Just 26 of 249 Republicans in Congress willing to say Trump lost, survey finds

Only 26 of 249 Republicans in Congress are willing to admit Joe Biden won the presidential election, a survey found on Saturday.

Trump heads for Georgia but claims of fraud may damage Senate Republicans

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The election was called for Biden on 7 November, four days after election day. The Democrat won the electoral college by 306-232 and leads in the popular vote by more than 7m ballots.

But Trump has refused to concede, baselessly claiming large-scale voter fraud in battleground states.

The survey of Republicans in the House and Senate was carried out by the Washington Post, a paper Trump promptly claimed to read “as little as possible”.

The president also said he was “surprised so many” in his party thought he had been beaten, promised “we have just begun to fight” and asked for a list of the politicians he called “Rinos”, an acronym for “Republicans in name only”.

Two congressmen, Mo Brooks of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona, told the Post Trump won. Gosar said he would never accept Biden as president, telling the paper there was “too much evidence of fraud”.

In fact, there is no evidence of voter fraud anywhere near the scale Trump alleges in any of the key states in which he is pursuing legal redress, so far winning one lawsuit but losing 46.

Attorney general William Barr, a staunch Trump ally, said this week there was no evidence of fraud on the scale the president claims. Trump was reported to be close to firing Barr from his post. The president has also lashed out at an official he did fire, elections security chief Chris Krebs, who said the vote was the most secure in US history.

Trump was due to travel to Georgia on Saturday, to support senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. The two Republicans face runoffs on 5 January that will decide control of the Senate. Polling is tight and many observers suggest Trump’s intransigence could damage Republican turnout.

Biden was the first Democrat to win Georgia since 1992, beating Trump by more than 10,000 votes. Loeffler and Perdue have joined the president in attacking the Republican officials who ran the election in the state and certified its results.

The Post said it had obtained video of Perdue telling donors Biden won.

“We can at least be a buffer on some of the things that the Biden camp has been talking about,” he reportedly said, a weighty remark in light of widely reported obstruction of Biden’s transition planning.

The Post said it “contacted aides for every Republican by email and phone asking three basic questions: who won the presidential contest, do you support or oppose Trump’s continuing efforts to claim victory and if Biden wins a majority in the electoral college, will you accept him as the legitimately elected president.

“The results demonstrate the fear that most Republicans have of the outgoing president and his grip on the party,” the paper said, “despite his new status as just the third incumbent to lose re-election in the last 80 years. More than 70% of Republican lawmakers did not acknowledge the Post’s questions.”

Most Republicans seem committed to saying nothing: 12 of 52 senators and 14 of 197 representatives have recognised Biden’s win, the Post said, but only eight Republicans were prepared to voice support for Trump’s strategy of refusing to concede and seeking to overturn the result.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, and Kevin McCarthy, who leads the House minority, have dodged questions.

“Let’s wait until [we see] who’s sworn in,” McCarthy said on Thursday, when asked about tactics under a Biden administration.

Last week Roy Blunt of Missouri, the senator who chairs the committee responsible for the inauguration, seemed to acknowledge reality – but then retreated.

“We are working with the Biden administration, likely administration, on both the transition and the inauguration,” Blunt told CNN, adding: “The president-elect will be the president-elect when the electors vote for him.”

The Post said Blunt did not answer its questions.

The electoral college will meet on 14 December. Its votes will then be sent to Congress, which will meet in joint session to declare a winner on 6 January – the day after the Georgia runoffs.