Pelosi out to block Trump if disputed election ends in House
WASHINGTON >> A single House race in Montana could determine the presidential election.
Or it could be one in Minnesota. Or Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan or even Alaska — all districts where Speaker Nancy Pelosi has set out to not only expand the House majority but to tip party control of the states’ congressional delegations in case a disputed presidential election needs to be decided by the House.
It’s a stunning campaign strategy to match the extraordinary times. Under election law the House would intervene if the Electoral College gave no presidential candidate the majority Jan. 6. Preparing for that unthinkable reality, Pelosi is openly working to block President Donald Trump’s advantage if, as he has suggested, he ties up the results of the Nov. 3 election.
Pelosi has been issuing stark public warnings to the president not to go down this path.
“There ain’t no light at the end of the tunnel in the House of Representatives,” Pelosi said at a recent press conference.
“Just skip it,” she said again Tuesday. “It is a train coming right down at him.”
Not since the 1800s has a presidential election ended up being decided by the House. But in the visceral political climate of 2020, there’s a growing concern about various chaotic scenarios in the race between Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Ahead of the election, Trump has refused to say whether he would uphold the nation’s tradition of a peaceful transfer of power in the event he loses to Biden — prompting some in his own party to vow that voters’ wishes will be followed.
At a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, Trump suggested he might lean on his “advantage” in the House to help deliver him a second term.
“We are going to be counting ballots for the next two years,” Trump said at the Sept. 26 rally following a Rose Garden event at the White House days before he was diagnosed with COVID-19 .
“I don’t want to end up in the Supreme Court and I don’t want to end up in Congress either — even though we have the advantage if we go back to Congress,” Trump said. “Does everyone understand that?”
The House is already controlled by Democrats, and not expected to switch this fall, but Republicans actually control of the majority of 50 state delegations to the House. That’s what Pelosi is out to flip.
Pelosi said she had been working “sub rosa” on her plan for some time but decided to go public once Trump did, too.