Georgia Republican Voters Consider Boycott Of Special Senate Election In Support Of Trump

Republicans battling for the decisive Georgia Senate runoffs have encountered an unexpected enemy in recent days: their own base.

Anti-establishment rhetoric and distrust of voting systems fueled by President Donald Trump’s allegations of election fraud have made some Georgia Republicans consider boycotting the twin runoff elections set for Jan. 5.

Incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler could see weak Republican turnout in what is expected to be a tight race. Perdue faces Democrat Jon Ossoff, who in 2017 nearly flipped a House seat in a special election. Loeffler will go up against Democrat Raphael Warnock, an Atlanta pastor.

Perdue and Loeffler have faced Republican backlash following Trump's defeat to President-elect Joe Biden, who flipped Georgia by over 12,000 votes. Trump has publicly attacked the Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, as well as Gov. Brian Kemp over the count, while Perdue and Loeffler have been mostly quiet about referencing potential voter fraud.

Trump's attorney Lin Wood has suggested that Georgia voters should not vote for Perdue and Loeffler until they do more to help Trump overturn the results.

"Politicians love votes & money (not necessarily in that order). Want to get @SenLoeffler & @sendavidperdue out of their basements to demand that action must be taken to fix steal of the 11/3 GA election? Threaten to withhold your votes & money. Demand that they represent you," Wood tweeted on Sunday.

Republican voter allegiance to Trump was seen Saturday at a "Stop the Steal" rally in Atlanta. The Nation noted a Trump supporter who described Kemp and Raffensperger as “traitors."

“We will do whatever it takes to completely destroy the Republican Party," the man said, according to The Nation.

Meanwhile, a hashtag has trended that supports Trump at the expense of the two Republican candidates. On Twitter, #WriteInTrumpForGA has promoted writing in Trump's name in the special election. There has also been traction on the conservative social media site Parler.

Trump has yet to concede the election has been diligent in railing against voter fraud.

“If [Trump] continues to disillusion voters ... by saying that the elections were rigged and that your vote doesn’t matter, this could have severe consequences for the administration in trying to keep those two seats Republican,” Republican pollster Frank Luntz said Monday on CNBC's “Squawk Box."

Biden's win in Georgia, which has 16 electoral votes, was helped by the efforts of former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who strengthened voter turnout through her organization Fair Fight. She told the New York Times that she's determined to help Democrats win the two crucial Senate seats.

"I am focused on Jan. 5, and ensuring that we can send Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to the United States Senate," Abrams said.