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Trump warned Wisconsin GOP legislative leaders to support 2020 election audit or be 'quickly run out of office'

Jun 26, 2021, 20:12 IST
Business Insider
Former US President Donald Trump addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on February 28, 2021 in Orlando, Florida. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
  • Former President Donald Trump is pressuring Wisconsin GOP leaders to back a 2020 election audit.
  • "These REPUBLICAN 'leaders' need to step up and support the people who elected them," he said.
  • Arizona Republicans are currently pursuing a partisan forensic audit in Maricopa County.
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Former President Donald Trump on Friday put Wisconsin GOP legislative leaders on notice, saying that they would be "primaried" if they don't back an audit of the 2020 presidential election in the critical swing state.

Last November, President Joe Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin by roughly 20,000 votes out of nearly 3.3 million ballots cast. The results were certified with no verifiable evidence of voter fraud.

However, with Trump continuing to spread debunked claims of malfeasance months after his electoral loss to Biden, Republican leaders are feeling the heat from the former president's loyalists, many of whom back partisan audits similar to what is occurring in Arizona, another swing state that Trump lost to Biden.

Republicans in Arizona are carrying out an audit of the results in Maricopa County, which for generations was one of the most dominant GOP-leaning urban areas in the entire country until 2020, when Biden carried the locality.

GOP state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos hiring retired police officers to conduct a probe looking into "potential irregularities and/or illegalities" from the election, but Trump brushed aside that effort.

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"Wisconsin Republican leaders Robin Vos, [Senate President] Chris Kapenga, and [Senate Majority Leader] Devin LeMahieu, are working hard to cover up election corruption, in Wisconsin," Trump said in a statement. "They are actively trying to prevent a Forensic Audit of the election results, especially those which took place in Milwaukee, one of the most corrupt election locales in the country. Don't fall for their lies!"

He added: "These REPUBLICAN 'leaders' need to step up and support the people who elected them by providing them a full forensic investigation. If they don't, I have little doubt that they will be primaried and quickly run out of office."

Read more: How Trump could use his relationship with Putin and Russia to skirt prosecution back in the USA

Milwaukee County, the state's most populous jurisdiction and a longtime Democratic stronghold, gave Biden a hefty 183,000-vote margin over Trump.

The Trump campaign last November spent $3 million on recounts in Milwaukee County and Dane County, another Democratic bastion, only to see Biden pick up 132 votes in Milwaukee.

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The former president sent a similar message to Republican leaders in Pennsylvania, saying that leaders who did not back his calls for an audit were "stupid, corrupt, or naïve" and "will be primaried and lose by big numbers."

Biden defeated Trump in the Keystone State by a little over 1% of the vote, or roughly 80,000 votes out of 6.9 million ballots cast.

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