Even in Defeat, Trump Tightens Grip on State G.O.P. Lawmakers
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
