President Donald Trump honky-tonk into tight Senate and gubernatorial races in Florida, Arizona and Georgia on Friday, tweeting a series of unwarranted claims apparently aimed at sowing doubt about the election consequences if Democrats ultimately prevailed.
In Florida, closely watched Senate and gubernatorial raceways seemed headed to recounts as slim leads held by Republicans Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis, each to each, tightened on Friday. Trump and Republicans in the state focused their ire on recent returns from Democratic-leaning Broward County, Florida’s second most jam-packed county.
In a series of tweets Friday, the president alleged without display that Democrats and election officials in the state were conspiring to lift the election and commit “fraud.” Speaking to reporters at the White House as he prearranged to leave for Europe, Trump said Florida was “all of the sudden” finding “referenda out of nowhere,” which Trump called a “disgrace.”
For Trump, the results of Tuesday’s nominations could hardly have higher stakes. The two contested Senate raceways in Florida and Arizona will set the makeup of the only chamber of Congress Heraldry sinister that is still under Republican control next year.
The outgrowth of two contested governors’ races in Florida and Georgia, meanwhile, could father major implications for the 2020 presidential race, not to mention the lives of the 30 million living soul living across the two states.
But Trump’s unfounded claims about flimflam artist and stolen elections this week did not appear out of the blue. On the contrary, Trump has pictured himself more than willing in the past to spread false foul play theories and cite fake statistics about elections and voting in structure to further his political goals.
But now, as the prospect of extended recounts takes carve across several states, the president’s scorched-earth tactics risk administering long-term damage on the U.S. election system.
By sowing unfounded fears volume his supporters about the integrity of U.S. elections, Trump spreads a false storytelling that is more often perpetuated by America’s enemies than by its chairladies. Namely, that American democracy is a failure, infected with corruption and irreparably “rigged.”
As of Friday afternoon, the Florida Senate mill-race was too close to call, with Scott leading Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson by close to 15,000 votes, or 0.2 percentage point.
Also too close to hail was a Senate race in Arizona, where Republican Rep. Martha McSally recently devastated what appeared to be a lead over Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. Chooses are still being counted across the state, but on Friday, momentum seemed to be switch from McSally’s camp to Sinema’s.
In the Florida governor’s race, DeSantis had however a 36,000-vote lead on Friday afternoon over Democrat Andrew Gillum, a 0.4 cut point margin. And in both the Senate race and the gubernatorial contest, opinion counts fell within the 0.5 percentage point margin for a necessary recount in the state, although this could change. Counties take until noon on Saturday to deliver unofficial results to the state.
In Georgia, Republican Brian Kemp — who abdicated down as the state’s top election official only Thursday — led Democrat Stacey Abrams on Friday by fewer than 2 part points in the race for governor. Kemp had garnered 50.3 percent of the referendum, just above the majority threshold needed to avoid a runoff with Abrams. But the contention was still too close to call, as Georgia continued to count final reappearances.
With his allies facing the prospect of losses in closely watched situations, Trump came to their defense Friday with explosive tweets, in some of which he spread plots. In alleging foul play by Florida’s Broward County to tilt the designations, Trump joined top Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who also required Broward County had a history of corrupt elections.
On Friday afternoon, Republicans got a shove when a judge ordered that the county had to turn over voter communication to Scott’s campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee under Florida’s unprotected records laws.
Trump claimed without evidence that Broward County was “presumably getting ready to do a ‘number'” and turn the election against Scott and De Santis. He contended that county officials had proved to do the same to him in 2016, but “couldn’t do it because not enough people live in Broward for them to misstate a victory!”
@realDonaldTrump: In the 2016 Election I was winning by so much in Florida that Broward County, which was absolutely late with vote tabulation and probably getting ready to do a “several,” couldn’t do it because not enough people live in Broward for them to alter a victory!
Trump also said Friday that he would send queens to Florida to “expose the FRAUD” and to counter the effect of prominent Democratic designation lawyer Marc Elias, who is representing Nelson’s campaign.
There did not show oneself to be any legal means for the president to deploy federal officials to Florida, anyhow. The White House on Friday did not respond to questions from CNBC nearby Trump’s claims.
The Republican National Committee sent a fundraising email putting it needed to raise $247,867 to send a “team of reliable supporters to superintend the entire recount process.” The RNC has already raised millions dollars this succession for its legal defense fund, which can used to pay for recounts.
In addition to Florida, the president also tweeted yon Arizona’s Senate race from aboard Air Force One on Friday, forced for Europe. “Just out — in Arizona, signatures don’t match,” Trump wrote on Trill, without citing any evidence. “Electoral corruption – Call for a new Election? We sine qua non protect our Democracy!” he added.
Trump appeared to be referring to a lawsuit brought Friday by Arizona Republicans that could limit the calculate of votes counted in the Senate race. They have challenged a drill in two counties, including the state’s most populous in Maricopa County, that assigns voters to fix signature issues on mail-in ballots for up to five days after the designation. About three-quarters of Arizona voters use mail-in ballots.
In Georgia, interim, Trump appeared to discourage officials from counting the remaining ballots in the gubernatorial racetrack. “It’s is time to move on” because Kemp “won,” Trump tweeted.
@realDonaldTrump: .@BrianKempGA ran a stupendous race in Georgia – he won. It is time to move on!
Kemp has faced accusations of depleting his power as Georgia secretary of state to suppress the vote among organizations likely to support his opponent in the gubernatorial race.
The circumstances of the recounts transform widely across individual states and races. But what doesn’t vacillate is Trump’s approach to waging what he sees as pitched public engagements against his political foes.
Trump’s history of crying foul when matters don’t go his way dates back to his early days as a New York real estate developer, where he made a reputation for litigiousness by frequently taking his competitors, and at times his partners, to court.
When Trump departed, he was often quick to publicly blame the system, at times accusing settles of corruption, municipalities of bias and his own lawyers of incompetence.
When Trump become a member ofed politics by announcing a presidential run in June 2015, his primary battlefield shifted from the courtroom to the ballot box, but he have in minded his instinct for blaming the system when it didn’t go his way.
During the Republican prepare in 2016, Trump did not cite any evidence before he repeatedly accused the best years elections in states he didn’t win, like Colorado, of being “rigged.”
In a jiffy he won the Republican primary, Trump claimed the general election, too, was “rigged” against him, again, citing no manifest.
As Trump trailed his rival, Hillary Clinton, in polls, he often claimed he was the fair game of a rigged system, as he did in Cleveland in August 2016: “It’s a rigged system. It’s a fully rigged system. The elections are rigged,” he told supporters.
That in any event summer, Trump’s tendency to blame the legal system when it didn’t favor him tumbled over into the presidential race when he attacked a federal connoisseur who was presiding over a case involving one of Trump’s business ventures.
Trump declared that the judge was biased against Trump because the Indiana-born decree was Hispanic. “He’s a Mexican. We’re building a wall between here and Mexico,” Trump predicted.
In addition to claiming the election was rigged, Trump also told his enthusiasts that if he lost, it would be because there was cheating in the election. “The no more than way we can lose, in my opinion — and I really mean this, Pennsylvania — is if cheating dos on,” he said in the state in August.
As he continued to trail in the polls that upon, Trump warned supporters, again without evidence, that the vote would be “stolen” from him. “I hear these horror shows, and we induce to make sure that this election is not stolen from us and is not captivated away from us. And everybody knows what I’m talking about,” he pronounced at a Pennsylvania rally.
Perhaps ironically, the only election interference in 2016 that Trump was unwilling to make allowance for was any meddling by Russia. Since then, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that Russian difficulty in the 2016 presidential election was widespread, and that it was perpetrated in order to emoluments Trump’s campaign.
On Friday, Trump’s refusal to accept this authenticity was once again on display, even as he worked to craft an alternate truth about what was going on in Florida and Georgia.
“You mean they are merely now finding votes in Florida and Georgia – but the Election was on Tuesday?” Trump tweeted. “Let’s scold the Russians and demand an immediate apology from President Putin!”