ASHEVILLE, North Carolina — For weeks, concerns of a second Jan. 6 have percolated – and been encouraged – as election day gets nearer.
Vice President Kamala Harris has leaned heavily into Jan. 6, not least with her speech at the Ellipse in Washington D.C. earlier this week, the same spot former president Donald Trump spoke to his supporters before they marched up to the Capitol and all hell broke loose. She and her allies have repeatedly suggested that should Trump lose the election again, or if there is any type of delay in counting the vote, he and his supporters could try to seize power. She has accused him of growing increasingly “unhinged” and warned that there is a team of Democratic lawyers ready to challenge him should he declare victory prematurely like he did in 2020.
Republicans, for their part, point to Democrats denying results for “decades,” countering that the Harris campaign “won’t accept the results of the election” if she loses.
The Republican National Committee lists more than 150 examples of “Democrats denying election results” on its website. That list includes former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD). It also notes that seven House Democrats unsuccessfully sought to object to the certification of the 2016 election and that 67 Democratic lawmakers boycotted Trump’s 2017 inauguration and claimed his win was “illegitimate.”
Republicans also have not forgotten that Harris herself, in 2018, claimed that “voter suppression” blocked former Georgia state Rep. Stacey Abrams from winning the Peach State’s gubernatorial race. Abrams has never conceded that election loss.
In Asheville, North Carolina, Democratic voters from the battleground state however told the Washington Examiner that they would accept the results if Trump wins next week.
June Ward of Weaverville told the Washington Examiner that she does have a “grave fear” that Trump will seek to block the certification of results a second time but claimed that Democrats would not take such drastic steps should Harris lose.
“I hope that the victory for the Harris-Walz team is so definite and deafening that that may not happen — just more sensible voices prevail,” she told the Washington Examiner. “I think that once the results are certified, that the Democratic Party, I think, will be likely to accept, and not without a lot of concern and dread, but will accept the result.”
As for the Trump team’s claim that Harris will not accept unfavorable election results, Peter Adams of Asheville said he does not “believe anything Donald Trump says” and that “absolutely” overturning elections is a “MAGA thing.
“He has lied from Day One,” Adams continued. “I haven’t heard an honest word out of his mouth since he opened it.”
Emer O’Shaughnessy, also of Weaverville, told the Washington Examiner that not accepting a Trump win as legitimate “hasn’t crossed [her] mind” and that she’s “less than concerned” about Democrats storming the Capitol.
Earlier this month, Rep. Raskin (D-MD) told Axios that if Trump “won a free, fair, and honest election, then we would obviously accept it” but noted that the former president is “definitely” doing “whatever he can to try to interfere with the process, whether we’re talking about manipulating Electoral College counts in Nebraska or manipulating the vote count in Georgia or imposing other kinds of impediments.”
In October, USA Today asked all lawmakers and congressional candidates whether they would accept and certify the 2024 election results. Most didn’t respond to the inquiry, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). Of the 170 who responded, 156 said they would certify the results, some with conditions. The “yes” respondents were largely Democrats (131 to 25 Republicans).
Raskin, who objected to Trump electors in 2017, did not respond to a Washington Examiner request for comment.
Jason Johnson, a spokesman for Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), told the Washington Examiner that “Grijalva will accept the will of the voters and the certified results of the 2024 Arizona election” but claimed that there is “an incredible double standard” in coverage of election denials. Grijalva also objected to the certification of Trump’s win in 2017.
“It was Trump who caused January 6th, and it was Republicans that challenged the certified election results,” he said in a statement. “It’s them you should be asking if they’ll accept the 2024 election results.”
Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, ranging from filing dozens of election fraud lawsuits in states across the country to inspiring the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, have been widely documented and the subject of his second impeachment and federal prosecution by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Trump’s rhetoric surrounding Election Day has grown increasingly polarizing in recent weeks, including referring to “the enemy within” the United States and retribution against his political foes who break the law. He has also begun criticizing alleged voter fraud in Pennsylvania, which will likely end up being the key state this Tuesday. Steve Bannon, the former Trump White House aide, has meanwhile highlighted the work of Democratic superlawyer Marc Elias of the Elias Law Group. Bannon has accused Elias of trying to “steal the election” through the courts. Elias and his team are involved in dozens of voting and election legal battles in at least 21 states.
But for the residents of Buncombe County, however, talk of denying election results is nothing but a “D.C. thing.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“We really don’t talk about that,” resident Melissa Duong told the Washington Examiner. “So that may be something that’s specific to what’s happening in D.C.”
