Virtually everyone around Donald Trump has offered assurances in recent days that the Republican nominee will accept the results of the election on November 8. Then on Wednesday, Trump refused to do so. And with his answer, he lost the debate and ensured, if it wasn’t already a certainty, that he will lose the election.
Trump’s biggest challenge since winning the Republican nomination was to convince a majority of voters that he would implement major reforms to the way our system works—or too often doesn’t—without imperiling the system itself. More voters had to see Trump as an agent of necessary change than see him as a risk. His irresponsible answer tonight makes that impossible.
John Dickerson, host of CBS News’s Face the Nation, put it this way in a tweet: “The challenge for Trump is whether he is change or chaos,” he wrote. His answer on the election outcome “is an answer for chaos.”
Trump’s top surrogates and supporters know this. It’s why Ivanka Trump, Mike Pence, Kellyanne Conway, Mike Flynn, and Reince Priebus have all offered assurance over the last 24 hours that Trump will honor the results of the election. But there’s little reason to believe them. As Hillary Clinton said in her devastating response to Trump’s waffling on the election outcome, every time Trump loses he complains that the game is rigged. And, as Trump has said before, if you want to know what Trump thinks, don’t listen to his surrogates or anonymous sources in news articles. Listen to Trump.
Of course Trump reserves the right to challenge specific results in the event that there is credible evidence of voter fraud. But the case he’s making to voters these days is much broader, a dark conspiracy that hints at evil forces succeeding in stealing a national election.
Almost every Republican leader I’ve spoken to over the last several days believes Trump cannot win on November 8. They were hoping for a debate performance that wouldn’t cause down-ballot Republicans any more trouble. That didn’t happen.
Now, every Republican candidate across the country will be asked about Trump’s comments. Most of them will disavow it, expressing grave concern that a presidential candidate would say something that might shake the foundations of the republic. Then, as happens after each of Trump’s controversies, the candidates who have said they back Trump will be asked if they still support him. And virtually all of them will say that while they disapprove of his refusal to commit to honoring the results of the election, he must be president.
Trump is making sure that his damage to the Republican party lasts a lot longer than he’s been associated with it.
