Major League Baseball yanked the game in April in protest of a new Georgia election law that imposes restrictions on voting. Though many state Democrats assailed the shift, it became a rallying cry for Republicans who say fearmongering from critics of the law deprived metro Atlanta of a premier event.

That was the theme of a rally Sunday at Murph’s, the eatery owned by Braves legend Dale Murphy that sits a short walk from the stadium. More than 100 Republicans crammed into the restaurant to hear from a lineup of speakers headlined by Ronna Romney McDaniel, the chairwoman of the RNC.

In an interview, McDaniel said the ad “highlights the hypocrisy” of the law’s critics, and she slammed President Joe Biden for comparing the legislation to “Jim Crow in the 21st century.”

“I think the most damaging is for the president of the United States to say it’s a Jim Crow law, to use that type of rhetoric and lie about the truth of this law,” she said.

Democrats, meanwhile, pointed to repeated lies about widespread voter fraud promoted by Donald Trump and his allies that paved the way for Georgia’s election restrictions.

“If Brian Kemp and the rest of these Republican candidates are at such a loss for actual reasons why voters should support them that they continue to perpetuate this myth, they must indeed be worried for their prospects in 2022,” said state Rep. Teri Anulewicz, a Democrat who represents the area around the stadium.

Much of the GOP backlash has centered on Stacey Abrams, Kemp’s likely Democratic challenger and a voting rights advocate who has helped lead the opposition to the overhaul.

Shortly after Kemp signed the measure into law, she urged the league not to pull the game from Georgia. Since then, she and Democratic leaders have called for companies critical of the law to stay in Georgia and finance efforts to fight the restrictions rather than boycott the state.

But Republicans have made Abrams the face of MLB’s pullout, saying her campaign against the legislation wound up hurting small business owners who would have benefited from the event.

‘Cancel the cancelers’

The law includes a new ID requirement for mail-in votes, curbs the use of ballot drop boxes and gives the Republican-controlled Legislature more power over local elections. It also bans outside groups from handing out food and water to voters in lines and expands weekend voting in some rural counties.

Opponents of the law have brought eight separate legal challenges, including a lawsuit filed in June by the U.S. Justice Department. And it has divided Georgia’s corporate world, spurring Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines to publicly oppose the overhaul.

For Republicans, the All-Star game pullout has become a rallying cry. At Sunday’s event, Gary Black — who is running against Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock — trumpeted his bid to take down the “Abrams-Warnock” machine.

“Are y’all ready to cancel the cancelers?” he asked the crowd.

Two other Senate contenders also delivered fiery attacks. Kelvin King, a construction firm owner and military veteran, called himself a proud Braves season-ticket holder who once eagerly awaited the annual All-Star showcase of the league’s premier players.

“I invested in the Braves,” he said, “and Stacey Abrams and Raphael Warnock took my investment away.”

And banking executive Latham Saddler brought up his service as a Navy SEAL in combat zones as part of his scalding criticism of baseball’s shift.

“I didn’t serve overseas with my brothers to come back to a woke America. None of us did. That’s what we’re seeing today,” he said. “Make no mistake about it, I tell our team every day: This is a fascist movement.”