Former President Trump held a rally Tuesday on the first day of early voting in Georgia, urging his supporters to vote ahead of Election Day in the key battleground state.
“Your state currently has early voting by mail, and it also has early in-person voting. But let me tell you, I've heard very good things,” Trump said in Atlanta. at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center.
“So if you have a ballot, please return it immediately. If not, go tomorrow or as soon as possible. Go to your polling place and vote,” Trump added. “So, over the next 21 days, let's ask everyone we know to vote. We don't want to miss out.”
Tuesday marked the first day of early voting in Georgia, as voters gathered to cast their ballots ahead of the November election. Gabe Sterling, an official in the Georgia Secretary of State's office, said: Posted in X More than 300,000 votes were cast, easily surpassing the state's previous record for the first day of early voting.
The former president has consistently questioned the reliability of mail-in voting, making unsubstantiated claims that mail-in voting is susceptible to fraud. Trump has always vowed in his campaign speeches that if elected in November, he would push for one-day voting and stricter voter ID laws.
Trump's comments undermined Republican efforts to hoard votes ahead of Election Day and eat into Democrats' advantage among early voters.
Georgia is one of seven battleground states likely to decide the outcome of November's election. President Biden led Georgia in 2020 by about 11,000 votes, marking the first time a Democrat won the state in a presidential election since 1992.
An average of Georgia polls conducted by Decision Desk and The Hill shows Mr. Trump leading Vice President Harris by about 1 percentage point in the state.
Harris is scheduled to head to Atlanta on Saturday after spending a week in the blue wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
President Trump's remarks on Tuesday were much like any other rally. He has ridiculed Harris' intelligence and suggested she doesn't understand questions about inflation, even as the vice president has released proposals he says will lower costs.
The former president slammed immigration, saying he considered it the most important issue in the election, along with the economy. He attacked Harris' views on tax policy and played a video mocking the military for being “woke” under Democratic administrations.
“This is not a rally. This is just a gathering,” President Trump said.
