Right Now: The Electoral College has
affirmed Donald J. Trump as the nation’s
45th president, pushing him past the 270-
vote threshold for election, with scant
evidence of the anti-Trump revolt among
electors that some of his critics had hoped
would occur.
Late Monday afternoon, Republican
electors in Texas vaulted Mr. Trump past
the 270 mark, giving him 36 votes, with
one each for Gov. John Kasich of Ohio and
Ron Paul.
Normally a political footnote, the electoral
vote took on unexpected import this year
after Mr. Trump’s upset of Hillary Clinton ,
who won the popular vote, spawned a
determined effort to block his path to the
presidency by grass-roots advocates who
saw him as unfit for the White House and,
to some, a threat to the political system.
Presidential electors — and particularly
Republican electors, who are bound by
tradition and often state law to support
Mr. Trump — were inundated with phone
calls, emails and even threats demanding
that they vote for someone else. Leaders
of groups that were lobbying the electors
had privately believed they had a chance
to persuade enough Republican electors
to defect, denying him an Electoral
College majority and throwing the
election to the House of Representatives.
But by late Monday, only a handful of
electors had broken ranks.
Credit: New York Times
No comments:
Post a Comment