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President Trump won this election, Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the top Republican leader in the House, falsely told Laura Ingraham on Fox Thursday night.

Far from over. Republicans will not back down from this battle," McCarthy declared via Twitter on Friday.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a close Trump ally and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, defended and even echoed Trumps unsupported claims that Democrats and their allies had rigged the election against the president.

Philadelphia elections are crooked as a snake, Graham told Fox News personality Sean Hannity. Youre talking about a lot of dead people voting. Youre talking about in Nevada a lot of people voting who are not legal residents." Graham offered no evidence to support those claims.

Graham, who just won his own reelection victory, also told Hannity that everything should be on the table when the host suggested that GOP-controlled state legislatures in Pennsylvania and elsewhere might invalidate the election results over corruption concerns.

Other prominent GOP officials raised their voices to refute directly the steady drumbeat of misinformation coming from Trump, his children, and his campaign.

For example, Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, pointed to Trumps contradictory calls to stop counting ballots in states where hes ahead and keep counting in states where hes behind.

You cant stop the count in one state and decide you want the count to continue in another state, Blunt told reporters. That might be how youd like to see the system work, but thats not how the system works.

And Senator Pat Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, perhaps the most critical battleground in the presidential race and a target of many of Trumps unfounded claims of malfeasance, called the presidents Thursday night speech very disturbing" in an interview Friday with CBS News.

Theres simply no evidence anyone has shown me of any widespread corruption or fraud," said Toomey, who has announced he wont seek reelection in 2022. The presidents speech last night was very disturbing to me because he made very, very serious allegations without any evidence to support it.

But most Republicans appear to be hewing to their well-worn habit of tiptoeing around the controversy at hand, expressing any disagreement with the president obliquely for example, by not even mentioning Trump in their responses.

Heres how this must work in our great country: Every legal vote should be counted. Any illegally-submitted ballots must not. All sides must get to observe the process. And the courts are here to apply the laws & resolve disputes," tweeted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has otherwise declined to publicly address Trumps baseless claims of electoral wrongdoing. Thats how Americans' votes decide the result.

States have the authority to determine the specific rules of elections. Every valid vote under a states law should be counted. Allegations of irregularities can be adjudicated by the courts. We must all respect the outcome of elections," Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said in a statement released Friday morning.

The continued reluctance of many Republican officials to renounce Trump more directly may reflect their view that even if he loses, the president will remain a powerful force in the Republican Party.

Trump performed much better than the polls and many pundits had predicted, garnering the second-largest share of the popular vote in history, after Biden. And he continues to command the loyalty of tens of millions of voters across the country.

Congressional Republicans also defied expectations, picking up seats in the House and very likely holding on to control of the Senate, helped in many cases by the surge of Trump voters to the polls.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican who just won a House race in Georgia and who has expressed support for the conspiracy theory QAnon, went after one of her future GOP colleagues on Twitter Friday for daring to even raise the prospect that Trump might lose.

The time to STAND UP for @realDonaldTrump is RIGHT NOW! Republicans cant back down. This loser mindset is how the Democrats win," she wrote, replying to a tweet from Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Republican from Texas.

"President Trump has fought for us, we have to fight for him. We wont forget. Trust me, she vowed.

Among those willing to condemn Trumps comments, many of the harshest rebukes came from a handful of regular Trump critics, including Mitt Romney, the Republican partys 2012 presidential nominee.

Romney, now a senator from Utah, said Trump was within his rights to request recounts and call for investigations where evidence of irregularities exist.

But Trump "is wrong to say the election was rigged, corrupt and stolen, Romney said on Twitter. Trumps claim damages the cause of freedom here and around the world ... and recklessly inflames destructive and dangerous passions, he said.

The presidents comments that theres some national conspiracy around this arent supported by any facts, added Governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, a Republican who did not vote for Trump in either 2016 or 2020. And theyre damaging to democracy. They cheapen all of those of us who serve in public life and who ran, and who were either elected or defeated based on the will of the people.

A sitting president undermining our political process & questioning the legality of the voices of countless Americans without evidence is not only dangerous & wrong, it undermines the very foundation this nation was built upon, Representative Will Hurd, a Texas Republican set to retire in January, tweeted.

Some Republicans seemed to be recalibrating their reactions as Trumps claims drew more and more scrutiny.

Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, initially tweeted out a neutral statement Thursday about ignoring overheated rhetoric."

On Friday his office shared a more direct response. Voter fraud is a poison to self-government, so these are major allegations. If the Presidents legal team has real evidence, they need to present it immediately to both the public and the courts," Sasse said. "In the meantime, all legal votes need to be counted according to relevant state laws. This is our American system and it works.

Even Graham, who on Thursday night said he had given $500,000 to Trumps legal efforts, tempered his stance somewhat Friday.

President Trumps team is going to have a chance to make a case regarding voting irregularities, Graham said in a video message The Hill posted. They deserve a chance to make that case. Im going to stand with President Trump. If a Democrat were doing this, itd be cheered on.

This story includes material from the Associated Press.

Victoria McGrane can be reached at victoria.mcgrane@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @vgmac. David Abel can be reached at david.abel@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @davabel.

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Republicans face their biggest loyalty test of all - The Boston Globe

WASHINGTON (AP) Some Republican lawmakers on Thursday criticized President Donald Trumps unsupported claim that Democrats are trying to steal the election, saying Trumps comments undermine the U.S. political process and the bedrock notion that all Americans should have their vote counted.

Trump, who has complained for weeks about mail-in ballots, escalated his allegations late Thursday, saying at the White House that the ballot-counting process is unfair and corrupt. Trump did not back up his claims with any details or evidence, and state and federal officials have not reported any instances of widespread voter fraud.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, tweeted that the presidents claims of fraud are getting insane. If Trump has legit concerns about fraud, they need to be based on evidence and taken to court, Kinzinger said, adding, STOP Spreading debunked misinformation.

Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan, a potential 2024 presidential hopeful who has often criticized Trump, said unequivocally: There is no defense for the Presidents comments tonight undermining our Democratic process. America is counting the votes, and we must respect the results as we always have before.

No election or person is more important than our Democracy, Hogan said on Twitter.

Other criticism, though less direct, came from members of Congress. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who spoke at a recent Trump campaign rally, said in a tweet that if any candidate believes a state is violating election laws they have a right to challenge it in court & produce evidence in support of their claims.

Rubio said earlier: Taking days to count legally cast votes is NOT fraud. And court challenges to votes cast after the legal voting deadline is NOT suppression.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah., the partys presidential nominee in 2012, sought to provide a reassuring note. Counting votes is often long and frustrating, Romney said.

If any irregularities are alleged, they will be investigated and ultimately resolved in the courts, Romney tweeted. Have faith in democracy, our Constitution and the American people.

The comments by the Republican lawmakers and other GOP leaders were rare, public rebukes of Trump, who has demanded and generally received loyalty from fellow Republicans throughout his four-year term. Most in the GOP take pains to avoid directly criticizing Trump, even when they find his conduct unhelpful or offensive to their values and goals.

Trumps tweets earlier Thursday declaring victory and calling for officials to STOP THE COUNT were a test of how strongly he can keep Republicans in line as he tries to challenge the voting process in court.

Before Trumps speech in the White House briefing room, several Republicans challenged his attempts to halt vote-counting in Pennsylvania and other battleground states.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Trump ally who won reelection Tuesday in Kentucky, told reporters that claiming youve won the election is different from finishing the counting. His office declined to comment after Trumps address Thursday.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, urged everyone to be patient as results come in. It is critical that we give election officials time to complete their jobs, and that we ensure all lawfully cast ballots are allowed and counted, she said in a statement.

Rep. Will Hurd, a Texas Republican who did not seek reelection, called Trumps comments about corruption dangerous and wrong. Trumps remarks undermine the U.S. political process and the very foundation this nation was built upon, Hurd said. Every American should have his or her vote counted.

While Biden was close Thursday to the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House, it was unclear when a national winner would be determined after a long, bitter campaign dominated by the coronavirus pandemic and its effects on Americans and the national economy.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut told The Associated Press earlier Thursday he hopes Republicans step up their response to Trumps unsubstantiated claims. While Republicans may want to give Trump time to make his arguments, when it becomes clear that claims are without basis, My hope is that Republicans will put public and private pressure on him, Murphy said.

But one of Trumps top congressional supporters said he supports efforts to question the vote counting process and is donating money to shore up legal challenges. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on Fox News Thursday night he would donate $500,000 to the presidents legal defense fund and urged people to go to the Trump campaigns website to pitch in.

Rep. Denver Riggleman, a Virginia Republican who lost a GOP primary this year, addressed Trump directly on Twitter: Count every vote, yes, but stop the Bravo Sierra, Mr. President, and respect the democratic process that makes America great. Riggleman, a former Air Force officer, was using a military euphemism for falsehoods.

In remarks Wednesday at the White House, Trump baselessly claimed victory and alleged major fraud on our nation as state election officials continued counting ballots amid a huge increase in voter turnout.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Trump ally who is an analyst for ABC News, said there was no basis for Trumps argument. Christie called Trumps attack on the integrity of the election a bad strategic decision and a bad political decision, and its not the kind of decision you would expect someone to make ... who holds the position he holds.

Trumps family, never shy about expressing their support, took to Twitter to question why GOP lawmakers were not rushing to the presidents defense. Where are Republicans! Have some backbone. Fight against this fraud. Our voters will never forget you if your sheep! Trumps son Eric tweeted.

Some GOP governors responded. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis urged the president to Fight on, exhaust all options. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem tweeted that Trump was fighting rigged election systems.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said states administer U.S. elections, not the federal government. We should respect that process and ensure that all ballots cast in accordance with state laws are counted. Its that simple, Portman said in a statement.

Its best for everyone to step back from the spin and allow the vote counters to do their job, added Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.

___

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Lisa Mascaro in Washington and Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C., contributed to this report.

Excerpt from:
Some in GOP break with Trump over baseless vote-fraud claims - The Associated Press

Following an election mired in chaos and confusion, this at least is clear: Donald Trumps political career will soon be coming to an end, but Trumpism his inchoate brand of conservative populism is here to stay.

The narrative would surely be different had Trump lost in the resounding landslide foreseen by professional pundits and pollsters. In that universe, the president and everything he represents would have been repudiated, creating an immense temptation for the Republican party to revert back to its lily-white, elite-driven comfort zone.

Instead, Trump defied expectations by winning the largest share of non-white voters of any Republican since 1960. This ranged from modest gains among African American men, to major swings in party preference within working-class Latino communities and not just in Miami-Dade, where Cuban-American turnout helped secure Florida for Trump while unseating two Democratic incumbents. In Starr county, Texas, for example, Biden beat Trump by five points down from Hillary Clintons 60 a 55-point swing in a border town thats 95% Hispanic and which has a median income of only $17,000.

The Missouri senator Josh Hawley, a rising star within the GOPs populist faction, was quick to offer his interpretation on Twitter. Republicans in Washington are going to have a very hard time processing this, he wrote. But the future is clear: we must be a working class party, not a Wall Street party.

The Florida senator Marco Rubio concurred. #Florida & the Rio Grande Valley showed the future of the GOP: A party built on a multi-ethnic multi-racial coalition of working AMERICANS.

Ironically enough, the primary demographic Trump lost relative to 2016 was non-college-educated white men. A key factor seems to have been the Biden campaigns strategic positioning on issues that resonate with rust belt voters from a Buy America plan so supercharged that it made Steve Bannon blush, to tax incentives for manufacturers that reshore. Thus even in defeat, the ideas behind Trumpism were on some level victorious.

All that said, the gap between Trumpism in theory and practice remains enormous. Despite campaigning on a rejection of conservative economic orthodoxies in 2016, once in office Trump pursued an agenda of tax cuts and deregulation that was almost comically conventional. And by the final days of the 2020 campaign, Trump scarcely talked about policy at all, much less his core issues of trade and immigration.

Trumps narrow loss thus marks the beginning of an internal struggle for the soul of American conservatism

Trumps narrow loss thus marks the beginning of an internal struggle for the soul of American conservatism. Many in the Republican party long for a return to the socially moderate, fiscal conservatism of a bygone era. Others, like Hawley and Rubio, are calling upon their peers to embrace the working-class realignment that Trump grasped at an intuitive level, even as he failed in execution.

Between deindustrialization and the steady exodus of college-educated voters to the Democratic party, the Republican partys shift toward the working class has been decades in the making. A similar trend can be seen elsewhere, too, from Boris Johnsons blue-collar supporters, to the unabashedly pro-union platform of Erin OToole, the newly minted leader of the Conservative party of Canada.

The main difference in the US case has been the failure, if not outright resistance, of the Republican partys political machinery to adapt in real time. Indeed, for all of Trumps capacity for disruption, he was no match against the institutional edifice of the so-called conservative movement the dozens of free-market thinktanks, law firms and leadership organizations that were called upon to staff his administration and define his agenda.

So while the notion of the Republican party becoming a multiethnic working-class coalition may seem farcical now, the longer-term trend speaks for itself. The only question is whether the partys elite will continue to deny this reality, or take the next four years to rebuild and realign conservative institutions to better reflect the actual interests of their rank and file.

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Democrats beware: the Republicans will soon be the party of the working class - The Guardian

Republican officials on Long Island kicked it Old School last week, as GOP supporters showed up at polling places on Election Day to cast their ballots even as record numbers of Democrats in Nassau and Suffolk relied on absentee voting.

Jesse Garcia, Suffolk's GOP chairman, and Joseph Cairo, head of Nassau's Republican Party, are old hands at getting out the vote.

Cairo did so for years, operating out of a strip mall storefront as he marshaled a cadre of runners to go here, go there or go anywhere to encourage the faithful to make their way to the polls.

Garcia also dispatched his troops as town Republican chairman in Brookhaven, before becoming the party's county leader.

Recently, both chairmen acknowledged the challenges of campaigning, fundraising and pulling out the vote during the coronavirus pandemic.

But neither ever lost confidence.

Garcia said he intended to bring Suffolk home for President Donald Trump, who won the county in 2016.

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"That's the plan," he said.

And, according to early unofficial results, that plan, thusfar at least, his plan is working.

Trump got a total of 333,100 votes on the Republican and Conservative Party lines, while Biden logged 258,007 votes on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines.

Margins are much narrower in Nassau, where Trump got 286,633 votes on the Republican and Conservative lines. Biden received 280,115 votes on the Democratic and Working Families lines.

There also are tens of thousands of absentee ballots yet to be counted.

In 2016, Nassau went for Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The GOP appears to have easily held on to U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin's seat in the 1st Congressional District, which extends roughly from Smithtown to the East End. And Republican Andrew Garbarino looks to have beaten Democratic opponent Jackie Gordon in the 2nd, which is split between Nassau and Suffolk.

But while the federal contests drew considerable attention, the GOP, in both counties, also were in a New York State of mind.

The goal was to take out as many freshmen Democratic state senators from Nassau and Suffolk as they could in a region that, not terribly long ago, had been home to the Long Island Nine of Republican state senators who, for decades, brought home the bacon for the region.

Until 2015, that group was unrivaled in channeling millions of dollars to Long Island's school districts, while also having a heavy hand in determining state policy, from clean water to homeland security issues, until the number of Democrats began to increase in the state Legislature.

Two years ago, Democrats won a clear Senate majority, as Democrats won six of Long Island's nine seats.

Cairo and Garcia echoing the state GOP party this year campaigned against those Democrats by painting them as too liberal for Long Island, and too beholden to New York City Democrats, whose interests, according to the party chiefs, do not align with those of Long Islanders.

Richard Schaffer, Suffolk's Democratic chairman, is well aware of the challenges of campaigning as a Democrat in Suffolk.

"It's like campaigning in a purple state," Schaffer said.

Things have changed in Nassau as well.

"It's not like years ago, when everybody was a Republican," said Cairo, whose tenure with the party stretches back to the 1970s, when Nassau's GOP was considered one of the nation's most powerful political machines.

Which is why messaging during campaigns matters.

"We go out with the goal of persuading every voter we can," said Jay Jacobs, who chairs both Nassau's and New York State's Democratic Party organizations.

Even more important, the party chairmen agree, is getting out the vote.

On Long Island, as in the nation, much of that came via absentee, for Democrats.

"We wanted to run up and bank as many votes as we could," Jacobs said,

On Long Island, as in the nation, much of that came in person, and on Election Day, for Republicans.

"Republicans like Election Day," Garcia said. "Republicans like to hold that ballot, and feed it into the machine."

Joye Brown has been a columnist for Newsday since 2006. She joined the newspaper in 1983 and has worked as a reporter, an editor, newsroom administrator and editorial writer.

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Brown: Long Island Republicans kicked it Old School on Election Day - Newsday

Democrats are gaining one seat on the Republican-dominated State Board of Education, while Republicans held on in the other races that Democrats had hoped to flip in the 2020 general election.

Democrat Rebecca Bell-Metereau, a Texas State University professor, has defeated Republican Lani Popp, a Northside Independent School District speech pathologist, in District 5, according to Decision Desk HQ. Incumbent Ken Mercer, a Republican who held the seat for 14 years, decided not to run for reelection in the district, which picks up communities along the Interstate 35 corridor between San Antonio and Austin and stretches into the Hill Country.

Republicans kept control of two other seats that Texas Democrats wanted to flip this year.

GOP incumbent Tom Maynard defeated Democrat Marsha Burnett-Webster, a retired teacher and college administrator, according to results from Decision Desk HQ. They competed for the District 10 seat, which runs northeast of Austin and includes suburban and more rural communities.

Meanwhile, Republican Will Hickman, an intellectual property lawyer, defeated Democrat Michelle Palmer, an Aldine ISD history teacher, according to Decision Desk HQ. They ran for the District 6 seat vacated by Donna Bahorich, a Houston Republican and former board chair. The district stretches from West Houston to the northwestern edge of Harris County.

The board determines what millions of Texas public school students learn in classrooms and is responsible for adopting textbooks, changing curriculum standards and approving new charter school operators. In past years, board meetings have been a lightning rod for national attention due to dramatic debates about racist ethnic studies textbook proposals, abstinence-focused sex education standards and creationist biology standards.

Currently, the 15-member education board seats 10 Republicans and five Democrats with eight seats in play this year.

Experts say the boards political dynamic will still remain conservative after this election, though less radical than in decades past. The board continues to be a problem-solving board and doesnt split toward ideological lines like it did toward the 90s or the first decade of this century, said David Anderson, an education lobbyist at HillCo Partners who has watched the board for years. This has been the best elected board we have had in 45 years.

Of the eight seats in play this year, four Republican incumbents stepped down and four incumbents ran for reelection, including three Republicans and one Democrat. Incumbents Keven Ellis and Sue Melton-Malone beat their challengers to keep their seats, according to results from Decision Desk HQ. Georgina Prez, a Democratic incumbent, also beat her opponent in District 1, according to Decision Desk HQ.

Republican Audrey Young, a Nacogdoches ISD administrator, had no Democratic challenger in District 8 and will replace fellow Republican Barbara Cargill, who stepped down.

According to Decision Desk HQ, Republican Jay Johnson, a retired dentist and former Pampa ISD board member, defeated Democrat John Betancourt, a former Amarillo ISD board member, in District 15, where Republican Marty Rowley stepped down.

The District 5 race brought unwanted attention to the board earlier this year when conspiracy theorist Robert Morrow almost beat Popp in the Republican primary. Every member of the board rallied against Morrow, who has a long history of racist and sexist comments, and he lost the runoff.

Mercer, the outgoing incumbent whose conservative record has included arguments for teaching abstinence as the main form of contraception in health lessons, endorsed Popp, who has been an educator for almost three decades. Popp also picked up the support of Texas Values, a conservative statewide advocacy group, which recently urged the board to adopt abstinence-focused sex education.

Bell-Metereau unsuccessfully ran against Mercer in 2010, 2012 and 2016. "It's really all about demographics," she told The Texas Tribune Tuesday afternoon. "We've had so many people move into the area, and they've tended to be better educated, younger and more diverse."

Her priority is to include more climate science in the standards schools must teach students, since the issue is "life and death for the planet" and controversial on the board. "My goal is to try and convince the board to look at some of these details and make sure that we get the best curriculum that we can manage," she said.

The board is weeks away from revising Texas' sex education policy, its first attempt to do so since 1997. The newly elected board will be responsible for adopting new health and sex education textbooks and other instructional materials based on that policy, which school districts may opt to use.

Disclosure: HillCo Partners has been a financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Texas education board remains in Republican control - The Texas Tribune