Donald Trump holds rally in Georgia, his first since the presidential election

Donald Trump holds rally in Georgia, his first since the presidential election

US President Donald Trump has held his first political rally since last month’s election, travelling to the state of Georgia to campaign for two Republican Senate candidates.
As things stand, the Republican Party has won 50 of America’s 100 Senate seats and the Democrats have won 48. A pair of seats remain up for grabs, and both of them are in Georgia.
Incumbent Republican senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are fending off challenges from Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of these elections. Should the Democrats win both, each side will have 50 senators, and from January 20 onwards, incoming vice president Kamala Harris will have the tiebreaking vote.
If either Mr Perdue or Ms Loeffler can hold on, however, the Republicans will retain their majority and with it, the ability to stymie president-elect Joe Biden’s agenda.
The two special elections are happening on January 5.
Mr Trump’s visit to Georgia came amid particularly awkward circumstances. The President has still not accepted his defeat to Mr Biden, even though his attempts to challenge the election result through the courts have thus far been fruitless.
He has spent recent weeks criticising Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger – both of whom are Republicans – for refusing to back up his baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.
Mr Kemp officially certified Georgia’s outcome more than two weeks ago, giving Mr Biden the state’s 16 electoral votes.
“I want to say, hello Georgia. We did a great job,” Mr Trump said as he took the stage today.
“You know, we won Georgia, just so you understand. And we won Florida. And we won a lot of places. Thank you very much. No, we won a lot of places. We won Florida, and we won Ohio.”
The crowd reacted with an enthusiastic chant of: “We love you!”
The President did indeed win Florida and Ohio, and by fairly comfortable margins. He claimed Florida by more than 300,000 votes and Ohio by almost 500,000.
He did not win Georgia. Mr Biden claimed the state by about 12,500 votes. His victory there has been confirmed by a full recount, conducted by hand.

“I think they say that if you win Florida, and if you win Ohio, in history you’ve never lost an election. This has got to be a first time. But the truth is, they were right. We’ve never lost an election. We’re winning this election,” Mr Trump continued.
“We continue to fight. We’ve had some great moments. We just need somebody with courage to do what they have to do. Because everyone knows it’s wrong. We need somebody with courage, somebody that makes decisions.
“And we’ll be going up to the Supreme Court very shortly, and really, if we have courage and wisdom, I think you know what the answer’s going to be. Because you can’t let people get away with what they got away with.”
It’s unclear which lawsuit Mr Trump was referring to. My best guess is that he meant his legal team’s case in Pennsylvania, which was recently denied on appeal by a panel of conservative appellate judges, led by one the President himself appointed.
His assessment of Florida and Ohio, and the two states’ bellwether status, is broadly correct. Mr Biden is the first presidential candidate to claim just one of those states, but successfully win the broader election, since Bill Clinton in 1992.

https://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/us-politics/donald-trump-holds-rally-in-georgia-his-first-since-the-presidential-election/news-story/0fa3408a0774aceaa94a3547e6f47659