It would be quite something if a 50-50 Senate vote came out to favor Harris over Pence because someone like Romney or Collins voted for Harris.
It’s kind of too bad that it’s the Senate that chooses the VPOTUS and the House that chooses the POTUS. Because I think Romney or Collins are a LOT less likely to pick Harris over Pence than they would be to pick Biden over Trump. Pence is far less objectionable than Trump, and Harris is far more divisive than Biden.
So I can’t seriously see any GOP Senator voting for Harris.
I really don’t think it’s going to come to that though. CNN just called AZ for Biden. Assuming that GA goes Biden and NC goes Trump that brings us to a vote total of 306-232. It’s really unlikely that Biden states worth 37 votes fail to have the electors vote.
Why on earth would you think that? It’s been reported hundreds of times that Trump doesn’t grant audiences to people who don’t tell him what he wants to hear. Even intelligence briefings were instructed to exclude anything negative about Russia. You are off your rocker if you think GOP officials are telling him the cold hard truth. They are afraid of him because he still controls the republican party and they need his support.
It is definitely possible to abstain and I would need to look up the rules on whether they need a majority of Senators voting or a majority of members of the Senate. Some things are one and some are the other. I don’t realistically see Romney abstaining though. But that’s more likely than him voting for Harris at any rate.
The hypothetical is if a state can’t reach a decision (eg due to court challenges) and determine the proper slate of electors by the date that the electors meet. Far-fetched, IMO, but it’s a hypothetical.
I can’t find my post on the topic, but CNN was reporting that Melania and other people in the White House close to Trump have been urging him to concede since last Wednesday (I think… over a week ago at any rate, but I think Wednesday). This was “according to unnamed sources in the White House” or something along those lines.
Here’s a story they ran on their website, although my original source was watching their live reporting where, on the segment that I happened to watch, they did not mention Jared Kushner, only Melania. And separately on a different segment “individuals close to the President” or something vague like that.
I think some of the people in this thread need to take their tinfoil hats off. Everything is fine. Trump lost the election by quite a few electoral votes. He’s already dropped his suit in PA, and he’ll willingly surrender power on Jan 20. He’s just trying to annoy others now because that’s what he likes to do. Can we cut the shit of the military getting involved or acting president now?
He’s also using the cry of “help me win this election after all!” as a fundraiser, and the fine print says he doesn’t have to spend the money fighting the results, he can use it for his general election fund, which is in debt. (possibly to him.) So while he might have hoped to find some way to stay, at least part of his goal now is grifting. Possibly most of his goal is now grifting.
CNN has also done this, although no idea if they were before or after NBC. CNN has been extremely conservative in calling states. (Not conservative as in GOP… conservative as in waiting until they are really really REALLY sure before calling it. They waited DAYS longer than anyone else to call AZ, as an example.)
CNN has called all 538 electoral votes at this point, as I suspect have all or most other outlets. 306 Democrat - 232 Republican… exactly the opposite electoral totals from 2016 when it was 306 Republican - 232 Democrat
Also because law firms are responding to public pressure and bailing out - they don’t want to have the reputation of trying to play a part in these shenanigans
