The electoral college votes and confirms Biden’s victory. Now it’s official again. It’s Tuesday and this is your political tip. Sign up here to receive On Politics in your inbox every weekday.
Stacey Abrams, Chair of the Georgian Electoral College, spoke to voters at the Georgia State Capitol yesterday.
Republican leaders in Michigan are slowly moving away from Trump and facing a challenge for Republicans everywhere.
“I’m afraid we would lose our country forever.”
These were the stark and unwavering words of Republican Speaker for the Michigan House of Representatives, Lee Chatfield, when making a statement yesterday just a few hours earlier he and Mike Shirkey, the Republican majority leader in the Senate, confirmed Michigan’s 16 votes for Biden.
“I can’t believe risking our norms, traditions and institutions to pass a resolution that will change voters retrospectively for Trump, simply because some believe there has been enough widespread fraud to make him win to bestow, “wrote Chatfield.
Trump had called him and Shirkey to the White House last month trying to convince them to replace the state’s voters with a vote in the state legislature. As supporters of the president, with their own political ambitions and representing a state where Trump is still very popular with Republicans, Chatfield and Shirkey were ready to meet and listen to him.
But they ultimately rejected his plan, becoming canaries in the mine for other Republicans at the state and national levels across the country who are now trying to balance their loyalty to the president with unwillingness to follow his undemocratic behavior.
It’s not an easy political task: More than two-thirds of Republican voters across the country believe Trump was unjustly deprived of his election victory, according to a poll by Fox News last week. Sixty-six percent of Republicans said the president’s election challenges actually helped American democracy, and even more – 71 percent – wanted him to run again in 2024.
For Democrats and Independents, who overwhelmingly believe that Biden won fair and fair, things are very different.
In Washington, Republican leaders are beginning to let go of their long-standing unwavering loyalty to Trump as top senators stepped forward after the electoral college vote yesterday to recognize Biden as president-elect and Kamala Harris as vice-president-elect.
“I understand there are people who take the outcome of this election very seriously, but in the end you have to face the music at some point,” said Senator John Thune, the No. 2 Republican in the Chamber, at the Capitol. “And I think once the electoral college has resolved the problem today, it will be time for everyone to move on.”
That change of tone didn’t come soon enough for Michigan Republican Paul Mitchell, who was so disgusted by his party’s refusal to confront Trump about his disinformation campaign that he quit the GOP
Mitchell, who did not run for re-election this year and was already planning to retire from Congress, announced the news yesterday in a letter to senior Republican officials. He warned that they would help Trump “do long-term damage to our democracy” by believing his unfounded allegations of election fraud.
Mitchell plans to spend the remainder of his tenure as an independent.
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