December 16th – On the 15th local time, U.S. Senate Majority Leader and Republican Mitch McConnell recognized Biden as President-elect.
According to US media reports, McConnell and other senior Republican officials called on the Republican Party not to challenge the election results on the same day.
According to Newsweek on the 15th, McConnell called on his party colleagues not to oppose it when the congressional certified electoral college voted in January 2021 on a caucus conference call that day.
In addition to him, Senate Republican Whip John Thune and Senate Policy Committee Chairman Roy Blount all made the same appeal to congressional Republicans.
According to the report, although no one has explicitly expressed their opposition to a state’s electoral vote, McConnell said that opposing the electoral vote is “in the interest of everyone” and will force the Senate to debate and vote on it, embarrassing Senate Republicans.
Blount also said, “I don’t see any benefit [against the result]”.
U.S. media pointed out that if Trump’s supporters in the House of Representatives want to debate the result against a state, at least one Republican senator should support it in the Senate.
After that, the Senate and the House of Representatives met separately to debate and vote, but so far, “no legislator has successfully overturned the results of any state”.
A day after the U.S. Electoral College confirmed that Biden had won the election, McConnell broke the previous silence and officially recognized Biden’s election.
McConnell said: “Many of us expect that the election will have different results, but our system determines who will be sworn in on January 20. The Electoral College has spoken, and I congratulate President-elect Biden today.”
