Many prominent Republican lawmakers finally began to accept president-elect Joe Biden's victory this week, after the electoral college voted to make the former VP's win official on Monday. Just a few short days after over 100 Republican legislators signed on to Texas' unsuccessful lawsuit to throw out the results in several swing states, senior members of the party admitted that Biden will indeed be the next president.
"As soon as he crosses the 270-vote threshold (for victory), I mean there are still a couple of, I guess, last steps in the process, but in my view that's how in this country we decide presidential elections, that's our Constitution, and I believe in following the Constitution," Majority Whip John Thune said on Capitol Hill, according to USA Today. "At some point you have to face the music. And I think once the Electoral College settles the issue today, it's time for everybody to move on."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also acknowledged Biden's victory for the first time in remarks he made on the Senate floor, Tuesday.
"I also want to congratulate the vice president-elect, our colleague from California, Senator Harris," he added. "Beyond our differences, all Americans can take pride that our nation has a female vice president-elect for the very first time."
Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri also seemed to come to terms with Biden's victory. "We've now gone through the constitutional process and the electors have voted, so there's a President-elect," Blunt said on Monday. "With Vice President Biden as the President-elect, the President continues, obviously, to have all the options he has available to him, but the electoral vote today was significant."
Meanwhile, Lindsey Graham offered that Trump was likely to lose, instead of acknowledging that Biden had won. "Yeah, yeah it’s a very, very narrow path for the president," he said. "I don't see how it gets there from here, given what the Supreme Court did. But having said that, I think we'll let those legal challenges play out."
Not all of the Senate Republicans were willing to give up the fight however, even as the electoral college finalized its votes 306-232 in Biden's favor. North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis still held out hope that Biden's victory would be overturned by Donald Trump's shambling legal efforts.
"He's presumptive president," Tillis said, per NPR. "But I don't want to discount valid, legal disputes that'll be settled over the next couple weeks."
