President Trump campaigned for Georgia’s Republican senators Saturday night in a rally in which he spent much of his speech telling supporters that he didn’t lose the presidential election on Nov. 3.
“We never lost an election. We’re winning this election,” Mr. Trump said in Valdosta, Georgia. “They cheated and rigged our presidential election, but we will still win it.”
The crowd of several thousand chanted “Stop the steal!”
The president cited a list of “irrefutable facts” why he couldn’t have lost to presumptive President-elect Joseph R. Biden, who is preparing to be inaugurated on Jan. 20.
“If I lost, I’d be a very gracious loser,” Mr. Trump said. “But you can’t ever accept when they steal and rob.”
He vowed that his legal team “will be going up to the Supreme Court very shortly.”
“We continue to fight,” he said. “We just need somebody with courage to do what they have to do. If we have courage and wisdom, I think you know what the answer’s going to be. I got more votes than any sitting president in history. We got 74 million-plus, and they’re trying to convince us that we lost. We didn’t lose.”
He said his campaign has raised about $250 million since the election “because people believe in what we’re doing.”
The president’s lawyers have filed lawsuits to reverse the election in several key swing states, but have been rejected at nearly every turn. Earlier Saturday, the president pressed Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in a phone call to call a special legislative session to overturn Mr. Biden’s win in the state, but the Republican governor refused.
Mr. Trump held his first rally since the presidential election for Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, who face runoff elections on Jan. 5 against Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, respectively. Their races will determine control of the Senate.
The president called the Democrats “dangerous extremists.” He said Mr. Warnock is “strongly anti-Israel.”
“Georgia patriots need to get out and vote for these two great [Republican] senators,” Mr. Trump said.
Some Republicans have expressed concern that Mr. Trump’s allegations of election fraud could depress GOP turnout in the crucial Senate races. On Saturday night, the president continued to rail against election fraud in the state, and complained that Mr. Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger were allowing Democrats to steal the election from him.
“This election was rigged. We can’t let it happen again,” Mr. Trump said. “Your governor could stop it very easily if he knew what the hell he was doing. For whatever reason, your governor and your secretary of state are afraid of Stacey Abrams.”
It was a reference to the influential Georgia Democrat who narrowly lost her bid for governor to Mr. Kemp in 2018.
Mr. Biden won Georgia by more than 12,000 votes, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state in nearly three decades. Mr. Kemp certified the election totals on Nov. 20, following a statewide audit including a hand recount.
Despite his continual allegations of election fraud in Georgia, Mr. Trump told supporters, “You have to get out and you have to vote, and you have to make sure that every vote is counted.”
“You have to make sure that your secretary of state knows what the hell he is doing,” he said. “And you have to make sure your governor gets a lot tougher than he’s been.”
The president acknowledged that the GOP is divided about the Georgia election, saying many of his friends are telling people not to vote. He even said “it was sort of an instinct of mine… because so many votes were stolen.”
“But if you do that, the radical left wins,” Mr. Trump said. “We can’t do that. We have to actually do just the opposite.”
Mr. Trump called Mr. Kemp earlier Saturday to call a special session of the Republican-led state legislature, with the goal of selecting pro-Trump presidential electors. Mr. Kemp refused, and the president complained that Mr. Kemp and Republican Gov. Doug Ducey were thwarting his efforts to overturn Mr. Biden’s victories in both states.
“Between Governor @DougDucey of Arizona and Governor @BrianKempGA of Georgia, the Democrat Party could not be happier,” Mr. Trump tweeted. “They fight harder against us than do the Radical Left Dems. If they were with us, we would have already won both Arizona and Georgia. We received more LEGAL votes by far. All I can do is run, campaign, and be a good (great!) President – it is 100% up to the states to manage the election. Republicans will NEVER forget this.”
Mr. Kemp, who did not attend the president’s rally, replied to Mr. Trump on Twitter, “As I told the President this morning, I’ve publicly called for a signature audit three times (11/20, 11/24, 12/3) to restore confidence in our election process and to ensure that only legal votes are counted in Georgia.”
The president tweeted back at Mr. Kemp, “But you never got the signature verification! Your people are refusing to do what you ask. What are they hiding? At least immediately ask for a Special Session of the Legislature. That you can easily, and immediately, do.”
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