Sore loser Donald Trump has demanded a list of the 27 Republicans who have acknowledged Joe Biden’s election win, after research carried out by the Washington Post found 90 percent of Republicans in Congress will not admit the president has been defeated.
Trump tweeted that he was ‘surprised so many’ GOP members of the House and Senate have publicly admitted Biden’s victory and blasted the 27 who have, declaring them ‘RINOS’ – people he describes as ‘Republicans in Name Only’.
The Post survey asked every Republican member of the House and Senate who won the election, whether they support or oppose Trump’s continuing efforts to claim victory and if they will accept Biden as the legitimately elected president if he wins a majority in the electoral college.
It also brought together public statements made by the lawmakers in the weeks following the election.
The survey found only 27 of the 249 GOP congressional members have accepted Trump’s loss and 222 are refusing to declare a winner at all, while just two have publicly said they believe Trump is the winner.
The findings shine a spotlight on the silence among the highest ranks of the Republican party as an overwhelming majority would not confirm their position on the election outcome.
It comes as Donald Trump continues to refuse to concede and is still pushing unfounded claims that the election was ‘stolen’ from him by widespread voter fraud, despite his chances of flipping the election increasingly dwindling.
The survey found that more than one month on from election day and four weeks since the result was called for Biden on November 7, just 25 GOP members of Congress will acknowledge the Democrat as the President-elect of the United States.
This includes 11 GOP senators and 16 members of the House.
Of the 16 House Republicans, six are retiring from politics at the end of the month.
The first House Republican to declare Biden the winner was Representative Fred Upton who issued a statement urging America to ‘find a way to come together, bridge divisions, and focus on solutions that help the millions who are struggling’ soon after the race was called on November 7.
Maine Senator Susan Collins was the first GOP senator to acknowledge his victory.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger arrived in Washington a decade ago as a star of the tea party revolution, a young Air Force pilot who campaigned as an outsider ready to shake up the Republican Party.
Now he is an outsider once more — one of only a handful of GOP lawmakers willing to openly criticize Trump and his grip on the party, even in the final weeks of his presidency.
Since Election Day, Kinzinger has not only rejected Trump’s baseless claims of mass voter fraud but has used his Twitter account to push back on the most domineering GOP leader in generations.
When Trump on Wednesday posted a 46-minute video rife with falsehoods and conspiracy theories to Facebook, Kinzinger delivered the ultimate rebuke to the social media-obsessed president: “Time to delete your account.”
But at least two Republicans – Arizona Representative Paul A. Gosar and Alabama Representative Mo Brooks – believe Trump won the election despite Biden maintaining a 7 million popular vote lead and 74 electoral college victory over the Republican.
Gosar told the Post he would ‘never’ accept Biden as the winner because there is ‘too much evidence of fraud’.
Brooks did not respond to the survey but has said on more than one occasion that he believes Trump is the winner, claiming this is ‘the worst election theft in the history of the United States.’
Meanwhile, the survey found a staggering 222 congressional Republicans will not declare either Biden or Trump the winner.
When asked about Trump’s continuing efforts to claim election victory, nine Republicans said they opposed his attempts.
Senator Lamar Alexander’s office told the Post the election is coming ‘to a formal end’ and urged Trump to ‘put the country first’ by initiating a smooth transition to a Biden administration.
‘The presidential election is rapidly coming to a formal end. Recounts are being completed. Courts are resolving disputes. Most states will certify their votes by December 8,’ he said.
‘Since it seems apparent that Joe Biden will be the president-elect, my hope is that President Trump will take pride in his considerable accomplishments, put the country first and have a prompt and orderly transition to help the new administration succeed. When you are in public life, people remember the last thing you do.’
Only eight of the 249 Republicans voiced support for Trump’s ongoing efforts to overturn the election while 232 gave no clear position on the matter, the Post reported.
Similarly, 217 GOP lawmakers gave no clear answer on whether they will accept Biden as the legitimately elected president if he wins a majority in the electoral college.
Brooks and Gosar were again the only Republicans to rule out accepting Biden as president, while 30 lawmakers pledged to accept the outcome of electoral college votes.
While a refusal from much of the party to accept Biden as the President-elect one month on from the election presents a stark contrast to lawmakers’ behaviors in a typical election year, the survey also highlights that the vast majority are distancing themselves from Trump and his claims of election fraud.
The Post revealed that more than 70 percent of Republican lawmakers did not acknowledge its questions by Friday evening as much of the party has fallen quiet amid Trump’s refusal to concede and have refrained from backing his election fight.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office declined to answer the Post’s questions at all.
This echoes McConnell’s stance since the election and comes after he refused to speak on either Biden’s win or Trump’s legal challenges when asked by reporters Tuesday.
‘The future will take care of itself,’ he said Tuesday.
There has been something of an overwhelming silence from the Republican party since the election, with many appearing not to want to acknowledge Trump’s defeat for fear of reprisal but also not coming out in support of the president and his flailing legal challenges.
The Trump campaign has filed 46 lawsuits since Biden was named President-elect but none of them have made headway.
This week, Attorney General Bill Barr and close Trump ally dealt a major blow to the president’s fight when he told the AP the DOJ had found no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
‘To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,’ Barr told the AP.
A judge on Friday then threw out a bid to undo Biden’s victory in Arizona, ruling the GOP had failed to prove fraud or misconduct in the metro Phoenix.
The same day, one of Trump’s most prominent supporters Kellyanne Conway acknowledged Joe Biden won the presidential election and said she would work with his administration if they needed her.
‘The president wants to exhaust all of his legal avenues, as he has made clear many times. His team is doing that, and that is his right,’ Conway told The 19th.
‘If you look at the vote totals in the Electoral College tally, it looks like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will prevail. I assume the electors will certify that and it will be official. We, as a nation, will move forward, because we always do,’ she added.
But, despite his chances of victory dwindling and him losing support for his fight from his own party, Trump is continuing to argue the election was ‘rigged’.
On Wednesday he released a rambling 46-minute video statement where he repeated several unfounded claims of election fraud and said the electoral system is ‘under coordinated assault and siege’.