ROME, Ga.—The peach state’s election weight hangs heavy above the heads of the more than 4,000 people attending former President Donald Trump’s first rally after becoming the preemptive Republican Presidential nominee.
“The road to the White House comes through Georgia right now,” said Georgia’s Lt. Gov. Burt Jones. “I was with [Trump] on Tuesday night after he once again blew away all his competition with the vote count on Super Tuesday. ... First thing he said to me: ‘Burt, we gotta win Georgia.”
President Trump lost Georgia in 2020 by a recorded 45.9–45.2 percentage split. The former president makes his return to the state’s northwest corner as he and 18 others faced indictments for challenging the election results.
The former president told the crowd that he still believed the 2020 election was rigged, and applause erupted as he said he would win the state a third time.
His solution is to rally the voters and cast so many votes the election can’t be rigged.
“We have to go out, and we have to swamp them,” he said at the March 9 event of beating Democrats in the upcoming election. “We have to have so many votes. We want this to be a landslide. That way, it is too big to rig.”
President Trump’s position on the last election was shared by several of the attendees and of his special guests.
“You don’t have to tell me Trump didn’t lose Georgia,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said to the crowd. “We have a job, let me tell you something, We have a job like no other going into 2024, and you all know how important it is. Georgia is a key state ... in this election.”
She followed her fellow Georgian, Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), who also shared the call to action.
He spoke with The Epoch Times and explained what he felt Republicans had to fix in order to win in November and show up for the state primary.
“We have to know how to play by the game now,” he said. “You know, Republicans have always been traditionalists and vote on Tuesday. And now that we’ve got these election seasons, we just need to hammer people out there every day that those polls are open, and you need to be calling people ... asking if you voted, and if you haven’t ... go tomorrow. Make sure that they understand how important this is. Because a lot of times on Tuesday, stuff happens, and people don’t go.”
The congressman said he hoped that the people of Georgia were already showing up to do early voting for the state’s primary and that the Republican Party needs to make sure that the world knows it is solidly behind President Trump.
President Trump will be entering the primary unopposed after his final challenger, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, dropped out in the wake of Super Tuesday. Despite the assured victory, Georgia voters still see the importance of showing up to cast their vote before Tuesday night.
Two of those voters, Beth Ogle and Debbie Wright told The Epoch Times that the primary is a chance to show positivity for Trump and a show of force for what can be expected in November.
Doors for the event opened at 11 a.m., and capacity, which one of the paramedics and one of the volunteers on site told The Epoch Times was capped at a little more than 4,000, was met before 2 p.m., with security directing any more newcomers who were not a part of the reserved seating area to an outside overflow area.
President Trump visited this town in 2020, giving a speech at the airport in front of Air Force One. Arnold Gervais was at that rally and now sat with his 10-year-old son Brennan.
“It’s 100% important to show up and vote regardless if there’s somebody on the other end or not,” Mr. Gervais said of voting in the Republican primary. “We need to be prepared, unify, and be ready for November.” He also recommended that all parents bring their children when they go vote “so that way, they can understand what we’re looking for in the future.”
When asked if he had any comment to share, Brennan simply said, “Trump, make my future great.”
President Biden was also scheduled to hold an event in Georgia on March 9, which was a much smaller event in the Atlanta area.
“I don’t think his event is going to look like this, I can assure you that,” Mr. Collins said to The Epoch Times. “I think he had the largest crowd he'll ever have when he gave his campaign speech Thursday night. His State of the Union. And they forced Democrats and everybody to be there for that. So yeah, let him come to Georgia. We’ve got a couple of billboards for him to look at while he’s here.”
