Trump leans into anti-migrant rhetoric at final Georgia rally as early voting puts state on a knife-edge | US elections 2024

Donald Trump’s final Georgia rally filled the Atrium Health amphitheater in the city of Macon on Sunday, with early voting tallies showing that supporters from the state’s middle could prove to be decisive in the waning days of the election.

Trump was an hour and a half late to the event and wore a black-and-gold “Make America Great Again” cap. Sticking to familiar themes, the former president said he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1790, the law under which Japanese, Italian and German Americans were interned during the second world war, and would pursue the death penalty for undocumented immigrants who kill an American.

“The United States is now an occupied country. This is thousands of people all over our towns and cities.”

Trump raised the name of Minelys “Mimi” Zoe Rodriguez-Ramirez, who was murdered last week in Cornelia, Georgia. The suspect in that murder is in the United States illegally, Trump alleged.

Rodriguez-Ramirez’s family took the stage.

“I lose my daughter, but I don’t lose my faith,” said Carmen Rodriguez, Mimi’s mother, at the rally Sunday. “Donald Trump is the best choice for the USA … I met Donald Trump in person. He’s the most wonderful person that I’ve seen.”

More than four million Georgians have voted early this year in record numbers. While turnout has been slightly higher in metro Atlanta than other parts of the state, but early voter numbers have generally been balanced between traditionally Democratic and Republican counties.

Macon-Bibb County – the locations of Trump’s Sunday rally – voted almost two-to-one for Biden in 2020, but it is surrounded by rural counties that generally backed Trump in the same year. Turnout in the county has been about 10% below the state average so far.

Elsewhere, Trump referred to retired generals who worked for him as “stupid”, naming former chair of the joint chiefs of staff Mark Milley, his former chief of staff John Kelly and former defense secretary James Mattis. Each of the retired generals have been sharply critical of Trump, with Kelly describing Trump last month as “fascist to the core”.

“With your vote on Tuesday, I will end inflation, I will stop the invasion of criminals coming into our country,” Trump said. “We’re at the five-yard line, maybe even the one-yard line … This is really all you need to know: Kamala broke it and I’ll fix it.”

Georgia Republican chairperson Josh McKoon told rally-goers that he had authorised a federal lawsuit to stop Fulton County election offices from remaining open over the weekend to accept absentee ballots delivered by hand.

“They decided they wanted some overtime,” McKoon said. “We will not let them make 2024 [into] 2020.”

On Saturday, a Georgia judge rejected the Republican lawsuit to block counties from keeping their offices open over the weekend to let voters hand in their ballots in person.

Sunday’s rally was attended by Herschel Walker, Trump’s hand-chosen senate pick who narrowly lost a challenge against Raphael Warnock in 2022 after a campaign marred by gaffes. It was the first appearance by Walker at a Trump rally this year.

Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, was conspicuous by his absence. Trump spent years antagonising Kemp following the governor’s refusal to accede to the former president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election result in Georgia. But Trump and Kemp recently appeared to reconciled and the governor pledged his support to the former president. The two appeared together at a stop near Augusta to review damage from Hurricane Helene last month.

Kemp has not appeared at a Trump rally.

Speaker after speaker on Sunday referred back to President Joe Biden’s comment about Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally a week ago, in which a comedian called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage. Biden sparked outrage after appearing to call Trump supporters “garbage” in response, an assertion the president has rejected.

Nonetheless, speaker after speaker leaned into the “garbage” comment.

“I can tell you right now, if this is what they consider garbage,” said Georgia lieutenant governor Burt Jones, “then I’ll take this trash all day long.”

Representative Andrew Clyde said: “There’s an old saying. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”