Buchanan calls Biden ‘president-elect.’ He repeats Trump had right to challenge results
Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, joined a number of other Republican lawmakers in recognizing Joe Biden as president-elect for the first time on Tuesday.
The acknowledgment came after the Electoral College ratified Biden’s win on Monday despite numerous attempts from President Donald J. Trump and his associates to thwart the results of the election. Biden received votes of 306 electors, which were awarded based on the popular vote from each state. President Trump received 232.
“The electoral college has fulfilled its constitutional role in certifying the election of Joe Biden as President-elect,” read a statement posted to Buchanan’s Twitter account on Tuesday.
Despite acknowledging the victory, Buchanan also showed continuing support for Trump’s legal challenges of the election results.
“As we respect the Constitution so should we respect the rule of law affording the president the right to legal challenges,” Buchanan’s statement continued.
Most of the lawsuits brought by President Trump and associates have been thrown out of court or withdrawn due to unsubstantial evidence, and no evidence of wide-scale election fraud has been found.
Buchanan’s support of the legal challenges aligned with a statement make by the lawmaker last month in which he compared the Trump-Biden election to the 2000 presidential race between Al Gore and George Bush, a contest that was far tighter than the 2020 presidential race.
“President Trump has every right to legally challenge the vote in jurisdictions where irregularities have been reported, just as Al Gore did in 2000 when he refused to concede to George Bush until 37 days after the election,” Buchanan tweeted back in November.
Following the Electoral College’s vote on Monday, President Trump has still declined to concede the election loss and instead continued to make unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.
The president was showing no signs of accepting defeat on Tuesday morning as he tweeted an article from far-right news network Breitbart. The article included claims that the president would have won re-election if not for fraudulent votes.
“There has always been a peaceful transition of power since the election of George Washington and I fully to expect that continue well into the future,” Buchanan’s statement on the election results finished. “It is one of nation’s most fundamental doctrines and what separates us from other countries around the world.”
This story was originally published December 15, 2020 at 4:58 PM.