Wild GOP election conspiracies could end up delivering a stinging backlash to Republicans. Because of their conspiracy theories, some GOP voters are considering boycotting crucial runoff elections in Georgia for a pair of Senate seats, Politico reports.
The runoff races Jan. 5 will determine which party controls the Senate.
According to ongoing conspiracy theories being gobbled up by some Make America Great Again disciples, the Republican candidates — Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Sen. David Perdue — are letting Georgia’s alleged electoral fraud slide. There’s absolutely no evidence of any fraud, nor is there proof that Perdue and Loeffler had anything to do with the nonexistent fraud.
But Georgia lawyer Lin Wood, who filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s presidential election results, asked last week why Loeffler and Perdue aren’t doing more to jettison election results (which got them to a runoff). He vowed he won’t vote in the Senate race unless something is done — and asked who else was with him.
There are also claims that the two don’t support President Donald Trump enough. Both have inexplicably been called “liberal DemoRats” on social media, according to Politico.
The conspiracies are also being inflamed by attorney Sidney Powell, who recently claimed without evidence that Loeffler had somehow conspired with a voting technology company to suppress votes for Republican challenger Rep. Doug Collins. (Loeffler’s race is a runoff without Collins.)
Powell was initially described as a key member of Trump’s legal “strike force” against the results of the presidential election. But last Sunday the campaign distanced itself from Powell after she baselessly claimed in a press conference that Venezuela, Cuba, Antifa, George Soros, the Clinton Foundation and the late Hugo Chávez, among others, were responsible for rigging the election.
The current conspiracies are giving Republicans — like Donald Trump Jr. — the willies. He pleaded Monday in a tweet to “IGNORE” the claims, and the call to boycott the vote.
Some true GOP conspiracy believers — and clearly lots of Biden supporters — urged followers not to believe him.
“Whenever you have a close election, any distraction can be decisive, and by all accounts, the runoffs in Georgia are going to be close, just like they were in November,” Republican political strategist Alex Conant told Politico. If the Senate race is “about Trump and conspiracy theories, that only divides our party and emboldens Democrats,” he added.