Bipartisan lawmakers push colleagues to accept midterm results

A bipartisan pair of lawmakers is urging House colleagues to accept the outcome of November’s elections, whichever side wins.

The campaign arrives as President Trump and some of his Republican allies are claiming, without evidence, that the elections are “rigged” in favor of Democrats.

In a letter still being circulated on Capitol Hill, Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Don Bacon (R-Neb.) are fighting to dispel the argument that America’s elections are anything but secure. Gottheimer is running for reelection, and Bacon is retiring, but both are seeking a pledge from lawmakers in both parties to put trust in voters — and the voting system — and embrace the midterm results.

Congress’s oath to defend the Constitution, they note, demands it.

“Through war and peace, through eras of bitter division and moments of national unity, one practice has held constant: those duly elected under the laws of their states take their seats, and the results of a free election are honored regardless of who prevails,” the lawmakers wrote.

“This is among the oldest and most consequential traditions of our nation — the quiet, orderly act by which the consent of the governed becomes the authority to govern.”

Just a few years ago, demanding such a commitment might have been unheard of. But Trump has cast doubt on the integrity of the country’s elections for more than a decade, warning that the system is rife with fraud, illegal ballots and foreign interference — all designed to help Democrats.

Trump has never provided evidence to back those claims, and numerous studies across decades of elections have found election fraud to be exceedingly rare. Still, many of the president’s allies have accepted his false claims at face value — a dynamic that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, where a violent mob of Trump supporters sought to overturn the 2020 results.

That effort failed, but a majority of House Republicans voted shortly after the attack to reverse the results in Arizona, Pennsylvania or both. Among them was now-Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who had devised a legal rationale for disputing Trump’s defeat. That’s led to some concern among Democrats that House GOP leaders, guided by Trump, will simply refuse to seat incoming Democrats if they win the majority in the midterms.

Heading into the midterms, Trump has adopted similar rhetoric as he has in the past, warning that Democrats can win only by cheating. And top Cabinet officials, including the heads of the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, have suggested they’re ready to send federal agents to monitor the polls in the name of fighting fraud.

The situation has sparked concerns among state election officials in both parties. And it’s alarmed Democrats in the Capitol, who have launched a broad campaign to prepare local election officials and state attorneys general to defy any administrative effort to disrupt voting or corrupt the election results.

Bacon’s decision to join Gottheimer on the new letter is an indication that at least some Republicans are also concerned about partisan interference in the process.

“There has never been a more critical moment to affirm the integrity of the House of Representatives and its foundational role in our nation’s democracy,” Gottheimer and Bacon wrote.