Republican lawmakers back Trump’s effort to undo Biden win
A growing number of Republican lawmakers are joining President Donald Trump’s extraordinary effort to overturn the election, pledging to reject the results when Congress meets next week to count the Electoral College votes and certify President-elect Joe Biden’s win.
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas yesterday announced a coalition of 11 senators and senators-elect who have been enlisted for Trump’s effort to subvert the will of American voters.
This follows the declaration from Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who was the first to buck Senate leadership by saying he would join with House Republicans in objecting to the state tallies during Thursday’s joint session of Congress.
Trump’s refusal to accept his defeat is tearing the party apart as Republicans are forced to make consequential choices that will set the contours of the post-Trump era. Hawley and Cruz are both among potential 2024 presidential contenders.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had urged his party not to try to overturn what nonpartisan election officials have concluded was a free and fair vote.
The 11 senators largely acknowledged they will not succeed in preventing Biden from being inaugurated on January 20 after he won the Electoral College 306-232. But their challenges, and those from House Republicans, represent the most sweeping effort to undo a presidential election outcome since the Civil War.
“We do not take this action lightly,” Cruz and the other senators said in a joint statement.
They vowed to vote against certain state electors on Thursday unless
Congress appoints an electoral commission to immediately conduct an audit of the election results. Congress is unlikely to agree to their demand.
The group, which presented no new evidence of election problems, includes Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Steve Daines of Montana, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Mike Braun of Indiana, and Senatorselect Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.
Biden’s transition spokesman, Mike Gwin, dismissed the effort as a “stunt” that won’t change the fact that Biden will be sworn in January 20.
Trump, the first president to lose a re-election bid in almost 30 years, has attributed his defeat to widespread voter fraud, despite the consensus of nonpartisan election officials and even Trump’s attorneygeneral that there was none. Of the roughly 50 lawsuits the President and his allies have filed challenging election results, nearly all have been dismissed or dropped. He’s also lost twice at the US Supreme Court.
The days ahead are expected to do little to change the outcome.
Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the top Democrat on the panel overseeing the Electoral College count, said the Republican effort to create a federal commission “to supersede state certifications” is wrong.
“It is undemocratic. It is unAmerican. And fortunately it will be unsuccessful. In the end, democracy will prevail,” she said.
The convening of the joint session to count the Electoral College votes is usually routine. While objections have surfaced before — in 2017, several House Democrats challenged Trump’s win — few have approached this level of intensity.