Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick use Trump’s refusal to concede to push voter fraud narrative

There’s a theory that Texas’ leading Republicans will ride the Trump train until it grinds to a halt because they prefer to mollify the outgoing president rather than bluntly tell him that his presidency is over.

While it’s clear that Republicans don’t want to anger President Donald Trump, who just got over 72 million votes in his unsuccessful reelection bid against Democrat Joe Biden, Texas GOP leaders aren’t unwilling hostages in Trump’s takeover of the party.

In fact, Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Sen. Ted Cruz are the original conductors of the train Trump is motoring. And Democrats argue that they were politicizing issues related to elections, immigration, voter ID laws and illegal redistricting plans even before Trump won his party’s 2016 presidential nomination.

“Texas is a test tube for voter suppression schemes for the nation,” said Democratic strategist Matt Angle, adding that alleging unfounded claims of voter fraud was an attempt at voter suppression. “Donald Trump is a practitioner of voter suppression. Greg Abbott is an originator.”

Leading Texas Republicans see sticking with Trump as a way to push a narrative that our electoral system cannot be trusted, particularly when mail-in ballots are involved.

When he was attorney general, Abbott prosecuted Texans for voter fraud. His crusade was picked up by current Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The 2020 election is an opportunity for Abbott and other Republicans to keep pounding the message that crooks are trying to steal elections, even though there’s no evidence of mass voter fraud in Texas or other states.

But Republicans don’t see a problem with their leaders’ focus on voter fraud.

“There are very few people who have an active expectation that there will be success in overturning the Biden victory, but there’s great value in examining our broken election system,” said Mark Davis, a conservative radio talk show host who last week interviewed Abbott and Cruz on his 660 (The Answer) show.

“Far too much early voting, far too much late counting, the sloppiness of mail-in ballots, the flavor of corruption in some of these big city counting operations, there are ample reasons to take a very close look at how the security of this election was heavily compromised,” Davis said. “Even if there is no Trump second term to fight for much longer, it will always be worthwhile to fight for the security and legitimacy of our elections.”

But Democrats say the Republican rhetoric about the 2020 elections is harmful. They say that not only does it give Trump supporters the false impression that he has a path to victory, but it undermines democracy by suggesting elections can be stolen.

As Trump sulks, Biden has been denied intelligence briefings. The Trump administration is not cooperating with the former vice president’s transition team.

“Republicans seldom pass up the opportunity to cast doubt on an election they lost,” said Democratic strategist Harold Cook.

He added that Texas, a GOP-leaning state, clearly didn’t have significant voter fraud that favored Democrats.

“If Democrats were cheating, don’t you think they’d be winning more elections around here?” Cook said. “The cheaters are getting caught and they are going to jail. The system is working.”

Most analysts, including Republican strategist Karl Rove, have said the presidential race is over, even as Abbott, Cruz, Patrick and Sen. John Cornyn have not publicly accepted that Trump has lost.

“We need to finish all of the vote count to make sure we know exactly who won,” Abbott told KXAS (NBC 5)‘s Brian Curtis. He added that the nation needed to make sure all the votes are legal.

There is no evidence that fraud or irregularities cost Trump reelection.

Patrick, who was chairman of Trump’s Texas campaign, took the extraordinary step of offering up to $1 million of his $15.5 million campaign account as a reward for anyone with information that leads to “an arrest and final conviction of voter fraud.” Patrick tweeted that “pursuit of voter fraud is not only essential to determine the outcome of this election, it is essential to maintain our democracy and restore faith in future elections.”

The money would be given out in up to $25,000 increments, a Patrick adviser said.

After his bounty announcement, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat, mockingly said he wanted to collect one of Patrick’s rewards.

“I’d like to collect your handsome reward for reporting voter fraud. I got a dude in Forty Fort, PA who tried to have his dead mom vote for Trump,” Fetterman tweeted. He also took a shot at the Dallas Cowboys.

Last week Cruz said he didn’t believe the election is over.

“I believe President Trump still has a path to victory,” Cruz said. “And that path is to count every single legal vote that was cast, but also not to [count] any votes that were fraudulently passed or illegally cast, and we have a legal process to determine what’s legal and what isn’t.”

Get the picture? Republicans are delaying the inevitable, which Davis says is understandable.

“This has to be incredibly painful. He worked his butt off and feels he got robbed,” Davis said. “The only people who are griping about the delay are Democrats and understandably so, because they will try to have like an unobstructed victory party and they’d like an unencumbered transition.”

The president, even when he leaves, is expected to remain the most influential Republican in America.

“He can be a kingmaker. He can run a political action committee. He can start a media company. He can announce for 2024,” Davis said. “He has every option on the table.”

As for Republicans hoping Trumpism is dead: “That’s not going to go well for them,” Davis said. “If they think the Trump defeat means there’s a Republican Party just longing for a return of their style of leadership, they’re about to find out otherwise.”