Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state for Georgia, is back in the news after the Washington Post published a damning recording of Trump pressurising him to “find” votes that could help overturn Joe Biden’s victory.
Trump endorsed the lifelong Republican in 2018 as being “tough on crime and borders” and someone who “loves our military and [veterans]”, but his attempt to coerce him into changing his state’s election result is providing a dramatic closing act to the Trump presidency.
In an hour-long phone call on Saturday, Trump repeatedly attempted to get Raffensperger to corroborate baseless claims of election manipulation. “The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry,” Trump said. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”
In one response, and keeping a calm, dry tone he has become known for, Raffensperger replied: “Well, Mr President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong.”
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Two recounts in Georgia, which had for a long while been a Republican stronghold, found Biden had won by about 13,000 votes. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has lost the vast majority of its voter fraud lawsuits pursued in battleground states.
Raffensperger, a 65-year-old industrialist with a background in civil engineering, has been a lifelong Republican traditionalist with pro-business politics, promising to reduce the size of government and cut regulation.
He supported Trump during his foray into politics in 2016. But Trump’s sour loss to Biden broke the relationship, with the US president labelling his party member an “enemy of the people”.
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Republicans are divided after the president’s attacks. Georgia’s two Republican senators, both fighting runoff contests against Democrats, have called on Raffensperger to resign.
The secretary of state has remained composed throughout, telling the Guardian in November that he had even wanted Trump to win.
Yet unwilling to bend to Trump’s demands, Raffensperger and his family have faced threats. One message sent to the private mobile phone of his wife, Tricia, said: “Your husband deserves to face a firing squad.”
Raffensperger has remained cool-headed since this weekend’s leaked call.
Responding to a Trump tweet accusing him of having “no clue”, the secretary of state replied: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true. The truth will come out.”
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