WASHINGTON (AP) – Robert Reed says he will always believe the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald Trump. The retired police officer turned construction worker believes the fraud affected the vote, no matter how much the courts rejected that claim. Still, a day after the Electoral College formalized the victory of Joe Biden, Trump’s ardent supporter of the Lancaster suburbs, Pennsylvania, was ready to move on.
“I think it’s almost over,” Reed said of Trump’s ongoing quest to overturn election results. “I trust the Electoral College.”
For weeks, Trump has been on a mission to convince his loyal base that his victory was stolen and that the contest was manipulated. With the help of conservative media, polls show it has been a considerable success. But now that the Electoral College has formalized Biden’s victory and Republican officials, including Senate leader Mitch McConnell, finally recognizing him as president-elect, many Trump voters across the country seem to be doing the same.
Interviews with voters, along with new polls on Republicans, suggest that their doubts about the integrity of the vote remain unfounded. But there is much less consensus on what should be done about it and whether this resentment should be carried forward.
For some, like Reed, the Electoral College vote was the clear end of a process. Others have vowed to continue protesting with demonstrations such as the one that turned violent in Washington, DC, on the weekend. And some said they hoped Republican Party leaders would press for more investigations to put an end to the doubts Trump sowed.
They are people like Scott Adams, a Trump retiree and voter who lives in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, who said he accepts Biden’s victory, but “with reservations.”
Adams said he has heard too much discussion about vote-counting irregularities on Fox News and conservative radio to trust the election result and does not think he will ever know the true margin of victory. (Biden won Election College by a vote of 306 to 232).
But Adams doesn’t think the election was prepared enough to change the outcome, even if he believes they were “arranged enough to question them more.” Would like to see more research.
Republicans across the country, from local officials to governors to Attorney General William Barr, have repeatedly said there is no evidence that fraud has affected the outcome. Trump and his allies filed a series of lawsuits, but almost all of them have been fired by the judges. The Supreme Court, which includes three Trump-nominated judges, denied the request to hear a couple of cases aimed at invalidating the election result in key battlefield states.
Still, reaching an agreement with this pile of evidence has been difficult for many Trump voters. They expressed their disbelief that Trump might have lost, given the huge crowds he drew to his rallies. Some said their suspicions were heightened by the reluctance of the mainstream media to issue Trump’s unfounded claims. And they repeatedly pointed to the slower-than-usual counting of votes as proof that something had gone wrong.
“Something’s wrong right here,” said Reed, who lives in East Lampeter Township.
The explanation is well known: in many states, an influx of postal votes, overwhelmingly cast by Democrats, was counted later than in-person votes. Still, Reed said he thought the courts should have spent more time investigating.
“I will always believe that he was robbed. I will never be able to rest assured that it was not, ”he said.
Others were less willing to follow suit.
“I do not trust this result. I think the election was a fraud. I think the elections were stolen. I don’t know how anyone could think that. All you have to do is look at the results, ”said Katherine Negrete, 55, a resident teacher in Peoria, Arizona.
Negrete is one of those who hopes Trump can win if the Supreme Court intervenes (there are no indications that it will happen) or Congress chooses to accept an “alternative slate” of Trump voters from various states. Election experts have said the scheme has no legal route and Republican Senate leaders have discouraged it.
Still, Negrete said, “We hope Congress does the right thing,” and expressed frustration at the dwindling options.
“I do not know what we can do about it. If we don’t have the courts defending us, “he said.” If we don’t have an attorney general who will stand up and say, ‘That was wrong and we need to investigate.’ What are we supposed to do? Do we have to fight brother against brother? It’s crazy.”
Biden has promised to gather Americans and work across the aisle. Their success on both fronts may depend on how many Republicans maintain their electoral grievances. A University of Quinnipiac poll earlier this month found that 38 percent of registered voters, including 77 percent of Republicans, said they believed there was widespread fraud in the presidential election.
And a recent Fox News poll found that 36% of voters, including 77% of Trump voters, believe the election was stolen from Trump. However, the same poll also found that about eight out of ten voters and about half of Trump’s voters said they would at least give Biden a chance as president.
Matt Vereline, 52, a member of the pro-Trump group, “Long Island Loud Majority,” has no desire to reconcile.
Vereline, who lives in Bohemia, New York, is convinced that “there were many more election frauds than we know,” though she’s not sure if she changed the outcome. But that won’t stop him from gathering around what he thinks was an injustice. After all, that’s what Democrats did to Trump, he says.
“Didn’t they cry for four years over Russian collusion, which wasn’t proven? So now I’m going to cry about election fraud for four years, “he said. “It simply came to our notice then. Why should I accept Biden? I know I can’t do anything about it. I know that a rally will not change the course of who will be elected president. It is what it will be. But if my friends want to get together and complain about it in a peaceful way and express our opinions, I’m leaving. “
Others believe Biden won fairly. Steve Volkman, a Republican who works in construction in Mesa, Arizona, said he made peace with the loss of Trump weeks ago.
“I voted for Trump, but people have to get over it,” Volkman said as he leaned against his van. “Surely he (Biden) won the majority of votes: landslide. For me, it’s over. ”
Catherine Templeton, a South Carolina Republican who served under former Gov. Nikki Haley, said that despite the level of support for Trump in red states like hers, she was confident voters would be willing to accept Biden as president.
“Obviously, South Carolina supports President Trump, but I think you’ll see when Republicans don’t open up and continue,” said Templeton, who lives in Charleston. “It’s time to move on.”
It remains to be seen, for now, how persistent concerns about the integrity of the vote will affect turnout in future elections. Both parties have focused on Georgia, where a couple of elections will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.
Denise Adams, 50, said she has doubts about “questionable activity” in the general election. But he voted early Monday in Kennesaw, a suburb northwest of Atlanta.
“I don’t want to lose our freedoms,” he said, repeating misleading claims by the GOP that Democrats would introduce “socialism”. “We are losing our rights and freedoms in our country.”
“I’ve never had a problem before trusting her, but now I feel like something can happen that I don’t trust,” said Melissa McJunkin, 40, who remains concerned about the integrity of her vote after hearing stories of electoral fraud in the general election, but it turned out anyway.
“I think it’s important for what happens next,” he said.
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Cooper reported from Mesa, Arizona. Associated Press writers Emily Swanson in Washington, Nicholas Riccardi in Atlanta, Sophia Tulp in Rome, Georgia, and Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.