Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail Friday – albeit not for himself – for one event in Louisiana, where the President-elect suggested that early voting in a number of states could have led to fraud, a baseless claim that has visibly bothered him for weeks.
Trump, campaigning in Baton Rouge in an effort to pad his party’s slim majority in the Senate, urged his faithful supporters to back Republican Senate candidate and Louisiana Treasurer John Kennedy in Saturday’s runoff election. But Trump appeared to remain somewhat focused by his own election and voted fraud, a charge that he has leveled before but never proven.
“We have to discuss that early thing,” Trump said referring to early voting, adding shortly after that he wonders what happens to ballots “during the evenings when those things are locked.”
He added: “The Democrats, they say Donald Trump is criticizing the foundations of our country. Give me a break. Give me a break.”
Trump went on to mention that Obama commented on voter fraud in Chicago when he was running for president in 2008, but that now, eight years later, it has “it has only gotten worse.”
Trump has pushed unsubstantiated claims of voted fraud since he won November’s election. Last month he falsely claimed the “millions of people” voted illegally for Hillary Clinton and otherwise he would have won the popular vote.
Trump won the Electoral College, but not the popular vote and Clinton was successful of building a lead on the Republican nominee through early voting. Clinton currently has a lead of more than 2 million overall votes, a fact that some Democrats have used to question either the size of Trump’s mandate or electoral success.
But Trump’s focus on his electoral victory, while sharp, was fleeting Friday.
The President-elect repeatedly referred to the fact that he was done campaigning. After pledging to halt immigration of Syrian refugees, Trump commented on how he didn’t need to hit Clinton over her proposed policy of increasing Syrian immigration.
He later said, “I don’t even need your vote,” before pausing and adding, “In four years I will need your vote!”
Trump did urge his supporters to vote for Kennedy, however, and polls show the Republican is likely to win on Saturday.
Neither Kennedy nor Campbell received over 50% in the state’s open primary in November, so voters will again go to the polls on Saturday to pick between the two major party nominees. With a Kennedy win, Republicans would hold a slim 52-48 majority in the Senate.