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

At his first political rally since election day, US President Donald Trump vowed to “never surrender” and insisted he was the winner.

Donald Trump at today’s rally in Georgia. Picture: Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP

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.

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Donald Trump in Georgia. Picture: Getty Images/AFP

“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.

The President drew a large crowd. There was no social distancing, and few of the attendees wore face masks. Picture: Getty Images/AFP

“Think of it. With over 74 million votes. Think of that. I got more votes than any sitting president in history. Eleven million more votes than we got in 2016,” said Mr Trump.

“And we thought that if we could get 68 million, 67 million, that would be the end. All of our great, brilliant geniuses said, ‘You’d win, if you get 67 or 68 million, it’s over.’ We got 74 million plus, and they’re trying to convince us that we lost. We didn’t lose.”

Mr Trump has indeed won 74.2 million votes, which is the second-highest total for any candidate in US history. The problem here is that Mr Biden has won 81.3 million.

So, while Mr Trump’s raw vote total is the highest ever recorded for a sitting president, his proportion of the popular vote is among the lowest we’ve seen in a century. Mr Biden’s share of the vote is the highest for someone challenging an incumbent since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932.

“They found a lot of ballots, to be nice about it. And they got rid of some too. Let me tell you, the 74 could have been even higher,” Mr Trump said.

“As the great pollster, John McLaughlin, who’s really a great pollster. One of the most highly respected. He said there’s no way this could have happened, other than the obvious cheating or a rigged election. There’s no way it could have happened.”

As Mr Trump continued, the crowd started to chant: “Stop the steal!”

“Your governor could stop it very easily if he knew what the hell he was doing. He could stop it very easily,” he said.

“We said, ‘Have this brought back into your legislature, governor. Have it brought back, let these people make it.’

“Keep it open, keep it transparent, and let us have a signature verification. What’s wrong with that?”

OK, a couple of different things got conflated there. The first is the idea that Georgia’s state legislature, which is controlled by the Republican Party, should select the state’s electors instead of abiding by the popular vote.

So, essentially, the Republicans could give Georgia’s electoral votes to Mr Trump, even though the people voted for Mr Biden.

Putting aside all the other obvious problems with this concept, Mr Kemp simply does not have the power to make it happen.

The second thing is Mr Trump’s recurring argument that Georgia’s recount should have included verification of voters’ signatures to confirm their ballots were cast legally.

As we have explained at some length on multiple occasions, this was not possible.

No mail-in ballot in Georgia is counted without the voter’s signature being checked twice – once when they request their ballot, and again when they return it.

When the vote is counted, it is separated from the signed envelope in which it was enclosed. This is to comply with Georgia’s constitution, which requires votes to be cast by secret ballot.

None of last month’s votes can be reunited with their signed envelopes at this point. The envelopes have been discarded, and it would violate the state’s election laws anyway.

Mr Trump is asking for something that is literally impossible.

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First Lady Melania Trump was there too. Picture: Getty Images/AFP

As his speech progressed, Mr Trump expanded his complaints to cover other swing states.

“It’s fake news. They said Wisconsin. A poll came out, Washington Post/ABC, just before the election. I’m going to lose Wisconsin by 17 points. I said, ‘No, I’m going to win Wisconsin. Well actually, I won Wisconsin,” he said.

“They’re trying to say, ‘He’s a little down.’ But I actually won.

“These people are sick. Seventeen points! And we actually won. Remember? So many of the states, I won every one of these states.

“And by the way, the swing states that we’re all fighting over now – I won them all by a lot. I won them all by a lot.”

Mr Trump was citing a real poll, released about a week before the election, which did indeed show Mr Biden leading Wisconsin by 17 per cent.

It was way off. He ended up winning the state by just 20,000 votes.

The Trump campaign requested a recount in a handful of the state’s counties. Like the one in Georgia, it confirmed Mr Biden’s victory.

Among the swing states Mr Trump referred to, he won Florida, Ohio, Iowa and North Carolina. Mr Biden won Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. The final electoral vote margin was 306-232, in Mr Biden’s favour.

“If I lost, I’d be a very gracious loser,” Mr Trump insisted.

“If I lost, I would say, ‘I lost,’ and I would go to Florida and I’d take it easy.

“But you can’t ever accept when they steal and rig and rob. You can’t accept it.

“We’re all deeply disturbed and upset by the lying, cheating, robbing, stealing that’s gone on with our elections.”

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Still carrying the torch. Picture: Getty Images/AFP

Of course, the President’s rally was ostensibly held to help gee up support for Mr Perdue and Ms Loeffler.

There is concern within the Republican Party that its core supporters might stay home, ignoring the two special elections under the belief that they’re rigged anyway.

Mr Trump did his best to combat that idea.

“The answer to the Democrat fraud is not to stay at home,” he argued.

“If you want to do something to them – I don’t want to use the word revenge, but it is a certain revenge – to the Democrats, you show up and vote in record numbers. That’s what you do. They can only win if they cheat.

“You know, when you think of it, the Republicans are much nicer. They’re not nearly as vicious. Maybe a few of us. Republicans are too nice.

“They are, they’re too nice. They don’t go after these criminals. They gotta go after them.

“Everything that we’ve achieved together is on the line on June fifth (he meant January 5).

“We will never back down. We will never, ever surrender. Because we are Americans, and our hearts bleed red, white and blue.”