Republican strategist Karl Rove acknowledged that Trump’s lawsuits won’t overturn the outcome of the election and told the president that it’s time to accept defeat, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Wrote Rove: “Mr. Trump is now pursuing legal challenges in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada, and there will be an automatic recount in Georgia, given Mr. Biden’s 0.29-point lead there. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is correct that Mr. Trump is “100% within his rights” to go to court over concerns about fraud and transparency. But the president’s efforts are unlikely to move a single state from Mr. Biden’s column, and certainly they’re not enough to change the final outcome.”
Rove noted that only three recounts in the last 50 years have changed statewide contests and those races were separated by 355, 261 and 215 votes.
“These margins aren’t much like today’s,” Rove wrote. “Mr. Biden led Wednesday in Wisconsin by 20,540 votes, Pennsylvania by 49,064, Michigan by 146,123, Arizona by 12,614, Nevada by 36,870 and Georgia by 14,108.”
“TV networks showed jubilant crowds in major cities celebrating Mr. Biden’s victory; they didn’t show the nearly equal number of people who mourned Mr. Trump’s defeat,” Rove continued. “U.S. politics remains polarized and venomous. Closing out this election will be a hard but necessary step toward restoring some unity and political equilibrium. Once his days in court are over, the president should do his part to unite the country by leading a peaceful transition and letting grievances go.”
Other Republicans have begun to be more public about Trump’s defeat.
Said Ohio Governor Mike DeWine: “I think that we need to consider the former vice president as the president-elect. Joe Biden is the president-elect. The president and his campaign have every right to go into court. Our courts are open. Our courts are the best place, frankly, to adjudicate facts. I’m a former prosecutor. I’m a great believer to have your courts and go in to make a case and they have every right to do that, and that looks like what they’re trying to do.”
