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That Louisiana’s Republican congressmen received’t acknowledge Joe Biden’s victory — even after the Electoral Faculty voted decisively final week — is extra political calculation than “Profiles in Braveness.”
Even U.S. Senate Majority Chief Mitch McConnell, the highest-ranking Republican in Congress, congratulated Biden on his victory the morning after the vote. However Louisiana’s delegation saved silent.
Gov. John Bel Edwards joined on Wednesday saying “it’s nicely previous time” for individuals to just accept Biden’s victory.
“A democracy is greatest served when the loser acknowledges defeat, gracefully exits and works to ensure there’s a easy transition,” Edwards mentioned.
Gov. John Bel Edwards on Wednesday mentioned a lawsuit supported by Louisiana Lawyer Common Jeff Landry looking for to overturn tens of millions of votes in…
However the calculus doesn’t assist dignity on this case.
“In my studied opinion, it will be an unjust inauguration, the product of a compromised presidential election. A somber day for our republic,” U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Lafayette, mentioned in an announcement that undermines the legitimacy of Biden’s election. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-Bossier Metropolis, organized a friend-of-the-court temporary supporting a problem that the U.S. Supreme Court docket denied.
No less than so far as sportsmanship and braveness go, the profiles of Higgins and Johnson don’t match up nicely with then Massachusetts Congressman John Quincy Adams daring his Federalist Occasion to oust him for supporting the Louisiana Buy. Or Mississippi Sen. Lucius Lamar denying the Southern majority by talking favorably of slavery abolitionist Charles Sumner’s efforts to deliver the North and South collectively after the Civil Warfare.
To be truthful, Higgins and Johnson face a mathematical actuality that their historic counterparts didn’t.
Trump, who has not conceded to Biden, is extra standard in Acadiana than Higgins, having acquired 12,460 extra votes than the congressman within the third Congressional District. And the president reached into Johnson’s northwest Louisiana house base and outpolled the congressman by 16,205 votes within the 4th Congressional District.
“That catches (a politician’s) consideration,” mentioned Baton Rouge pollster John Couvillon.
They nonetheless can’t say it.
In reality, Couvillon’s JMC Analytics calculated that whereas Trump formally received Louisiana with 58% of the vote, these percentages have been far increased within the 5 Republican congressional districts: 68% within the third and Steve Scalise’s 1st Congressional District; 65% in Garret Graves sixth Congressional District. Each Scalise and Graves have ducked direct questions on who received the presidential race.
Within the fifth Congressional District, which covers central and northeast Louisiana together with the Florida Parishes, Trump received 64% of the vote and picked up about 60,000 extra ballots than GOP contender Lance Harris and eventual winner Luke Letlow attracted — put collectively.
“The Republican congressmen are representing very pro-Trump districts and people supporters of the president are vociferous of their beliefs” that Trump received, Couvillon added.
In an age of immediate digital communication, the method of selecting essentially the most highly effective particular person on the earth is nearly quaint. It occurred in …
Solely U.S. Sen. Invoice Cassidy, the Baton Rouge Republican who acquired 1.2 million votes on Nov. 3, has mentioned Trump did not current proof of large fraud. “I voted for President Trump however Joe Biden received,” Cassidy tweeted on Nov. 23.
Junior senator, John N. Kennedy, R-Madisonville, however, selected Trump over McConnell in saying that he continues “to look at the authorized and constitutional processes.” However Kennedy is up for reelection in two years.
McConnell is from the institution a part of the celebration and Trump supporters aren’t, mentioned veteran political strategist Roy Fletcher, of Baton Rouge. “There’s no actual upside to operating on the market and taking the Mitch McConnell strategy.”
Fletcher, who has run many a marketing campaign in Louisiana, mentioned he wouldn’t hesitate to deliver up that an incumbent congressman deserted the president throughout a reelection marketing campaign if polling two years from now signifies a profitable gambit. “I can see why someone would say ‘I don’t need to give somebody that chance, particularly if I solely have to attend 15 or 16 days,” he mentioned.
On Jan. 6, Congress will take the Electoral Faculty ballots from the 50 states out of two mahogany packing containers, make the rely, then formally certify the outcomes. Often, it’s an hourlong pageant, however the process permits for challenges.
Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Huntsville, is placing collectively the paperwork questioning the validity of Electoral Faculty ballots forged in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin, which Biden received. He and his allies declare widespread voter fraud although the courts discovered none.
Nonetheless, if Brooks and his allies can discover a senator to go alongside — and McConnell is working to maintain that from taking place — the top end result could possibly be an uncomfortable debate as Republican members must publicly oppose Trump or upset the election outcomes.
Fletcher says that Louisiana’s Republican congressmen in all probability will look forward to the fracas to play out.
That means Louisiana’s GOP delegation can safely inform Trump supporters at house, “Effectively, we did all we might, time to maneuver on,” Fletcher mentioned.
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