House Democrats will challenge the election results if Donald Trump succeeds this time around at any of the unlawful tactics he tried in 2020, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said.
“We will not go along with any fraud. We’re going to stand up for a fair and honest election, as we always have,” he told the Daily Beast.
The congressman pointed to the the former president‘s 2020 election-denial playbook, specifically highlighting Trump ordering Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes,” as fraud that would necessitate challenging the election results.
He also flagged the GOP presidential nominee’s plot to force state legislatures to “nullify and overthrow the popular vote and impose a slate of counterfeit electors.”
“What if there is an official who says, ‘OK, I will go ahead and concoct 11,780 votes’ and then we certify that?,” Raskin continued. “That would be a problem. That would be something that we would try to work out.”
Should that occur, the leading House Democrat vowed that the party would “avail ourselves of every state law remedy that exists.”
“If we need to go to federal court, we would go to federal court, and if we need to, you know, challenge it further along, we would do it, but we’re not going to accept the election fraud that Donald Trump is openly broadcasting now,” he said.
The congressman’s candor veers from statements made by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who dismissed the likelihood of an organized effort to fight the election results in September.
Raskin, however, who led the second impeachment against the former president in 2021 and has long been a vocal critic of Trump, accused the GOP presidential nominee of “setting the stage” for “the Big Lie Round 2.”
“Donald Trump is telling people in this election that he’s going to declare victory regardless of what happens,” he explained.
Throughout his campaign, Trump has alleged the election is being “stolen,” falsely claimed states were adding more days to the election, and that non-citizens are voting. Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee and other GOP-aligned groups have filed a several lawsuits in swing states disputing voter rolls.
The Maryland statesman began sounding the alarm about the former president’s alleged “corrupt intentions” to interfere in the electoral process in the months leading up to Election Day. In early October, he accused Trump of “doing whatever he can” to interfere, pointing to “manipulating electoral college counts in Nebraska or manipulating the vote count in Georgia or imposing other kinds of impediments.”
And, just days before the election, he told Bill Maher, “We’re not going to allow them to steal it in the states, or steal it in the Department of Justice or steal it with any other election official in the country.”
His remarks prompted criticism from a number of House Republicans, including fellow ranking member of the House Oversight Committee Rep. James Comer (R-KY), who hailed him as “the ultimate hypocrite” and claimed he was “sowing seeds of doubt in America’s free and fair elections.” On Monday, MAGA ally Steve Bannon even dubbed Raskin the “head guy in in the anti-Trump movement.”
Raskin, however, dismissed the right-wing backlash as “ridiculous” and a “authoritarian tactic to attack people”
“We think it is time for Donald Trump and his entourage to put away all of the threats to individuals and their threats to the American constitutional process,” he told the Daily Beast. “And we should get back to having free and fair elections where the parties support the elections, rather than try to undermine them.
Find the Daily Beast’s coverage of the 2024 election here. Subscribe to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Overcast.
