By Bo Erickson
MARIETTA, Georgia, July 22 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump rallied supporters in Georgia on Wednesday to press for stricter nationwide voting requirements, leaning into his election-security message that some Republicans worry could hurt them in the state's competitive U.S. Senate race.
Trump's speech in the Atlanta suburbs follows months of attacks on Georgia's election system, which he has criticized since his 2020 loss in the state. So far this year, the president has questioned
Georgia's voting system at least nine times during public events and interviews, according to a Reuters review.
In a June podcast, Trump falsely said the 2020 election in Georgia was rigged. Days later, during a telephone rally for a Republican gubernatorial candidate, Trump said: "Our elections are corrupt."
On Wednesday, Trump said some Republican victories in the state were "not going to be that easy with the cheating and everything else going on."
He urged supporters to call Senate Majority Leader John Thune and pressure him to push through his administration's election bill imposing stricter voting requirements nationwide.
The Georgia rally was Trump's first campaign event since a prime-time White House speech last week in which he questioned the security of U.S. elections.
The president traveled to Marietta in a politically competitive part of the state after attending a ceremony for four U.S. service members killed in recent Iranian attacks in the Middle East.
Some Georgia Republicans worry Trump's rhetoric could backfire by discouraging turnout in November's midterm elections, when control of Congress will be at stake.
"President Trump’s supporters are less likely to turn out when he casts doubt on the validity on the election process," said Eric Johnson, the former Republican leader of the Georgia Senate and state chair for RightCount, a conservative group that defends state-run elections.
TRUMP PRESSES ELECTION SECURITY AS ISSUE FOR MIDTERMS
The 2020 election remains a central focus for Trump, particularly in Georgia where administration officials have launched investigations into the handling of the vote.
After losing Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden, Trump pressured the state's top election official to "find" enough votes to overturn the result, and repeatedly challenged the election's legitimacy. Multiple recounts confirmed Biden's victory.
The issue of election security has featured in the state's competitive Senate race, where Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff is running for reelection against Republican U.S. Representative Mike Collins. A Fox News poll in July showed Ossoff leading Collins by 13 percentage points among registered voters.
Ossoff has challenged Trump's voting claims and called him the "world’s most famous sore loser." Collins has backed the president's push for stricter voting requirements and told CNN in June that he believes Trump won the 2020 race in Georgia.
On Wednesday, Trump cast Collins as a reliable ally who supported tax cuts for Georgians and would bring federal investment to the state. The president called Ossoff a "terrible" senator and repeated his claim that some progressive members of the Democratic Party are "communists."
Collins said he skipped Trump's rally on Wednesday in order to cast votes in Washington, a move Trump praised as he urged voters to support the Republican in November.
Georgia law already requires voters to show identification to vote, and the state's Republican leaders also passed voting rules after the 2020 election that limited ballot drop boxes and absentee ballots.
Several Republican voters interviewed at Trump's rally on Wednesday said, however, that they still do not trust the voting process.
"Republicans are frustrated because they don't see the reason to vote because they know there's going to be cheating," said Rita Rohrssen, an 80-year-old retired registered nurse from Woodstock, Georgia.
"But you have to vote anyway."
(Reporting by Bo Erickson in Marietta, Georgia; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Cynthia Osterman and Edmund Klamann)
