A Top GOP Voice Says Trump Has No Chance

Karl Rove says recounts, challenges cannot possibly change the outcome of election
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 12, 2020 11:55 AM CST
Karl Rove: Trump Has No Chance
In this 2018 file photo, Republican strategist Karl Rove speaks during the Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson, Miss.   (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

President Trump's legal attempts to overturn Joe Biden's election victory are all for naught, according to the man who helped usher in the previous Republican president. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Karl Rove writes that the president's legal challenges in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada "are unlikely to move a single state from Mr. Biden's column, and certainly they're not enough to change the final outcome." Rove served as George W. Bush's deputy chief of staff, and CNN reports that he advised the Trump campaign ahead of the 2020 election. To win, Trump would need to "prove systemic fraud, with illegal votes in the tens of thousands," but "there is no evidence of that," Rove writes. He adds that Trump's "chances in court will decline precipitously" when key states begin certifying results. Georgia will do so first on Nov. 20.

Rove notes there have been just "three statewide contests in the past half-century in which recounts changed the outcome: the 1974 New Hampshire Senate race, the 2004 Washington governor’s contest, and the 2008 Minnesota Senate election." Those races came down to roughly a few hundred votes. But "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," Rove writes. In other words, the deal is done. "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," Rove concludes. With that, he becomes "one of the highest profile GOP figures" urging the president to accept defeat, notes Paul LeBlanc at CNN. (Trump, however, is still claiming that he'll emerge as the victor.)

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