Trump Used His Dalton Rally to Rehash False Georgia Fraud Claims

Donald Trump came to Dalton, Georgia, on Jan. 4, 2021, to help Republicans before the state’s Senate runoff, but he spent much of the rally returning to the same false election-fraud claims he had been making for weeks. In prepared remarks archived by the American Presidency Project, Trump told the crowd there was “no way” he had lost Georgia, called the election “rigged,” and repeated the broader claim that he had won the 2020 presidential race. presidency.ucsb.edu The timing mattered. Georgia had already finished its first statewide audit of paper ballots, and the secretary of state’s office said that review upheld the presidential result. That meant Trump was not reacting to a fresh official change in the vote count; he was reviving claims that state officials had already rejected on the record. sos.ga.gov He also used the rally to widen the target beyond the runoff itself. Trump attacked Georgia election officials, questioned signature verification and framed the Senate races as part of a larger fight over the 2020 result. The speech was less a pivot to turnout than a rerun of his election grievance campaign, delivered just before voters were set to choose the two Senate seats that would decide control of the chamber. presidency.ucsb.edu The practical problem for Republicans was obvious: the night before a runoff, Trump was still talking about November. The rally’s message to voters was supposed to be simple — show up and back the GOP nominees — but Trump kept pulling the focus back to his own defeat. On the record, Georgia’s election machinery had already certified and audited the presidential outcome; Trump’s Dalton appearance did not change that. It only showed he was still trying to keep the fraud claim alive. presidency.ucsb.edu