'It gives everyone cold sweats': Republicans fear Trump is blowing up the Georgia election again

According to a report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Republicans are growing increasingly concerned that Donald Trump will cost them a chance at reclaiming a U.S. Senate seat representing Georgia in the 2022 election that he had a hand in losing in 2020.

According to the report, "Republicans desperate to avoid a repeat of the Georgia Senate runoffs are trying to downplay former President Donald Trump's insistence that GOP voters will boycott the elections if they don't focus on his lies about election fraud."

At issue is a statement from Trump on Wednesday when he asserted, "If we don't solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020 (which we have thoroughly and conclusively documented), Republicans will not be voting in '22 or '24. It is the single most important thing for Republicans to do."

Trump's comments about Republicans staying home over fears of voter fraud and stolen elections is giving GOP lawmakers and donors fear they're seeing a replay of the 2020 Georgia Senate runoff that helped strip then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of control of the U.S. Senate.

While National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Tom Emmer summarily dismissed Trump comments, telling reporters, "He's a private citizen and he's entitled to his own opinion," one Republican strategist who didn't want his name used was less sanguine.

"It gives everyone cold sweats over the Georgia situation and the prospect he could have some impact again," they explained.

The report goes on to note that Trump is inordinately obsessed with Georgia election results, with the AJC reporting, "In the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's 394-page report about its elections investigation, Georgia is mentioned 317 times. That is more than the combined 270 mentions of three other states where Trump and his allies attempted to overturn Biden's win: Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania."

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