Trump's voter fraud fantasy is starting to muck up Republicans' chances elsewhere
Sidney Powell, the recently — and very publicly — sacked Trump campaign lawyer who vowed to "release the kraken" that would prove election fraud against the president, is unfortunately at it again, bringing her unique brand of conspiratorial chutzpah to Georgia on Wednesday as part of her now-freelance bid to subject courts across the country to hilarious typos and nonsensical allegations.
Speaking at a "Stop the Steal" rally alongside President Trump ally and martial law supporter Lin Wood, Powell urged the crowd "to not vote at all until your vote is secure" in the state's upcoming Senate runoff races, which will decide which party takes the majority in the upper chamber.
"I mean that regardless of party," Powell added, indicating that apparently she believes there might be non-MAGA voters who are for some reason interested in what she has to say.
Wood, fresh off a fierce judicial rebuke by a Trump-appointed judge who ruled that "the fact that the candidate or candidates that [Wood] voted for … did not prevail in an election does not meet the legal standard of harm, much less irreparable harm," also joined in, asking rally attendees: "Why would you go back and vote in another rigged election?"
"If Kelly Loeffler wants your vote, if David Perdue wants your vote, they've gotta earn it," Wood added, criticizing the GOP nominees for Georgia's two open Senate seats for not attending Wednesday's rally.
No matter their official contractual relationship with Trump himself, the fact that two high-profile figures in MAGA world have moved to actively dissuade Republicans from turning out in what is arguably the most important Senate race(s) of the 21st century is inarguably bad news for the GOP. Just days earlier, party chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel struggled to convince the very voters she'd encouraged for months to question the validity of the 2020 presidential race why they should now participate in the upcoming Senate run-offs.
After one attendee at McDaniel's recent Georgia town hall asked why she should bother giving time and money to the GOP's candidates "when we know [this race is] already decided?" a visibly flustered McDaniel scrambled to diffuse the situation, insisting, "It's not decided! This is the key — it's not decided!"
Given the razor-thin margins that prompted the Senate run-off in the first place, Republicans can't afford an insurrectionist attempt to dampen voter enthusiasm — even if it's coming as part of Trump's broader effort to delegitimize electoral politics as a whole.
Unfortunately, that's the bed the Republicans have made for themselves. Now they just have to resign themselves to sleeping in it.
