Top Republicans yet to recognize Biden’s win
WASHINGTON — More than 24 hours after President-elect Joe Bidenwas declared the winner of the election, the nation’s Republican leaders and scores of party lawmakers refrained Sunday from acknowledging his victory, either remaining silent or encouragingPresident Donald Trump to forge ahead with long-shot lawsuits to try to overturn the results of the election in battleground states.
Even as some prominent figures in the party including its only living former president, George W. Bush, publicly congratulated Biden, the vastmajority of Republicans declined to offer the customary statements of well wishes and support for the victor that have historically been standard in U.S. presidential elections. Instead, they followed the lead of Trump, who has refused to concede and claimed that the election was stolen from him.
Their reactions suggested that even in defeat, Trump maintained a powerful grip on his party and its elected leaders, who have spent four years tightly embracing him or quietly working to avoid offending him in a way that could alienate his loyal base. For many prominent Republicans, the president’s reluctance to accept the election results created a dilemma, making even the most cursory expression of support for Biden seem like a conspicuous break with Trump.
Sen. Roy Blunt ofMissouri was the most senior Republican to suggest that Trump had lost and cast doubt on his allegations of a stolen election, but he stopped short of referring to Biden as the presidentelect inanexceedingly careful television interview.
“It’s time for the president’s lawyers to present the facts, and it’s time for those facts to speak for themselves,” Blunt, chair of the Rules Committee, said on ABC’s “This Week.” “It seems unlikely that any changes could be big enough to make a difference, but this is a close election, and we need to acknowledge that.”
“I look forward,” Blunt added, “to the president dealing with this however he needs to deal with it.”
At the White House, there was little indication that Trump was dealing with it at all. As he played a second consecutive day of golf at his private club outside Washington, the president recirculated a groundless claim by Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House, who told FoxNews, “I think that it is a corrupt, stolen election.”
The silence from many leading Republicans cut bothways for the president. While it allowed Trump to continue the fiction that he had not lost, it also left him to battle against the election results without the full, vocal support of his party behind him. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has declined to say anything since Friday, before the election results were known, when he released a generic statement encouraging officials to “count all the votes.” No member of his leadership team has either, apart from Blunt’s carefully worded statements Sunday.
At the same time, just two Republican members of the Senate— MittRomney of Utah and LisaMurkowski of Alaska — and a handful of members of the House had acknowledged Biden’s win by Sunday afternoon, while others were trying to cast doubt on the results.
“Every legal challenge should be heard,” said Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader. “Then and only then will America decide who won the race.”
Speaking on Fox News,
McCarthy questioned why news media outlets had called the presidential race for Biden, who was leading by tens of thousands of votes in key battleground states, before drawing a conclusion about undetermined contests in competitive House districts — many of those in deep-blue California and New York — where thousands of mail-in ballots remain uncounted.
“Why would you call the presidential race first?” he asked.
Likewise, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina urged Trump to refuse to concede and fight on.
“Do not accept the media’s declaration of Biden,” Graham, chair of the Judiciary Committee, said on Fox News on Sunday morning. He called the election “contested” and urged: “Do not concede, Mr. President. Fight hard.”
Those comments reflected the advice of some of Trump’s top advisers, chieflyRudy Giuliani, his person
al lawyer, who were urging him Sunday to continue to fight the results.
A remarkably small number of Republicans called for the country to move on.
“Though we have political differences, I know Joe Biden to be a good man, who haswon his opportunity to lead and unify our country,” Bush said in a statement.
In addition, three Republican governors of blue states — Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Larry Ho
gan of Maryland and Phil Scott of Vermont — and at least seven House Republicans acknowledged Biden’s victory.
They included centrist Reps. Tom Reed of New York and Fred Upton of Michigan; Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who has been an outspoken critic of Trump; and four lawmakers who will not be returning to Congress next year: Reps. PaulMitchell ofMichigan, Will Hurd of Texas and Francis Rooney of Florida, who are retiring, and Rep. Denver Riggleman of Virginia, who lost his primary this year.
Rep. Don Young of Alaska, whose race remains undecided after a more difficult than expected reelection bid, said he wished “the president-elect well in what will no doubt be the most challenging chapter of his political career.”
“It is time to put the election behind us, and come together towork for a better tomorrow for our nation,” Young said in a statement.
On “Fox News Sunday,” Romney provided a contrast to many of his Republican colleagues. He said that he believed it was “appropriate” for Trump to pursue recounts and legal challenges in certain battleground states but cautioned against widespread condemnations of the U.S. system of elections.
“It’s important for the cause of democracy and freedom that we don’t allege fraud and theft and so forth, unless there’s very clear evidence of that,” Romney said. “To date, that evidence has not been produced.”
Romney noted that he had a legal team ready to challenge the results of the 2012 election when he was the Republican nominee but decided not to go forward once he saw such efforts would be futile.
“At some point, truth, freedom and democracy have to ascend,” he said, “and you step aside.”