RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel Tells Republicans To Vote In Georgia Runoffs, Insists Elections Won’t Be Rigged
At a Saturday campaign stop in Marietta, Georgia, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel pleaded with voters to support GOP candidates in the two runoff elections in the state, CNN reported.
Incumbent Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler will have to fend off formidable Democratic challengers. If they lose, the upper chamber will be split 50-50 between the two parties, which will allow incoming Vice President Kamala Harris to break any tie.
Like most Republicans, McDaniel has expressed support for Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud, so she struggled to convince members of the audience that their vote matters.
“It’s not decided. This is the key — it’s not decided,” she told the crowd.
McDaniel explained that Perdue is ahead of his opponent, Jon Ossoff, by more than 88,000 votes, which shows that the election was not rigged.
“So if you lose your faith and you don’t vote and people walk away — that will decide it,” the RNC chairwoman insisted.
Contradicting Trump and his legal team, McDaniel tried to convince the audience that there is no evidence that voting machines flipped votes and swayed the election in Democrat Joe Biden’s favor.
“We didn’t see that in the audit, so we’ve got to just… That evidence we haven’t seen, so we’ll have to wait and see,” she argued.
McDaniel told the audience that they have every right to be upset with some GOP politicians but pleaded with them “to focus on the mission at hand,” which is winning the two runoffs.
“But we’ve got to focus on January 5 right now. We can deal with those other things later.”
After the event, McDaniel told reporters that Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the presidential race will have no impact on turnout in Georgia.
“The president has said, unequivocally, that he supports Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue,” she noted, adding that Trump will campaign for the two senators.
Meanwhile, she said, Trump will continue to “fight his own battles.”
As The Guardian reported, some Republicans have warned that Trump’s claims of electoral manipulation could backfire and depress turnout in the two key elections.
The president has repeatedly implicated GOP officials in his theories, taking aim at Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, which reportedly inspired some of his supporters to boycott the runoffs.
His son, Donald Trump Jr., has sought to tamp down tensions, telling Republicans that they should ignore those who tell them that there is no point in voting because the elections will be rigged.
