Trump Ally Suggests Just Handing Him a Crucial Swing State
The chair of the conservative-led House Freedom Caucus said that North Carolina’s legislature ought to preemptively grant Donald Trump all 16 of the state’s electors before any vote has even been counted.
Maryland Representative Andy Harris’s outrageous comments were in response to a speech that right-wing extremist Ivan Raiklin, who previously assembled a “Deep State target list” of Trump’s political enemies, gave at a Republican Party dinner hosted Thursday. Raiklin argued that due to the widespread damage and displacement caused by Hurricane Helene, North Carolina’s Republican-led state legislature should award its electors to Trump ahead of the election results, according to Politico.
Raiklin also suggested that Republican-controlled state legislatures in New Hampshire, Arizona, Nebraska, Georgia, and Wisconsin could carry out similar schemes, by coming together for a vote on Election Day.
When Raiklin opened the floor to questions, Maryland Representative Andy Harris said that it “makes a lot of sense” for North Carolina’s legislature to simply say Trump won, and actually suggested that waiting for the results of the popular vote would somehow “disenfranchise” voters.
“You statistically can go and say, ‘Hey, look, you got disenfranchised in 25 counties. You know what that vote probably would have been,’” Harris said. “Which would be—if I were in the Legislature—enough to go, ‘Yeah, we have to convene the Legislature. We can’t disenfranchise the voters.’”
The popular vote typically determines the allocation of electors in all 50 states.
Harris argued that the plan would only work in North Carolina, and would probably look like an illegal plot to steal the White House if Republicans tried it anywhere else.
“But how do you make the argument in other states? I mean, otherwise it looks like it’s just a power play. With North Carolina I mean, it’s legitimate. There are a lot of people who aren’t going to get to vote, and it may make the difference in that state,” he continued.
When asked to explain his statement, Harris told Politico, “As I’ve repeatedly said, every legal vote should be counted. I would hope everyone could agree that legal American voters whose lives were devastated by the recent storms should not be disenfranchised in the upcoming voting process.”
Early voting in North Carolina began last weekend, and already, voter turnout appeared to be lessened by the destruction of Hurricane Helene earlier this month. Across 13 counties in western North Carolina that were identified as the most affected by Helene, voter turnout on the first day of early voting was significantly lower than it was in 2020, according to Citizen Times.