Former White House aide and veteran political analyst Karl Rove is throwing cold water on President Trump’s hopes that recounts and lawsuits will overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election and swing the contest back in his favor.
Trump’s efforts “are unlikely to move a single state from Mr. Biden’s column, and certainly they’re not enough to change the final outcome,” Rove wrote in an op-ed published Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal.
Democratic nominee Joe Biden was projected as the winner of the presidential election on Saturday and Trump has declined to concede that he was defeated.
The president’s reelection campaign has alleged that widespread voter fraud and so-called ballot harvesting led to ballots being cast against him. Lawyers for the campaign have filed lawsuits asking judges in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania to invalidate late-arriving mail-in ballots, a record number of which were cast this year due to public health concerns relating to the pandemic and a majority of which favored Biden.
Election analysts have said Biden’s margins are too large to make a material difference in several of the states in which Trump is mounting challenges.
“There is no evidence of that so far,” Rove wrote. “Unless some emerges quickly, the President’s chances in court will decline precipitously when states start certifying results.”
Rove, who served in former President George W. Bush’s administration and appears regularly as a political analyst on Fox News, said Trump and his team have a right to ensure every vote in the election was legally cast.
Bush himself this week acknowledged Biden as the president-elect and congratulated the Democrat on his win.
“He earned the votes of more than 70 million Americans — an extraordinary political achievement,” Bush said. “They have spoken, and their voices will continue to be heard through elected Republicans at every level of government.”
Rove in the op-ed also called for Trump to concede the election once all of his legal options have been exhausted.