Former President George W. Bush senior adviser Karl Rove acknowledged that President Trump will not be able to overturn the outcome of the election.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Wednesday, Rove, 69, argued that while the president has the right to call for recounts in close states and file legal challenges, “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.”
“To win, Mr. Trump must prove systemic fraud, with illegal votes in the tens of thousands,” he wrote. “There is no evidence of that so far. Unless some emerges quickly, the president’s chances in court will decline precipitously when states start certifying results, as Georgia will on Nov. 20, followed by Pennsylvania and Michigan on Nov. 23, Arizona on Nov. 30, and Wisconsin and Nevada on Dec. 1.”
Every mainstream outlet projected Biden to win the presidency on Saturday, but the president has not conceded thus far. He and his campaign made unsubstantiated accusations of widespread voter fraud and voting irregularities in battleground states where Biden was projected to win. They have filed legal challenges in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia. All of those states are projected to go to Biden. The campaign has not challenged the results in any state the president is projected to win.
Georgia will be going to a recount, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced on Wednesday. The president’s campaign asked for a recount, but Trump winning the state of Georgia would not be enough to change the projected winner of the election as a whole.
Despite Rove’s piece arguing the futility of the ongoing fight to stop Biden from becoming president-elect, more than 8 in 10 voters who cast their ballot for Trump believe that Biden’s victory is “illegitimate.”
