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AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTerry McAuliffe Faces All-Black Democratic Primary in Virginia Governor’s RaceMr. McAuliffe, who was governor from 2014 to 2018, says he wants to take “Virginia to the next level and to lift up all Virginians.”Terry McAuliffe at a campaign rally for Joseph R. Biden Jr. in Norfolk, Va., in March.Credit…Samuel Corum/EPA, via ShutterstockDec. 9, 2020, 12:57 p.m. ETTerry McAuliffe, the former governor of Virginia, on Wednesday entered the contest for his old job, simultaneously offering himself as both a trusted steward during an economic and public health crisis and someone prepared to fight against “the old way of doing things.”“I am running for governor again to think big and to be bold and to take the Commonwealth of Virginia to the next level and to lift up all Virginians,” Mr. McAuliffe said in a brief speech outside a public school in Richmond, the state capital.Mr. McAuliffe, 63, formally began his campaign surrounded by four senior elected officials, all of whom are Black. The setup was a nod both to the relationships he nurtured during his governorship from 2014 to 2018 and the complex nature of the state’s 2021 primary, in which three Black candidates have already announced their candidacies for the Democratic nomination.Mr. McAuliffe’s 2021 campaign has for months been an open secret in Virginia — at a March campaign rally, Joseph R. Biden Jr. called him “the once and future governor” — and Mr. McAuliffe’s allies have made the case that his coalition would look a lot like Mr. Biden’s, with core support from Black voters and suburbanites who sent Mr. Biden to the White House.“We need him to lift the Black community from the crippling pandemic, because he knows that it has hit the Black communities, Black communities and brown communities harder than anyone else,” L. Louise Lucas, the Virginia State Senate president, said while introducing Mr. McAuliffe on Wednesday. “We need his experience and tested leadership, tested leadership, tested leadership.”Virginia’s contest for governor will serve as a first test of the post-Trump Democratic coalition. For four years, culminating with the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, the party’s voters prioritized electability, choosing more moderate candidates who faced liberal firebrands in nearly all competitive races.Mr. McAuliffe is the fourth Democrat to enter the 2021 race for governor, joining three Black candidates who have been campaigning for months: Jennifer McClellan, a state senator; Jennifer Carroll Foy, who on Tuesday resigned her seat in the House of Delegates to campaign for governor full time; and Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax.But unlike in the presidential contest, in which Mr. Biden sold his electability against President Trump, whichever Democrat emerges from Virginia’s June primary will be a heavy favorite against the Republican challenger.Virginia has become increasingly Democratic since 2009, the last time Republicans won a statewide office. The party won control of the state legislature in 2019, and Mr. Biden carried the state by 10 percentage points last month.The Republican field already appears fractured, with Amanda Chase, a Republican state senator who models herself after Mr. Trump, announcing last weekend that she would run as an independent candidate rather than seek the Republican Party’s nomination at a state convention next year. Kirk Cox, a former speaker of the House of Delegates, is seeking the Republican nomination and Pete Snyder, a wealthy marketing executive, may also join the G.O.P. primary race soon.At the same time some Virginia liberals have pronounced themselves eager to elect Ms. McClellan or Ms. Carroll Foy, either of whom would be the nation’s first Black woman governor. Virginia has never elected a woman to be governor and has not elected a woman to statewide office since 1989.Ms. Carroll Foy, at 39 the youngest candidate in the field, was not shy about attacking Mr. McAuliffe as a creature of the past.“Career politicians like Terry McAuliffe are interested in maintaining the status quo,” she said in a statement Tuesday night. “But Virginians are calling for change. They want someone who understands their problems as I do because I’ve lived them. While I respect Terry McAuliffe’s service, he doesn’t understand the problems Virginians face. A former political party boss and multimillionaire, Terry McAuliffe is simply out of touch with everyday Virginians.”Ms. McClellan, while not attacking Mr. McAuliffe directly, cited her own “life experience” as evidence she would be the best governor in the field in a statement released Wednesday.Mr. McAuliffe said Wednesday that he would center his campaign on helping the state’s economy recover from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, pledging Virginia’s largest investment in public education and appealing to Black voters in the Democratic primary in June.Mr. McAuliffe campaigned alongside former President Bill Clinton in Charlottesville, Va., in 2013.Credit…Khue Bui for The New York TimesHe also leaned heavily on his past tenure as governor, citing fights with Republicans who at the time controlled Virginia’s General Assembly. In the same breath, Mr. McAuliffe promoted his record as governor and called for a new approach to running the state government.“The old Richmond approach just doesn’t work anymore,” he said. “Folks, it is time for a new Virginia way. I know that old way of thinking because I fought against it constantly as governor, time and time again.”Mr. McAuliffe is a longtime fixture in Democratic politics, both nationally and in Virginia. He is close enough to former President Bill Clinton that the two men speak daily, and he claims to make more than 100 phone calls every day. A former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Mr. McAuliffe has run for Virginia governor twice, losing a bitter 2009 primary before winning in 2013. He also weighed a 2020 presidential campaign but bowed out in April 2019 once it became clear that Mr. Biden would seek the Democratic Party’s nomination.He spent the rest of 2019 campaigning and fund-raising for Democrats running for Virginia state legislative seats, helping the party seize control of both the State Senate and House of Delegates for the first time in a generation.Virginia’s current governor, Ralph Northam, a Democrat, is forbidden by state law from seeking a second consecutive term. Mr. McAuliffe is vying to be the second Virginia governor since the Civil War to be elected twice, following Mills Godwin Jr., who was elected as a Democrat in 1965 and as a Republican in 1973.Virginia’s contests for governor, coming the year after presidential elections, have for decades been considered an opportunity for the party that just lost the White House to take control of a large state government. Mr. McAuliffe’s 2013 victory over the Republican Ken Cuccinelli is the only time since Mr. Godwin’s 1973 election that the party that held the presidency also won the Virginia governor’s mansion.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

The supreme court tersely rejected a bid to overturn to the election result but much of the GOP is rallying to the lost causeOn Tuesday, the US supreme court delivered a devastating blow to Donald Trump’s dreams. A terse one-sentence order left the president even more desperate than he was at the start of the day: “The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.”The three justices whom the president appointed to the highest court failed to rescue him from the voters’ verdict. When he needed them the most, the persons that Trump called “my judges” were not his. Continue reading… More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyTracking Viral MisinformationYouTube to Forbid Videos Claiming Widespread Election FraudDec. 9, 2020, 12:25 p.m. ETDec. 9, 2020, 12:25 p.m. ETYouTube’s announcement is a reversal of a much-criticized company policy on election videos.Credit…Dado Ruvic/ReutersYouTube on Wednesday announced changes to how it handles videos about the 2020 presidential election, saying it would remove new videos that mislead people by claiming that widespread fraud or errors influenced the outcome of the election.The company said it was making the change because Tuesday was the so-called safe harbor deadline — the date by which all state-level election challenges, such as recounts and audits, are supposed to be completed. YouTube said that enough states have certified their election results to determine that Joseph R. Biden Jr. is the president-elect.YouTube’s announcement is a reversal of a much-criticized company policy on election videos. Throughout the election cycle, YouTube, which is owned by Google, has allowed videos spreading false claims of widespread election fraud under a policy that permits videos that comment on the outcome of an election. Under the new policy, videos about the election uploaded before the safe harbor deadline would remain on the platform, with YouTube appending an information panel linking to the Office of the Federal Register’s election results certification notice.In a blog post on Wednesday, YouTube pushed back on the idea that it had allowed harmful and misleading elections-related videos to spread unfettered on its site. The company said that since September, it had shut down over 8,000 channels and “thousands” of election videos that violated its policies. Since Election Day, the company said, it had also shown fact-check panels over 200,000 times above relevant election-related search results on voter fraud narratives such as “Dominion voting machines” and “Michigan recount.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyLawsuit Seeks to Halt Debut of Ranked-Choice Voting in New YorkThe new system was approved by voters in 2019, but critics, including at least one top mayoral candidate, fear that it may disenfranchise minority voters.Under the new system being challenged in court, when New York City voters go to the polls for next year’s mayoral primary, they would be allowed to choose as many as five candidates, ranked in order of preference.Credit…Amr Alfiky/The New York TimesDana Rubinstein and Dec. 9, 2020Updated 9:03 a.m. ETNext year was supposed to be when New York City would revolutionize how voters choose their mayor — not merely selecting one candidate, but picking as many as five and ranking them in order of preference.New York’s take-no-prisoners political landscape was to be remade: Candidates would most likely be more collegial and would be obliged to reach out to voters beyond their bases in the hope that other candidates’ supporters would list them as a second or third choice. Runoff elections, often expensive and with limited turnout, would be eliminated.But just as the city is poised to implement the ranked-choice voting system, opposition is mounting. Black elected officials have raised objections, arguing that absent substantial voter education, the system will effectively disenfranchise voters of color.At least one leading Black mayoral candidate — Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, who once supported the system — now says it’s being rushed and suggested that New York should emulate Minneapolis, which took years to slowly implement ranked choice.Critics also question whether it makes sense for the city’s problem-prone Board of Elections to roll out such a complicated system during a once-in-a-century pandemic.Now that opposition has coalesced into a court challenge.Six New York City Council members filed suit in State Supreme Court in Manhattan late Tuesday night against New York City, its Board of Elections and its Campaign Finance Board, contending that the city and the two boards had violated the law by failing to adequately explain the software that will be used tabulate the votes and by failing to conduct a sufficient public education campaign to familiarize voters with the new system.The suit seeks to prohibit the city from starting the new system in a February special election, a race that was poised to be a trial run for the June Democratic mayoral primary, which will use the same system and is likely to determine the city’s next mayor.“The board does not comment on pending litigation,” said Valerie Vazquez, a spokeswoman for the elections board. “However, as we have previously stated we will be ready to implement ranked-choice voting just as we successfully implemented a new voting system in 2010 and launched early voting in 2019.”The litigants include the two leaders of the Council’s Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus, who, with their colleagues, criticized the new system during a contentious City Council hearing on Monday.“They say all throughout the country that ranked-choice voting is working well for communities of color,” Laurie A. Cumbo, a Black Democratic councilwoman from Brooklyn, and one of the litigants, said during the hearing on Monday. “Well, New York City is a totally different city.”New York City voters approved ranked-choice voting in 2019. Under the new system, if a candidate wins a majority of first-choice votes, that candidate wins outright. If no candidate wins a majority, the last-place winner is eliminated. The second-choice votes of those who had favored the last-place candidate would be counted instead. The process continues until there is a winner.Among the mayoral candidates who already seemed to be factoring the new voting system into their campaign strategies was Shaun Donovan, the former Obama administration cabinet member who formally announced his run on Tuesday. An “electability” slide show circulated on his behalf argued that “Shaun’s broad appeal makes him a natural second and third choice for voters, even when they are already committed to another candidate.”Good-government groups say that the new system enhances democracy.“This reform will foster more positive, issue-focused campaigns, give voters more choice, ensure that elected officials are accountable to a broader spectrum of their constituents and avoid costly, time consuming and unnecessary runoff elections,” Betsy Gotbaum, executive director of Citizens Union, said in a recent statement.But critics of the system argue that without adequate public education, the system confuses voters and thus disenfranchises them. They also contend that the voting system targets a party system heavily populated by leaders of color.Kirsten John Foy, president of the activism group Arc of Justice, said he was exploring a lawsuit with Hazel N. Dukes, the president of the New York State chapter of the NAACP, arguing that Black and other minority voters would be disenfranchised by ranked choice voting.“Some progressive white folks got together in a room and thought this would be good, but it’s not good for our community,” Ms. Dukes said. “The voters did vote, so we can’t overturn that, but we want a stay because there’s been no education about this in our community.”Mr. Foy also questioned the motives of those leading the effort to enact ranked-choice voting.“The primary argument for ranked-choice voting is that it expands access to elected office for Black and brown officials, but we don’t have that problem,” said Mr. Foy, who listed a string of positions from state attorney general to borough presidents that are held by Black and Latino elected officials. “This is a solution in search of a problem.”Ranked-choice voting has a long and complicated history in the United States.“There was a period over 100 years ago when it was in use in some cities,” but it fell out of favor around World War II, according to David C. Kimball, a political-science professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.In the past two decades, it has gained traction in places including San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., and in Maine.The research on its impact on voter turnout is, however, mixed, he said, and voter education is a must, as American voters are accustomed to voting for just one candidate, not five.“I don’t know quite how to put this politely, but the New York City elections board has trouble tying its shoes, metaphorically speaking,” Professor Kimball said. “So asking them to roll out new voting rules in a matter of months is a big ask.”Emma G. Fitzsimmons contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Schools During CoronavirusN.Y.C. ReopeningCollege PlansTeacher BurnoutOutdoor SchoolsMusic StudentsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOn PoliticsWe’ve Reached ‘Safe Harbor’Dec. 9, 2020, 7:01 a.m. ETThe Supreme Court shoots down a Republican challenge in Pennsylvania as states pass a critical deadline. It’s Wednesday, and this is your politics tip sheet. Sign up here to get On Politics in your inbox every weekday.Where things standWith a flick of the wrist, the Supreme Court cut down a Republican attempt to have President Trump’s loss in Pennsylvania overturned. In a one-sentence order yesterday, with no justices publicly dissenting, the court refused to hear a challenge to the use of mail ballots in Pennsylvania.It was a stark rejection of Trump’s attempts to dispute the election, from a court that includes three justices he appointed and upon which he had pinned his postelection hopes.The country yesterday reached what elections experts refer to as the “safe harbor” deadline, generally accepted to be the date by which all state-level election challenges — such as recounts and audits — must be completed. State courts are likely to throw out any new lawsuit challenging the election after this deadline. Whether he openly admits it or not, Trump’s attempt to overturn the election appears to be nearing its inevitable end.The White House dived back into stimulus negotiations with congressional Democrats yesterday, offering a $916 billion proposal that Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, shared with Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader. The deal would include one-time cash payments to Americans and aid to state, local and tribal governments.The proposal also includes a provision granting broad legal immunities to employers that have kept on workers during the pandemic. That’s a key demand of Republicans, but it’s a line that Democratic leaders have said they’re unwilling to cross.McConnell indicated early yesterday that he would drop his demand for the sweeping liability shield if Democrats would give up on seeking billions of dollars in aid for state and local governments. But Democratic leaders quickly dismissed that idea.Now that it’s in a lame-duck session, Congress seems uncommonly busy. The House passed a military spending bill yesterday that includes language removing Confederate names from American military bases, something President Trump has vowed to veto.This sets up the potential for the first veto override of Trump’s presidency. The bill passed the House with a veto-proof bipartisan majority of 335 to 78, and now heads to the Senate, where it is also expected to receive overwhelming support.Congress has successfully passed annual military spending legislation in each of the past 60 years. But the president remains opposed. “I hope House Republicans will vote against the very weak National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which I will VETO,” Trump wrote on Twitter.Joe Biden will pick Representative Marcia Fudge, Democrat of Ohio, to serve as secretary of housing and urban development, and he wants to bring Tom Vilsack back to his old job as agriculture secretary, according to people familiar with the presidential transition process.Meanwhile, retired Gen. Lloyd Austin, whom Biden intends to name as defense secretary, is running into bipartisan resistance amid concerns over choosing another former commander to run the Pentagon. The recent trend has bucked the longtime tradition of civilian control over the military.Austin, who would become the country’s first Black defense secretary, would need to receive a waiver from Congress because he retired from the service fewer than seven years ago. Congress granted a waiver to Jim Mattis four years ago to serve as Trump’s first defense secretary.But adding to the concerns over Austin are his ties to Raytheon, a defense contracting company that makes billions of dollars selling weapons and military equipment to the United States and other countries, leading to what critics have called a conflict of interest.Biden formally unveiled the core team of health officials that will guide his response to the pandemic, appearing in Wilmington, Del., to announce an ambitious plan to get “at least 100 million Covid vaccine shots into the arms of the American people” in his first 100 days as president.The pledge represents at least some risk for Biden, as fulfilling it will require no hiccups in manufacturing or distributing the vaccine and a willingness by Americans to be vaccinated.As he spoke, Biden was flanked by members of his team, with some joining via video. They included Dr. Anthony Fauci, who will serve as Biden’s top medical adviser while continuing in his role as the country’s top infectious disease expert, and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who will become the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.They both delivered speeches, as did Xavier Becerra, Biden’s nominee for secretary of health and human services, and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith of Yale University Medical School, who will head a new “Covid-19 equity task force.” The virus’s effects have been disproportionately concentrated in communities of color, and Nunez-Smith spoke of “centering equity in our response to this pandemic, and not as a secondary concern, not as a box to check, but as a shared value.”Yesterday Britain became the first country to begin administering the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to civilians, the start of a mass vaccination campaign unlike any in recent memory. (And trust that Britain was very British about it, indeed: The second person to receive the vaccine was none other than William Shakespeare, 81, a Warwickshire man who had been hospitalized for several weeks after suffering a stroke.)The F.D.A. is expected to approve the vaccine this week, and Trump celebrated the milestone at a “vaccine summit” near the White House. He spoke to a packed, mostly masked crowd of industry officials and members of his administration, declaring the vaccine’s development a “monumental national achievement.”Asked why he hadn’t welcomed Biden’s transition team to the summit, Trump repeated his baseless claims that the election had been stolen, and said he still expected to serve another term.Photo of the dayCredit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesAt his “vaccine summit” yesterday, President Trump signed an executive order meant to prioritize the vaccine for Americans over people in other nations.How safe is it to bring students back to schools?A large component of Biden’s message to the country yesterday was his promise to ensure that safely returning children to school would be a “national priority.”Mayors across the country have wrestled with the question of how to reopen schools, and without a clear national framework, the process has been full of switchbacks and frustration — perhaps nowhere more haltingly and publicly than in New York City.Many parents are frustrated with the difficulties of juggling working from home and taking care of their children 24/7, but polls throughout the pandemic have shown that they favor caution over quickly sending students back to school. Teachers’ unions, too, have emphasized the need for low infection rates in order for schools to safely hold classes.Still, as experts have debated the benefits and harms of keeping students in remote learning for months on end, the consensus has shifted. New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, elected to bring elementary school and special-needs students back for in-person classes this week..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-vadvcb{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333 !important;}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-2q573h{margin-bottom:15px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1.5625rem;color:#333;}.css-1dvfdxo{margin:10px auto 0px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.5625rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1dvfdxo{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-121grtr{margin:0 auto 10px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1k4ccaz{background-color:white;margin:30px 0;padding:0 20px;max-width:510px;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1k4ccaz{padding:0;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin-right:auto;margin-left:auto;}.css-1k4ccaz strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1k4ccaz em{font-style:italic;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1k4ccaz{margin:40px auto;}}.css-1k4ccaz:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1k4ccaz a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:2px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-1k4ccaz a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:2px solid #ddd;}.css-1k4ccaz a:hover{border-bottom:none;}.css-1k4ccaz[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1k4ccaz[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1k4ccaz[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1k4ccaz[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1nbniso{border-top:5px solid #121212;border-bottom:2px solid #121212;margin:0 auto;padding:5px 0 0;overflow:hidden;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1nbniso{border-top:2px solid #121212;border-bottom:none;}Schools During Coronavirus ›Back to SchoolUpdated Dec. 8, 2020The latest on how the pandemic is reshaping education.As New York City schools reopen, many families of color are choosing to keep students home. That disparity is raising alarms, given the shortcomings of remote learning.Elementary school students who were learning remotely in the spring fell significantly behind in math and reading, according to a new analysis.Some colleges are planning to bring back more students in the spring, saying they have learned how to manage the pandemic on campus. Not everyone is so confident.It’s not going to be a smooth process. The city’s regulations will cause entire classes, if not schools, to close abruptly in cases of infections, and the mayor has offered no guarantee of when he plans to bring back middle and high school students.But it reflects a growing medical consensus that it is safer for the youngest children to convene amid the pandemic, while there is a higher risk for older grade-school students.Schools reopened successfully in England in the summer without a spike in cases, a study published yesterday found. But England was not already seeing a surge in infections at that time, as the United States is now, and children aren’t the only people exposed when schools reopen. According to the British study, a majority of the school-related infections that were recorded were among staff members.Biden said yesterday that he would put a priority on ensuring that educators had access to the vaccine as part of his push to bring students back in person.On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected] reading the main story More

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AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyEven in Defeat, Trump Tightens Grip on State G.O.P. LawmakersIn Pennsylvania, the president’s false claims of a rigged vote may inflame the party base for years to come. One lawmaker said that refusing to back up his assertions would “get my house bombed.”President Trump has twisted the arms of state lawmakers in an effort to overturn the election results.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesDec. 9, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ETLast week, allies of President Trump accused Republican leaders in Pennsylvania of being “cowards” and “liars” and of letting America down.Mr. Trump himself called top Republicans in the General Assembly in his crusade to twist the arms of officials in several states and reverse an election he lost. The Pennsylvania lawmakers told the president they had no power to convene a special session to address his grievances.But they also rewarded his efforts: On Friday, the State House speaker and majority leader joined hard-right colleagues — whom they had earlier resisted — and called on Congress to reject Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 81,000-vote victory in Pennsylvania.The extraordinary intervention by the president, and the willingness of some top party leaders to abet his effort to subvert an election, demonstrates how Mr. Trump’s sway over elected Republicans is likely to endure after he leaves office and how his false claims of a “rigged” 2020 vote may inflame the party base for years to come.Courts across the country have summarily thrown out Mr. Trump’s claims of a stolen election. But 64 Republicans in the General Assembly signed a letter last week urging Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation to reject the state’s Electoral College votes for Mr. Biden. Kim Ward, the Republican majority leader of the Pennsylvania Senate, said the president had called her to declare there was fraud in the voting. But she said she had not been shown the letter to Congress, which was pulled together hastily, before its release.Asked if she would have signed it, she indicated that the Republican base expected party leaders to back up Mr. Trump’s claims — or to face its wrath.“If I would say to you, ‘I don’t want to do it,’” she said about signing the letter, “I’d get my house bombed tonight.”A major issue facing Republicans everywhere, including those in Pennsylvania — where open seats for governor and the U.S. Senate are on the ballot in 2022 — is whether the party will put forward Trump-aligned candidates in future races. The president lost Pennsylvania, but Republicans made down-ballot gains in two statewide races and picked up seats in the legislature.“Those who are continuing to beat on this drum that the election was rigged are trying to appease Trump’s base and get their support early on,” said State Representative Ryan Bizzarro, a member of the Democratic leadership.Mr. Bizzarro said it would be a gift to Democrats if the Republican nominees for governor or Senate who emerge from primaries are remembered for echoing Mr. Trump’s baseless claims of mass fraud from mail-in ballots and his bitter-end resistance to conceding a loss.A pro-Trump rally outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday. The court later threw out a case seeking to invalidate Pennsylvania’s mail-in votes.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times“Forget all the Democrats who voted by mail — look at all the Republicans who voted by mail,” he said. “Are you saying their voice isn’t as important as the fringe who are blind to facts and the ways our Constitution clearly lays out elections?”On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court became the latest of dozens of tribunals to throw out a case brought by Trump allies, in this instance a Pennsylvania congressman and a losing congressional candidate. They had sought to invalidate the state’s 2.6 million mail-in votes, 77 percent of which were cast for Mr. Biden.Republicans argued that a 2019 state law authorizing no-excuse mail voting was unconstitutional, although it passed the Republican-led legislature and was signed by Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat.Earlier, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled against the same plaintiffs, one of whom was Sean Parnell, a former Army Ranger and a favorite of Mr. Trump’s who occasionally appears on Fox News. He lost his race for Congress to Representative Conor Lamb but has been mentioned as a potential statewide candidate in 2022.A Republican strategist in Pennsylvania, Charlie Gerow, expressed doubts that the trench fighting by party members over the legitimacy of the election would cast a stigma over Republicans in the midterm elections. “There will be so many candidates for statewide office that what happens in December 2020 will have very little bearing, in my judgment, on what happens in 2022,” he said.Nearly every state has certified the results of its election, and Mr. Biden has secured the 270 electoral votes needed to become the next president when the Electoral College meets on Monday.Nonetheless, the more than 60 Republicans in the Pennsylvania legislature — about half of the party’s total caucus — urged Congress to take one last stand for Mr. Trump and object to the state’s Biden electors.Tracking Disinformation More