It took four years and an election defeat. But someone with real power inside the Republican Party is standing up to — and swatting back — President Trump: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Why it matters: This is a preview of the power struggle that will define the Republican Party in 2021.
You saw this with McConnell acknowledging Joe Biden as President-elect.
You saw this with McConnell blocking Trump's push to raise stimulus checks to $2,000, which would have split Senate Republicans. And you're seeing it now with his effort to curtail futile resistance by the GOP to congressional certification of Biden's victory. Yes, but: Until now, McConnell's strategy was buffeted by the chaos Trump created. Now, the Senate leader — whose autobiography is called "The Long Game" — is finally able to set the party's course.
"McConnell is trying to reclaim the role he had in 2009 — leader of the opposition to a new Democratic president," said a Republican operative familiar with the leader's thinking. What he's thinking: Depending on the outcome of Tuesday's Georgia runoffs, McConnell will have to find a way to protect — or regain — a Senate majority, in the face of Trump and his operatives promoting candidates who could win primaries but might well lose.
During Trump's presidency, Axios' Margaret Talev points out, McConnell gained from an alliance that yielded 200+ lifetime judgeships — including three Supreme Court justices. As ex-president, Trump carries more liability.
The bottom line: Beginning 19 days from now, McConnell is the most powerful Republican in the land.
President-elect Joe Biden has received enough electoral votes to officially clinch the presidency, a major milestone that he reached when California’s electors awarded him the state’s 55 electoral votes at their meeting Monday in Sacramento.
CNN projected five weeks ago that Biden would win the White House, but his victory was formalized Monday after presidential electors gathered in statehouses across the country as part of the Constitutional process to officially elect a President.
This development is a crushing blow to President Trump’s controversial and unprecedented attempts to block Biden's victory in the Electoral College by filing longshot lawsuits and pressuring lawmakers in battleground states to overturn millions of legal votes.
In California, Biden won more than 63% of the statewide vote, while Trump earned about 34%.
Democrats have won California’s electoral votes every cycle since 1992. The state voted for Republicans in the six presidential elections before that.
About the process: The meeting of electors is the next major step in the Electoral College process to affirm the general election results. Electors are required by law to vote for president and vice president on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, which this year is today. It takes 270 electoral votes of the 538 available to become president
joelbooks: The Supreme Court has denied Texas' last-ditch effort to overturn the election results in four battleground states that voted for Joe Biden.