Refusing to commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election has become a litmus test for Republicans vying to become former President Trump’s running mate, but it’s making their Republican colleagues in the Senate uncomfortable with the prospect of another January 6th-style standoff if Trump loses.
A group of Senate Republicans is rejecting the idea that a November victory for President Biden would likely be the result of fraud, sending a clear message to Trump and his allies that any attempt to challenge the results without clear evidence of malfeasance conduct will not find results. lots of support in Washington.
While Trump has refused to accept the election results early, many Republican lawmakers are unwilling to follow suit — except for a few who are trying to get to the top of his vice presidential list.
And these ambitious Republicans vying to get into Trump’s good graces are placing themselves on an island within the Republican Party.
“What happened in 2020 was something most people never thought possible — not just challenging the outcome of the election, questioning the legitimacy of the president, and then working to stop certification,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska ) about persistent anxiety since the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
She said Republicans are being asked whether they will accept the November election results because of how Jan. 6 still looms over the nation.
“It’s not a question that comes out of nowhere. It’s something that’s important for people to know,” she said.
Murkowski and other Republicans say Trump or Biden have the right to challenge the election results in court, but that once the court rules and without clear and convincing evidence of widespread fraud, the losing candidate must accept the result.
“I want us to be in a place where we accept the results of fair and legitimate elections,” she said. “What I don’t like is the suggestion, months and months and months before an election, that there might be something nefarious at play.”
Senate Republican leader John Thune (S.D.), who helped lead opposition to Trump’s effort to block certification of Biden’s victory on the Senate floor, said this week that he would accept the results if they were validated by the courts — assuming the the same position he and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) took after the 2020 election.
“I am completely in favor, in any election, if there are concerns about the election, whether or not there were fraudulent aspects, allowing all the mechanisms provided by law – be it recounts, audits or legal actions, etc. everything is done and settled, it’s over,” Thune said.
Thune famously predicted that an attempt to block the certification of the 2020 election on the Senate floor would go down “like a slaughtered dog.”
This came after Trump’s own Attorney General, Bill Barr, announced in December 2020 that the Justice Department had found no evidence of widespread fraud in the election and that multiple challenges from Trump’s allies to overturn the state results had failed. court.
Sen. Thom Tillis (RN.C.) said he will carefully review the election results and allegations of fraud, but hopes to certify the election results as he did in 2021.
“I will follow the same process as I did in past elections. I will review the process… And I would be more likely to vote to certify the election results, as I did in 2020,” Tillis said.
Tillis said he called legislative leaders in 2020 to follow up on allegations of fraud and felt reassured that there was no widespread fraud, despite Trump’s allegations at the time.
Asked whether he would accept the results of the 2024 election, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) simply responded, “I don’t know why I wouldn’t.”
“The results are the results,” he said.
But Trump now regularly raises doubts about the fairness of the 2024 election — about once a day, according to one report. analysis by The New York Times published Friday.
And the tactic is being copied by Republican senators vying to be his running mate or trying to appeal to the Republican base for their own re-election races.
Senators Tim Scott (RS.C.) and Marco Rubio (R-Florida), who would be on Trump’s vice presidential list, refused in nationally televised interviews to commit to accepting the election results.
Scott, who is seen as a leading contender for vice president at the Senate GOP conference, repeatedly refused to make any commitments when “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker asked him six times if he would accept the results of the November elections.
Rubio deflected a question on NBC’s “Meet the Press” this month about accepting the election results, insisting, “You’re asking the wrong person.”
“Now we have Democrats saying they will not certify 2024 because Trump is an insurrectionist and ineligible to hold office. So you need to ask them,” he said.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is running for reelection and has led a push to delay certification of the 2020 election results, bristled when asked in an interview with CNN last week whether he would accept the election results, calling them a “ridiculous question.”
“If the Democrats win, I will accept the result, but I will not ignore the fraud,” he said.
Cruz also claims that there was “significant electoral fraud in 2020”.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), a possible vice presidential pick at the GOP conference, said he would have refused to certify Biden’s victory in January 2021 if he had been serving in the Senate at the time. He did not appear before the upper house until January 2023.
Vance hesitated slightly when asked recently if he would commit to accepting the election results, calling his promise to accept the results if the election was “free and fair.”
“If it’s a free and fair election, Dana, I think all Republicans will accept the results with enthusiasm,” he told CNN’s Dana Bash. “And again, I think these results will show that Donald Trump was elected president.”
Vance, however, cautioned that if there are allegations of fraud, “you have to be willing to investigate those issues and prosecute the case.”
“Certainly, if we have free and fair elections, I will accept the results,” he said.
Cramer, the Republican senator from North Dakota, said colleagues who refuse to commit to accepting the election results are sending a message to Trump, possibly in hopes of being chosen for the ticket.
“I imagine they are sending messages to the person who will make the decision about who the running mate will be,” he said.
“The results are the results. Barring some catastrophic or obvious case of fraud or abuse, I’m not very much in favor of fighting election results beyond legal norms,” he explained.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who is challenging Thune to succeed McConnell as Senate GOP leader in 2025, said he would go to court if the election results were challenged.
“There is a process by which any irregularities can be challenged, and this normally occurs in court, and I will inspect the court’s final decision if there is any type of challenge,” he said.
Cornyn said “a lot of states have come a long way in making things stricter, but I think it’s still a problem,” referring to concerns many Republican politicians, pundits and voters had about changes to state election laws during the pandemic. to make it easier to vote by absentee ballot.
Cornyn worked to attract fellow conservatives like Cruz and other conservative members of the Senate Steering Committee into his leadership campaign.
Since then, several states, including Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, have tightened absentee voting rules. Georgia, for example, passed a law to restrict the mass mailing of absentee ballots, and North Carolina passed a new law that requires mail-in ballots to be received by election night.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
