WASHINGTON: He refuses to admit he lost four years ago, so it’s no surprise he’s laying the groundwork for another re-election bid if Donald Trump loses again.
But an influx of impassioned Republicans who want to reject the results has raised fears of a repeat of the 2020 chaos as America prepares for the November showdown between Trump and Joe Biden.
Many of the vice president’s jobs, including Florida Senator Marco Rubio, told NBC on Sunday that they would not accept an “unfair” election and accused Democrats of “defying every Republican victory since 2000.”
Rubio defeated John Kerry and Hillary Clinton in 2004 and 2016, but both candidates conceded in time and allowed for a peaceful transition of power.
Trump has claimed that the 2020 election was “hijacked” and led a concerted campaign to cast doubt on Biden’s loss through a series of baseless conspiracy theories that led his supporters to attack the US capital.
Years of investigation and more than 60 lawsuits have found no evidence of significant wrongdoing, but on Friday Trump denied winning Minnesota by a “slide” of more than 200,000 votes.
Meanwhile, Trump’s criminal plan to overturn the 2020 election, which has been compared to a deluge of misinformation, has landed him with serious criminal charges including conspiracy, obstruction and racketeering.
Taking the same position in 2024, he refused to appreciate the results in several interviews.
Trump told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in early May that he would accept the election results “if everyone is honest” and that he would “fight for states’ rights” if fraud is suspected.
The question of media acceptance of the election results is new, given that candidates who enjoyed disproportionate support for democracy before the Trump era are expected to gain power without compromising their political ambitions.
But many Republican vice presidential candidates have struggled to balance their support for Democrats and Trump, choosing to debate whether they will accept the November results as binding.
House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik, an outside contender for Trump’s ticket, declined to say whether she would vote to endorse her nominee in the 2024 election.
He said in January that he would only accept “legitimate and credible elections,” but like Rubio, he did not specify the terms.
Senator JD Vance of Ohio, another conservative on the shortlist for the vice presidential job, told CNN that the vote would be welcome if it was “free and fair.”
In an interview on NBC, Vance’s running mate, Sen. Tim Scott, pressed several times, said he would not accept the November results.
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum was defeated by Trump in the Republican presidential race along with Scott, but has since won support.
Charlie Colean, chief strategist at the conservative political consultancy RED PAC, said Republicans in the Trump era must continue to present themselves as the party of “security and electoral integrity”.
“These candidates must be recognized by the authorities in the areas that correspond to the voters,” he told AFP.
But Nicholas Creel, a political scientist at Georgia College and State University, said the ant shows that Republicans cannot concede a 2020 defeat to Trump without jeopardizing their position in the party.
“The party is no longer associated with ideology, but with idolatry, and is closer to a cult than modern political parties,” he said.
