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As former Vice President Joe Biden pulled ahead in key battleground states on Friday, Texas Democrats cheered the counting of all votes while President Donald Trump’s GOP allies stayed by his side and cast doubt on the outcome of the elections.
“In this democracy, the people decide the outcome of elections — not just when powers that be approve of the result. Every time,” Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, said Thursday night. “Every ballot will count because every voter counts.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden pulled ahead in Pennsylvania and Georgia on Friday, which would put him over the needed 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. Though the vote was still being counted in Pennsylvania and officials had announced a near-certain recount in Georgia, Biden’s campaign felt confident that the Democrat would emerge victorious when all the votes were counted.
The votes in Nevada and North Carolina still had to be counted, too. Democrats had hoped to flip the electoral vote-rich state of Texas, but fell short by 6 percentage points.
Despite the deficit, Trump’s campaign had not conceded by Friday evening and defiantly claimed without evidence that the election was being stolen from him.
“This election is not over,” Matt Morgan, the Trump campaign’s general counsel, said in a statement before any races were called Friday.
In that statement, Morgan asserted that Georgia was headed for a recount and alleged a number of voting irregularities in Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
Trump complained Thursday that his lead had been erased in Pennsylvania, where Biden pulled ahead on Friday as election officials continued to count absentee ballots. That state’s 20 electoral votes alone would put Biden over the top.
Elections experts for weeks telegraphed that it would take longer for some states to count mail votes due to local laws. For example, in Pennsylvania, the Republican-led legislature did not allow mail ballots to be processed until the end of Election Day. That created delayed results, especially in a year when more voters cast mail ballots because of COVID-19. Those mail ballots were falling favorably for Biden.
Even before the race had tightened, Democrats had cautioned that all votes needed to be counted.
“Our Constitution — our basic beliefs in democracy — require that every single vote be counted,” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, said on Wednesday. “Again count every vote in this presidential election and all other elections. This is what makes America and Americans exceptional.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s Republican allies echoed the president’s accusations.
Thursday night, U.S. Rep. Roger Williams, R-Austin, who won reelection on Tuesday, said without evidence the election was “corrupt” and called for the federal government to investigate.
“This is the most corrupt election in our lifetime,” he said. “Where is the DOJ and AG?”
In a follow-up tweet from his personal account, Williams urged Americans to call state legislators in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania and urge them to “do your job.”
“Stand up and stand with this President,” he said.
Williams’ Twitter account was suspended temporarily Friday morning but was back up by 12:30 p.m.
U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, repeated Trump’s baseless allegations about the vote count in Pennsylvania.
“NO TRANSPARENCY. NO TRUST,” he said on Twitter. “Why [would] public accept results?”
A Republican rebuke
But not all Republicans echoed the president’s furor. Outgoing congressman Will Hurd of San Antonio, who frequently was at odds with the president, rebuked Trump’s comments.
“A sitting president undermining our political process and questioning the legality of the voices of countless Americans without evidence is not only dangerous and wrong, it undermines the very foundation this nation was built upon,” Hurd said on Twitter. “Every American should have his or her vote counted.”
U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Houston, who won reelection Tuesday, allowed for the possibility of a Trump loss, but still criticized the electoral process.
“If Trump loses, he loses. It was never an impossible outcome and we must accept the final results when it is over,” he said on Twitter. “But the unfortunate reality is that there is very little trust in the process, where irregularities have been flagrant and transparency lacking.”