ATLANTA -- Some establishment Republicans are sounding alarms that President Donald Trump's denials of his own defeat could threaten the party's ability to win a Senate majority and counter President-elect Joe Biden's administration.
The concerns come ahead of Trump's planned Saturday visit to Georgia to campaign alongside Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, who face strong Democratic challengers in Jan. 5 runoffs that will determine which party controls the Senate at the outset of Biden's presidency.
Republicans acknowledge Trump as the GOP's biggest turnout driver, including in Georgia, where Biden won by fewer than 13,000 votes out of about 5 million cast.
But some Republicans worry that Trump will use the platform to amplify his allegations of widespread voter fraud -- arguments roundly rejected in state and federal courts across the country. That could make it harder for Perdue and Loeffler to keep a clear focus on the stakes in January and could even discourage Republicans from voting.
"The president has basically taken hostage this race," said Brendan Buck, once a top adviser to former House Speaker Paul Ryan.
[RELATED: Full coverage of elections in Arkansas » arkansasonline.com/elections/]
Especially fraught are Trump's continued attacks on Georgia's Republican state officials and the state's election system, potentially taking away from his public praise of Loeffler and Perdue.
"Trump's comments are damaging the Republican brand," argued Republican donor Dan Eberhart, who added that the president is "acting in bad sportsmanship and bad faith" instead of emphasizing Republicans' need to maintain Senate control.
The GOP needs one more seat for a majority. Democrats need Jon Ossoff to defeat Perdue and Raphael Warnock to defeat Loeffler to force a 50-50 Senate, positioning Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking majority vote.
Trump on Monday blasted Gov. Brian Kemp as "hapless" for not intervening to "overrule" Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's certification of Biden's win. The president claimed in a Tuesday tweet that Kemp had allowed Georgia to be "scammed."
On Sunday, Trump told Fox News that he was "ashamed" he'd endorsed Kemp in his 2018 GOP primary for governor. Kemp's office noted in response that state law gives Kemp no authority to overturn election results, despite Trump's contention that Kemp could "easily" invoke "emergency powers." Meanwhile, Raffensperger has accused the president of throwing him "under the bus" for doing his job.
Perdue and Loeffler have attempted to stay above the fray.
They've long aligned themselves with Trump and even echoed some of his general criticisms of the fall elections, jointly demanding Raffensperger's resignation.
But the crux of their runoff argument -- that Republicans must prevent Democrats from controlling Capitol Hill and the White House -- is itself a tacit admission that Biden, not Trump, will be inaugurated Jan. 20. And at one recent campaign stop, Perdue heard from vocal Trump supporters who demanded that he do more to help Trump somehow claim Georgia's 16 electoral votes.
Josh Holmes, a top adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Republicans "haven't seen any evidence of lack of enthusiasm in the Senate races."
