Members of the United States Republican Party have reacted differently to Republican president Donald Trump's claims about the 2020 United States presidential election, with many publicly supporting them, many remaining silent, and a few publicly denouncing them. Trump falsely claimed to have won the election, and made many claims of election fraud.Multiple sources:
By December 11, 2020, 126 out of 196 Republican members of the House backed a lawsuit filed in the United States Supreme Court supported by nineteen Republican state attorneys general seeking to subvert the election and overturn the election results. The Trump campaign hired the Berkeley Research Group to investigate whether there had been voter fraud. The researchers found nothing, and the consultancy reported this to Trump and his chief of staff Mark Meadows on a conference call in the final days of the year, before the attack on the Capitol.
Multiple polls for months after the election found that majorities of Republicans believed the election was fraudulent and stolen and that Trump was the "true" president.Multiple sources: By February 2021, drawing on the false allegations of voting fraud and a stolen election, Republican state legislatures had begun to implement new laws and rules to restrict voting access in ways that would favor Republican candidates. In Arizona, the Republican-controlled government proceeded with legislation to allow the state attorney general, then a Republican, to intervene in the voting certification process managed by the secretary of state, currently a Democrat. Republican lawmakers and candidates in several states sought to seize control of the administrative management of elections.Multiple sources:
By December 30, 2020, Republican members of the House and Senate indicated their intent to object to the congressional certification of Electoral College results, to force both chambers to debate and vote on whether to accept the results. Mike Pence, who as vice president would preside over the proceedings, signaled his endorsement of the effort, stating on January 4, "I promise you, come this Wednesday, we will have our day in Congress." Trump and some supporters promoted a "Pence card" theory that the vice president has the authority to reject certified results. However, Pence later reversed his endorsement of the effort, saying in a letter he would not reject certified results. In the early hours of January 7, 2021, Pence (while performing his duties as President of the Senate, during the counting of electoral votes) conceded that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had won. On the evening of January 7, 2021, Trump tweeted a video in which he agreed to a peaceful transition on January 20.
The insistence by Trump and his supporters through 2023 that the election had been stolen from him by fraud came to be characterized as an implementation of "the big lie", leading to an election denial movement. It was used by Republicans to justify efforts to impose new voting restrictions and to take control of the administrative management of elections at the state and local level.
Timeline Summary From six months before, during, and after the 2020 United States elections, most notably during a speech held late on November 5, President Donald Trump, who was running for re-election on the Republican Party ticket, suggested and claimed that large-scale electoral fraud would happen, was happening, or had happened, to the effect that it would make him lose his presidential re-election. In the days after Election Day (November 3, 2020), Trump also demanded that the vote counting be stopped in some swing states (Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina), where he was slowly losing his lead to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, until Republican observers could meaningfully observe and challenge the vote counting process. Concurrently, Trump demanded that the vote counting be continued in the swing state of Arizona, where he was catching up on Biden. Several prominent members of his Republican Party, including recently elected or former officials, denounced Trump's claims of election fraud before, during, and after the 2020 United States elections as unsubstantiated, baseless or without evidence, as well as damaging to the election process, undermining democracy and dangerous to political stability. In one case, a former Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives referred to the totality of Trump's actions as an attempted coup d'état. In 2021, The Republican Accountability Project estimated that 6% of national Republican politicians consistently stood-up for democracy.
Before Election Day Months before Election Day, Democrats regularly condemned President Trump's suggestions that widespread electoral fraud would occur (especially through the use of mail-in ballots, a claim Trump first made on April 7, 2020), but Republicans rarely did. Attempts by Politico to obtain comments from prominent Republicans on the issue mostly failed; Miles Taylor (former chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security and author of "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration") and Michael Steele (former chairman of the Republican National Committee) were among the few they could find expressing serious concerns about Trump's comments. Politico stated on the morning of November 3 that "[m]any Republicans insist they are disgusted by Trump's threats, they just aren't willing to say so publicly."
November 4: Counting transparency After Election Day (November 3, 2020), in the afternoon of November 4, the Trump campaign sued Michigan and Pennsylvania, alleging that they were not being given proper access to monitor the vote counting process, and demanded the counting stop. The Trump team declared that they had already won the state of Pennsylvania at a moment when Trump was leading by 320,000 votes, but only 85% of the votes had been counted, and it was known that the vote counting in the city of Philadelphia could still tip the balance in favor of Biden. Eric Trump alleged that "the Democrats" would try to "cheat in Pennsylvania." However, Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt, who oversaw the city's counting and was himself a Republican, rejected claims that the process lacked transparency, as observers were able to see everything that was happening in the counting hall.
November 5: Trump speech alleging electoral fraud
According to CNBC, there was mostly silence within the Republican Party shortly after Trump's speech from the White House late at night on November 5. Rick Santorum, Ben Sasse, Mitt Romney, Larry Hogan, and Chris Christie were among the first Republicans to criticize the President's remarks as indefensible. Combined with a statement from Nikki Haley that some deemed to concede Trump's defeat, several Republicans, including Trump's sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, rebuked other Republicans for staying silent and not supporting the President's allegations of electoral fraud. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted on November 5, only about 30% of Republican Americans believed that Trump had won the election; the vast majority of Americans, including most Republicans, believed Biden had.
November 6: Critics and loyalists Some Trump loyalists such as Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and Kevin McCarthy endorsed the false claims that Trump had actually won the election and that there was large-scale fraud, and called on Republicans to stay united behind Trump. Over 20 other leading Republicans denounced Trump's accusations of voter fraud on November 6. Some observers concluded that statements denouncing or supporting Trump's claims were also part of a conflict inside the Republican Party over who should be their nominee for the 2024 presidential election, and whether to continue Trumpist politics. In March 2021, McCarthy denied he had supported Trump's false claims of election fraud, though he had supported Texas v. Pennsylvania that sought to overturn voting results in four states and voted in favor of a House resolution to overturn voting results in two states.
November 7: Several Republicans congratulate Biden while most refuse On November 7, most major American news networks called the election a victory for Biden when vote-counting in Pennsylvania and Nevada reached the point where he would certainly receive the 270 electors' votes needed for the presidency. The Trump campaign refused to concede defeat and instead asserted that "the election was far from over." Several leading Republicans, including former 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Larry Hogan, John Kasich, Phil Scott, Adam Kinzinger, Will Hurd, Paul Mitchell, Fred Upton, Lamar Alexander, Tom Reed, and Jeb Bush, proceeded to congratulate Biden as the new President-elect (and Kamala Harris as Vice President-elect) of the United States; others such as Josh Hawley and Paul Gosar insisted that the election was not over yet until "all lawful votes have been counted, recounts finished, and allegations of fraud addressed."
Just before the media called the election, re-elected Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw tweeted "If Trump loses, he loses. It was never an impossible outcome and we must accept the final results when it is over," to which newly elected Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (a QAnon conspiracy theory supporter) responded, "The time to STAND UP for (President Donald Trump) is RIGHT NOW. Republicans can't back down." Crenshaw criticized her for trying to "talk tough" and said: "You're a member of Congress now, Marjorie. Start acting like one," while stressing that any irregularity should be addressed.
November 8: George W. Bush congratulates Biden and Harris
On November 8, former president George W. Bush (2001–2009), the previous Republican president, congratulated President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris by phone, and said in a statement: "The American people can have confidence that this election was fundamentally fair, its integrity will be upheld, and its outcome is clear." He further stated: "The President-elect reiterated that while he ran as a Democrat, he will govern for all Americans. I offered him the same thing I offered presidents Trump and Obama: my prayers for his success, and my pledge to help in any way I can." While congratulating Trump "on a hard-fought campaign" and saying he "has the right to request recounts and pursue legal challenges," Bush stated the election's outcome was clearly in Biden's favor. According to Forbes, "most Trump allies and congressional Republicans" had by then either stayed silent or explicitly refused to congratulate Biden and Harris, but the number of Republicans who did was growing. After Bush's declaration, Trump ally Chris Christie stepped up the pressure on Trump to provide evidence of electoral fraud if he wanted Republicans to support his cause: "If your basis for not conceding is [because] there was voter fraud, then show us. Because if you don't show us, we can't do this. We can't back you blindly without evidence." CNN claimed two sources had said Trump's son-in-law and Director of the Office of American Innovation Jared Kushner had urged the President to accept the loss, while a third, separate source alleged that First Lady Melania Trump had tried to convince her husband as well. Roy Blunt repeated his earlier statement that Trump had been making baseless claims and that "it's time for the president's lawyers to present the facts," but when asked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, he refused to acknowledge for the time being that Biden had won; Pat Toomey took a similar but softer stance. Kristi Noem, on the other hand, pushed the narrative of widespread fraud, but was unable to present evidence when pressed by Stephanopoulos.
November 9: Trump campaign announces legal challenges