 presidential election, in which Mr. Biden defeated Mr. Trump by a narrower margin that was well within the threshold, allowing Mr. Trump to demand a recount.The recount in the presidential race showed that Mr. Trump had indeed lost by about 12,000 votes. But that did not stop the president and his allies from continuing to vigorously press the unfounded allegation that he was the victim of a rigged election.That false narrative, which Mr. Trump pursued in failed court cases and in campaign appearances, quite likely ended up helping the two Democratic Senate candidates by depressing turnout in Georgia among those supporters of the president who saw no reason to vote in an electoral system that he was constantly maligning as untrustworthy.The two Senate races presented a rare and remarkable drama in American politics, given Mr. Trump’s recalcitrance, Mr. Biden’s triumph and the effect that control of the Senate would most likely have on Mr. Biden’s initial policy agenda. Outside money poured into Georgia, making for the most expensive Senate races in U.S. history. Mr. Trump flew to the state and held big, well-attended rallies for Mr. Perdue and Ms. Loeffler. But his message of support was often overtaken by his compulsion to air grievances about his own election.The two Democrats vowed to strengthen the Affordable Care Act, support police reform and overhaul the national response to the coronavirus pandemic. The two Republicans darkly warned that Democratic victories would hasten a dangerous national slide into radical socialism.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Despite Chaos and Big Losses, Republicans Still Control Most of Georgia

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionliveLatest UpdatesMoves to ImpeachHow impeachment Might WorkBiden Focuses on CrisesHow Mob Stormed CapitolAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDespite Chaos and Big Losses, Republicans Still Control Most of GeorgiaDemocrats had huge breakthroughs in winning the presidential vote and two Senate runoff elections. But power in the state’s government largely remains in the hands of Republicans.Republicans prayed at their election night party in Atlanta on Tuesday. The party lost both Senate races after earlier losing the presidential vote in the state.Credit…Brandon Bell/Getty ImagesRichard Fausset and Jan. 10, 2021Updated 8:40 a.m. ETATLANTA — For two months, Georgia Republicans have watched their party descend into a morass of betrayal, chaos and blame. A top state election official accused President Trump of fomenting a “civil war” among fellow Republicans as he pressured the governor and the secretary of state to help overturn his electoral defeat.And, of course, there was the sting of defeat itself — in both the presidential race and the two Georgia Senate runoff elections last week, which relegated Republicans to minority status in both houses of Congress.But then there was Lauren McDonald Jr., a veteran state public service commissioner who goes by Bubba.Mr. McDonald was the third Republican candidate on Tuesday’s runoff ballot. And his 42,000-vote victory in a race in which many voters’ likely motivation was simple party affiliation was a comforting signal to many Georgia Republicans that their party was in better shape than shocking defeats at the top of the ballot might have indicated.Brian Robinson, a longtime Republican and a Georgia political consultant, said the party had certainly been left shaken by it all. However, he added, “Bubba McDonald showed there’s still a pretty strong generic Republican vote out there.”The recent trio of high-stakes Democratic victories in Georgia, fueled by the state’s changing demographics and by distaste for Mr. Trump, may mean that Georgia has finally achieved battleground status. And Democrats, observing a Republican house divided, are hoping for more. They are particularly focused on defeating incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp in 2022, anticipating that Stacey Abrams — Georgia Democrats’ biggest national star since Jimmy Carter — will take on Mr. Kemp in a rematch of their close and bitter 2018 race.But none of that will be easy in a state that retains a strong conservative streak, and where Republicans control most of the levers of power. Every statewide elected office in state government is currently in Republican hands. And Democrats, who had hoped to make big inroads in the state legislature, netted only two State House seats and one State Senate seat in November’s elections, leaving Republicans with comfortable majorities in both houses. Indeed, the possibility of enduring Republican strength in Georgia may illustrate the limits of the damage the Trump era may end up having beyond Washington, particularly in places where the G.O.P. has spent years building solid state parties that cater to a receptive conservative voting base. Republicans cemented or broadened gains in legislatures and state offices around the country even while they were losing the White House and the Senate.Mr. McDonald, in an interview on Friday, noted that he had been an early supporter of Mr. Trump’s and continued to count himself as one. “In my opinion, he’s been a very strong president,” he said. “But let’s turn the page and move on.”Even optimistic Georgia Republicans concede that it is difficult to know how badly the Republican brand has been damaged by Mr. Trump, particularly after he incited a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, and after his incessant and baseless argument that the election was stolen from him in Georgia and elsewhere. (Mr. McDonald declined to comment when asked his opinion about the storming of the Capitol.)Lauren McDonald, the Georgia public service commissioner, who goes by Bubba, was the only Republican to win in the runoff election last week.Credit…Erik S Lesser/EPA, via ShutterstockIt is also difficult to assess Mr. Trump’s influence after he leaves the White House. In Georgia, for instance, he has threatened to back a Republican primary challenger for governor as a means of punishing Mr. Kemp for his lack of fealty.Charles S. Bullock III, a political scientist at the University of Georgia, noted that Mr. Trump continued to have many ardent fans in the state and that many of them believed the election had been stolen. Even if Mr. Kemp were to survive a primary challenge from a Trumpist candidate, such a challenge could siphon off supporters and contributors before he even had the chance to square off against the formidable Ms. Abrams.More generally, Dr. Bullock said, Republicans should be nervous with their margins in statewide races having dwindled year after year. “The two parties may be just about evenly matched going into 2022,” he said. “But the trends have been moving toward the Democrats.”Some hoped that the widespread disgust over the storming of the Capitol would “break the spell of the cult” surrounding Mr. Trump, as Mr. Robinson described it. Mr. Kemp strongly condemned the action Wednesday, calling it “un-American.”The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesUpdated Jan. 10, 2021, 10:04 a.m. ETPatrick Toomey becomes the second Republican senator to call for Trump’s resignation.Federal authorities charge a man they say traveled to Washington for the rally and texted about shooting Pelosi.Inaugural donor list includes tech companies.Mr. Trump has been a dominant and fearsome force among Georgia Republicans, capable of elevating or debilitating the prospects of a candidate with a tweet. Yet after losing his own re-election campaign and then being blamed for the defeats in the Senate races, his grasp has eroded considerably, so much so that some party leaders and elected officials saw him as a liability and a cautionary tale of what could happen when a party was commandeered by a single personality.Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, one of the Republican state officials who became a target after resisting the president’s campaign of pressure to overturn his loss, contends that, ultimately, he will be vindicated.“I think that an overwhelming majority of the voters will come back our direction and reward us,” Mr. Duncan said. “And if they don’t see that as a valuable trait of their lieutenant governor, then I don’t want to represent them. I’ll be perfectly fine getting defeated if they don’t reward or recognize the value of honesty and integrity. I’m not their guy.”When Mr. Trump is taken out of the equation, Republicans’ fundamentals are indeed strong in Georgia, at least for the immediate future. Their legislative dominance means that Republicans this year will control the decennial redrawing of state legislative and congressional district maps, giving them the ability to protect their own and create new problems for some sitting Democratic office holders. In the legislative session that begins Monday, Republicans are promising to impose strict new limits on voting in the wake of record voter turnout.Republican legislators and state officials have discussed eliminating no-excuse absentee voting, which surged in popularity in the pandemic. They have also considered eliminating drop boxes for absentee ballots, curbing unsolicited absentee ballot applications and requiring a photo identification requirement for mail-in ballots.Georgia’s Republican House speaker, David Ralston, said he was unlikely to support eliminating no-excuse absentee voting. But any attempts to curtail the current system are likely to be cited by Democrats as examples of voter suppression, a charge they have leveled against Mr. Kemp, a former secretary of state, for years.Moreover, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, one of the two Democratic Senate victors this week along with Jon Ossoff, will have to run for re-election in 2022, because, in defeating Senator Kelly Loeffler, he is technically finishing out the term of the retired former Senator Johnny Isakson. He is likely to be a top target for national Republicans.The activists who have been helping drive turnout and bolster Democrats know they have their work cut out for them.President Trump threatened to back a different Republican candidate for governor as a means of punishing Gov. Brian Kemp, above, for his lack of fealty.Credit…Dustin Chambers for The New York Times“It’s going to remain a purple state,” said Esteban Garces, a co-executive director of Poder Latinx, an organization that had been heavily involved in registering and mobilizing Latino voters in Georgia during the recent elections.“They were narrow, and that’s the truth of it,” Mr. Garces said of the recent wins by Democrats in the presidential and Senate races. “That means the work on the ground is going to have to be replicated time and again.”Kelly Dietrich, the chief executive of the National Democratic Training Committee, an organization that prepares Democrats to run for elected office, said he was “bullish” on Mr. Warnock’s 2022 run, as well as for other Democratic candidates in Georgia. “It’s that long-term infrastructure required to build long-term power,” he said of the work being done.He added that Republicans would be weighed down by the identity crisis left in the wake of the Trump administration.“This reckoning is their own doing,” Mr. Dietrich said. “They’ve created a monster, and they can’t control it.”Some reckoning has already begun. This week, Erick Erickson, the influential conservative radio host and Trump critic, called for the resignation of the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, David Shafer, a staunch supporter of the president who also promulgated claims of electoral fraud after Mr. Trump’s loss. Mr. Erickson argued that that strategy, which might have depressed Republicans’ desire to turn out in the runoff, ran counter to Republicans’ interests. (Mr. Shafer could not be reached for comment.)The invasion of the U.S. Capitol may also continue to have political repercussions in Georgia. On Friday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that a robocall telling Trump supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight to protect the integrity of our elections” had been put out by the Rule of Law Defense Fund, an arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association. That group is chaired by Chris Carr, the Georgia attorney general.Katie Byrd, a spokeswoman for Mr. Carr, said Friday that Mr. Carr had “no knowledge” of the decision to put out the robocall and noted that he had publicly condemned “the violence and destruction we saw at the U.S. Capitol.”And despite some of the positive signs, Republicans are also weighing how the last days of the Trump era have weakened them and are ruminating on the future of their party’s collective identity. Trey Allen, a Republican commissioner in Columbia County, near Augusta, said the party would have to move beyond being defined by a single personality and focus on classic conservative themes that are still popular with many Georgia voters.“We will hopefully tighten up our platform,” said Mr. Allen, a self-described Reagan Republican who voted for Mr. Trump twice, “and focus on the things that make conservatives who they are: strong economy, strong military, less government, more freedoms.”Mr. Duncan said that Republicans needed to prioritize policy over personality. He imagined what he described as “G.O.P. 2.0,” a version of the party that embraced traditional conservative ideals while also being more empathetic and having a more gentle tone, to win back voters who rejected Mr. Trump’s vitriolic style.“If we don’t learn from our mistakes,” he said, “we’re going to continue to lose from our mistakes. This is the perfect moment in time to start G.O.P. 2.0 and realize we can never let a person be more important than a party.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Georgia Officials Reveal Third Trump Call Seeking to Influence Election Results

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    Election Results: Biden Wins

    Electoral College Votes

    Congress Defies Mob

    Georgia Runoff Results

    Democrats Win Senate Control

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    How Trump Could Affect Loeffler and Perdue in Georgia Race

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    Georgia Runoff Results

    Latest Updates

    Live Forecast

    The Candidates in Georgia

    Electoral College Votes

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    'Fear the Democrats': Georgia Republicans Deliver Persistent Message

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGeorgia Republicans Deliver Persistent Message: Fear the DemocratsSenators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are resting their re-election hopes on a strategy that calls more attention to what they’re against than what they support.Senator Kelly Loeffler spoke with supporters on Thursday after a campaign event in Norcross, Ga.Credit…Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesAstead W. Herndon and Dec. 31, 2020Updated 9:20 p.m. ETNORCROSS, Ga. — The biggest applause lines in Senator Kelly Loeffler’s stump speech are not about Ms. Loeffler at all.When the crowd is most engaged, including Thursday morning at a community pavilion in suburban Atlanta, Ms. Loeffler invokes President Trump or attacks her Democratic opponents as socialists and Marxists. Her own policy platforms are rarely mentioned.“Are you ready to keep fighting for President Trump and show America that Georgia is a red state?” Ms. Loeffler said when she took the microphone. “We are the firewall to stopping socialism and we have to hold the line.”Such are the themes of the closing arguments in the all-important Georgia Senate runoffs, which have reflected the partisanship and polarization of the national political environment. Ms. Loeffler and her Senate colleague, David Perdue, are seeking to motivate a conservative base that is still loyal to Mr. Trump while also clawing back some of the defectors who helped deliver Georgia to a Democratic presidential nominee for the first time since 1992.Democrats are eager to prove that Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory over President Trump in Georgia was more than a fluke, and that the state is ready to embrace their party’s more progressive policy agenda, rather than anti-Trumpness alone.But the race is also emblematic of each party’s current political messages. Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, the Democratic Senate candidates, have put forth an array of policy proposals that blend the shared priorities of the moderate center and the progressive left: passing a new Voting Rights Act, expanding Medicaid without backing a single payer system, investment in clean energy while stopping short of the Green New Deal, and criminal justice reform that does not include defunding the police.Republicans are seeking no such calibration. Mr. Perdue, who announced on Thursday that he would quarantine after coming into contact with someone who had tested positive for the coronavirus, and Ms. Loeffler are banking that their loyalists are motivated more by what their candidates stand against than by what they stand for.There are signs that this approach has resonated with many Republican voters. At Ms. Loeffler’s event in Norcross, and later at a New Year’s Eve concert in Gainesville, voters said their top priorities were supporting Mr. Trump and his allegations of voter fraud and beating back the perceived excesses of liberals and their candidates.“The biggest factor for me is stopping socialism,” said Melinda Weeks, a 62-year-old voter who lives in Gwinnett County. “I don’t want to see our country become the Chinese Communist Party.”A campaign event on Wednesday for Senator Loeffler in Augusta, Ga.Credit…Sean Rayford for The New York TimesJohn Wright, 64, said that he was voting for Ms. Loeffler and Mr. Perdue but that he thinks Republicans must do a better job of reaching minority voters. He cited the change in racial makeup that has continued apace in Georgia and fueled Democrats’ chances at winning statewide seats.“Republicans need to figure out how to help these people, how to reach these people,” Mr. Wright said. “Those demographics are changing, and you can’t just pitch the American dream to people who haven’t been able to achieve the American dream.”The statewide jockeying comes at a tumultuous time in Georgia politics, as Mr. Trump continues to upend the Senate races with his baseless accusations of voter fraud, persistent attacks on the state’s Republican governor and secretary of state, and bombastic tweets regarding the coronavirus relief package.In the last month alone, Mr. Trump has called for Gov. Brian Kemp to resign, accused Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of having a brother in cahoots with the Chinese government (Mr. Raffensperger does not have a brother), threatened to veto the pandemic relief package, sided with Democrats on the need for bigger stimulus checks, and claimed Georgia Republicans were “fools” who were virtually controlled by Stacey Abrams and the Democrats.Mr. Trump is scheduled to visit northwest Georgia on Monday, just one day before Election Day. The appearance underscores the complicated relationship Republicans have with the departing president at this time, according to party operatives and members of the state Republican caucus. They need Mr. Trump to motivate the base, while he remains a source of tension that has put Mr. Perdue and Ms. Loeffler under significant pressure in the runoffs.Trump is “delivering a sort of mixed message,” said Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. “Because if you look at the rally he held down at Valdosta, the first time he came down, he spent more time airing his own grievances over the presidential election and claiming that he was cheated out of victory than he really did supporting Loeffler or Purdue. He endorsed them, but he didn’t seem to be as concerned about those races as he was about trying to re-litigate the presidential race.”Charles. S. Bullock III, a political-science professor at the University of Georgia, said the critical question surrounding Mr. Trump’s rally is: “Will it convince some people who have up until that point said they’re not going to vote?”Democrats, he said, had appeared to have done a better job in getting people to the polls for early voting, which ended in some places on Thursday. “So that would be the last moment — a last chance effort to get folks who have been sitting on the sidelines,” Mr. Bullock said.Democratic candidates spent New Year’s Eve targeting voters representing their base: young voters, minority voters in the Atlanta area, and liberal churchgoers. Mr. Ossoff was scheduled to speak at two virtual “Watch Night” services, the New Year’s Eve tradition that dates to 1862, when freed Black Americans living in Union states gathered in anticipation of the Emancipation Proclamation.Mr. Ossoff and Mr. Warnock have several drive-in rallies scheduled from Friday through Election Day, including separate events with Mr. Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.Jon Ossoff, the Democrat running against Mr. Perdue, spoke at a campaign event with Asian and Pacific Islander supporters in Suwanee on Thursday.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York TimesMore than three million residents have already cast a ballot in the races. The breakdown of votes so far has buoyed Democratic hopes: Population centers such as Fulton and DeKalb Counties in metropolitan Atlanta are posting sky-high turnout numbers, and the percentage of Black voters continues to trend above presidential election levels.Videos of nearly four-hour-long voting lines in Cobb County angered some liberal groups and voting rights advocates who said it was a failure of state and local leadership. The N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense and Educational Fund sent two letters to Mr. Raffensperger, the state’s lead election official, which warned that an increase of polling locations in the county was necessary to accommodate increased turnout.Republicans believe that many of their supporters are waiting until Jan. 5 to vote in person. Across the country in November, Republicans saw big in-person voting turnout wipe away Democratic leads in states like Florida and Texas. Republicans could also be particularly keen to cast their ballots in person this time, considering the widespread fears of voter fraud that Mr. Trump has instilled in his base since his loss.The announcement that Mr. Perdue would be temporarily off the campaign trail in the race’s final days startled some Republicans, who had been gearing up for Mr. Trump’s visit on Monday. Mr. Perdue is still hopeful that he will attend the rally with the president, according to a person familiar with the campaign, considering he has not tested positive for the virus and has multiple days to test negative in advance of the event.Even before Thursday, when his campaign revealed the virus exposure, Mr. Perdue had done fewer public events than Ms. Loeffler or their Democratic opponents. The campaign did not provide an exact timeline for when Mr. Perdue might return to public events.“The senator and his wife have been tested regularly throughout the campaign, and the team will continue to follow C.D.C. guidelines,” a statement read.At the New Year’s Eve Concert in Gainesville on Thursday, organized by the two Republican senators’ campaigns, Mr. Perdue’s absence was not acknowledged. Instead, speakers used Mr. Trump’s scheduled appearance Monday as a hook: Go vote Tuesday after watching the president the day before.Ms. Loeffler was joined by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who emphasized that turnout in the north was crucial to overcoming Democratic enthusiasm in urban centers.“This is the part of the state that runs up the score to neutralize Atlanta, you get that?” he said. “If Republicans win, I’m the budget chairman. If we lose Georgia, Bernie Sanders is the budget chairman.”He left no room for subtext. A vote for Republicans in Georgia, Mr. Graham said, was a vote to ensure Democrats can get little of their agenda enacted in Washington.“Anything that comes out of Pelosi’s House, it’ll come to the Senate and we’ll kill it dead,” he said, as the crowd roared with approval.“If you’re a conservative and that doesn’t motivate you to vote, then you’re legally dead.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Knocking on Two Million Doors in Georgia

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    .nytslm_notification_headline {
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    Electoral College Results

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