Trump vows to go to Georgia and rally voters for Senate runoffs hours after saying race is 'illegal'

Donald Trump has urged his followers to ‘get ready to vote’ in the Georgia Senate runoffs just hours after telling them the race was ‘illegal and invalid’ because of what he described as an ‘unconstitutional’ voting process, as a growing faction of Republicans fear the president is deliberately sabotaging the race.

Trump tweeted Saturday morning urging his followers to get behind the two GOP Senate candidates David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler ahead of a last-ditch rally in Dalton, Georgia Monday night. 

‘Will be in Georgia on Monday night, 9:00 P.M. to RALLY for two GREAT people, @sendavidperdue & @kloeffler. GET READY TO VOTE ON TUESDAY!!!’ he tweeted Saturday morning.

The president appeared to backtrack from his Twitter rant just hours earlier on New Year’s Day where he claimed the whole of Georgia’s election is ‘not legal or constitutional’ due to ‘massive’ changes to the voting process he says were made ‘hastily’ in the run up to the presidential election. 

He specifically took aim at the Georgia ‘consent decree’ – a bipartisan agreement reached in March by state Democratic and Republican officials that determined standards for validating signatures on absentee ballots. 

He also continued to push unfounded claims of widespread election fraud saying without evidence that there was ‘massive corruption’ in the 2020 election in the Twitter thread that was marked with a ‘disputed’ warning by the platform. 

His comments – which could turn off his followers from heading to the polls – come just days before the crucial vote that ultimately decides which party will control the Senate.

Trump has on the one hand been urging his supporters to back Loeffler and Perdue in the runoff race but has also continued to undermine the entire election process. 

‘A big strain’ of Trump’s own party are now said to fear the president is trying to sabotage the race because of his own failure to take the state and Georgia Republicans including Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan are warning him he is damaging Loeffler and Perdue’s chances.

‘Before even discussing the massive corruption which took place in the 2020 Election, which gives us far more votes than is necessary to win all of the Swing States (only need three), it must be noted that the State Legislatures were not in any way responsible for the massive changes made to the voting process, rules and regulations, many made hastily before the election, and therefore the whole State Election is not legal or Constitutional,’ Trump tweeted Friday.

‘Additionally, the Georgia Consent Decree is Unconstitutional & the State 2020 Presidential Election is therefore both illegal and invalid, and that would include the two current Senatorial Elections.

‘n Wisconsin, Voters not asking for applications invalidates the Election. All of this without even discussing the millions of fraudulent votes that were cast or altered!’

The thread was slapped with validity warnings from Twitter that the election fraud claim is disputed and that election officials have certified the presidential election for Joe Biden.

Election officials have declared Joe Biden won Georgia with 49.5 percent of the vote in comparison to Trump’s 49.3 percent.   

In the rant, Trump said the consent decree rendered both his own loss in Georgia and the two Senate runoffs ‘invalid’. 

The decree gives voters an opportunity to fix absentee ballots where there is some alleged mismatch between their signature on their ballot and their signature that election officials have on file.

The signature verification process has been the crux of many of Trump’s failed lawsuits to overturn the election, with his legal team arguing the agreement was illegal because it did not involve state legislatures. 

The argument has failed however because Supreme Court rulings do allow legislatures to delegate their authority to other state officials, according to the National Constitution Center. 

Neither Loeffler nor Perdue’s offices returned DailyMail.com’s requests for comment on Trump’s claims about Tuesday’s runoff race. 

Trump’s repeated undermining of the validity of the Senate race could be doing his party more harm than good by deterring his supporters from turning out to vote.  

Trump-supporting conspiracy theorists have already threatened to stage a boycott to derail the GOP candidates’ chances to claim the seats.  

Mike Allen, co-founder of Axios, told CNBC Thursday that many Republicans think Trump is sabotaging Loeffler and Perdue’s campaigns to send a message that the party needs him.

‘There’s a big strain of thought among Republicans that President Trump is sabotaging this race. He’s done so much to be unhelpful to those candidates,’ Allen said.

‘I talk to Republicans and they look at what’s happening, and they say, “You know, he must be thinking, ‘I want to send a message, If I’m not on the ballot, Republicans are in trouble.”‘ 

Allen added that confidence is now waning in the party about the results of the race. 

‘Georgia, despite the president-elect winning there, is still pretty red, so Republicans said, ‘In the end, this could be fine,” he said.

‘They’re no longer sure it’s fine, and a lot of that has to do with the president.’ 

Prominent Republicans are also warning that Trump is damaging the party’s chances of taking the Senate. 

Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan told CNN Thursday he believes Trump’s continued denial that he lost the presidential election is damaging Loeffler and Perdue’s chances in the runoffs.

‘I think so,’ he said, when the question was put to him.

‘Unfortunately the president has committed to the way he is going to act and react to losing the election and at this point it is not helping us here in Georgia.

‘We’ve got a very important event on January 5 and not just big for us here in Georgia but big for Republicans all over the country. My hope is that enough Republicans hang on with us here through January 5.’

When asked if Trump’s rally Monday will ‘help or hurt’ the GOP race, Duncan said he was ‘just going to stay positive’ and focus on the campaign.

‘Republican leadership is working here in Georgia and my encouragement to the president is to stay focused on that,’ he said. 

Some political experts in the state believe Trump has already damaged the candidates’ chances with GOP turnout in the early voting period that ended Thursday said to be low.    

A total of 2.8 million Georgians had already cast a ballot by Thursday with a higher turnout in Democratic Congressional districts than Republican ones, Fox News reported.

The amount counts for more than a third of the 4.9 million Georgians who voted in the November 3 general election. 

Black voters make up a larger percentage of voters than in the November general election, which could be good news for Democratic Senate hopefuls Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock.  

Georgia-based GOP consultant Chip Lake told Fox News that ‘the early-voting numbers are certainly a little more favorable to Democrats than the early-voting data that we had in November.’

‘Republicans need to have a strong Election Day turnout on Tuesday. Election Day votes count the exact same as early votes. We had just under a million people vote on Election Day on Nov. 3,’ Lake continued. 

‘For Republicans to win these runoff races, I think it’s crucial that we need to have Election Day turnout at 800,000 votes or higher on Tuesday.’ 

Trump is set to hold a rally in Dalton, Georgia on Monday in support of the two candidates meanwhile Perdue announced Thursday he was in quarantine after being exposed to COVID-19 by a staff member.  

The two Georgia Senate seats are still up for grabs after candidates on neither side of the political line managed to secure the 50 percent threshold to secure a seat on November 3. 

This means that on January 5, Perdue will go head-to-head with Democrat opponent Jon Ossoff and Loeffler with Democrat Raphael Warnock.

The outcome will ultimately decide which party takes control of the Senate. If the two Democrats win, the party will hold a 50-50 split meaning Vice President-elect Kamala Harris then has the deciding vote on matters. 

If one or both of the Republicans win they will take control, likely making it difficult for the Biden administration to pass policies through the Senate.