There's a lot of concern regarding what happens after the election if Trump loses, as appears very likely. People are worried about whether Trump will accept the outcome. People are wondering whether there are legal shenanigans that Trump could use to hang on to power.
I think what some people are worried about is that more Democrats voted by mail than republicans, and mail-in ballots take longer to process/count than ballots cast on election day (or in an advanced poll.) So, you could have a situation where early results on election night favor Trump, but once all the ballots are counted Biden becomes the winner. What Trump might try to do is get the supreme court to interfere, and have them stop counting election night, with the argument that "we have to know who the winner is right away".
Trump will of course claim the election results have been rigged, but I don't think the Republican establishment is going to go to the wall to help him overturn the election.
Keep in mind that what benefits Trump may also benefit down-ballot republicans (such as congress-critters). If they help Trump, they may also be helping keep the Senate in republican hands. I think Moscow Mitch would approve.
If there is a chance that the election could swing on a few states that could be close enough for the outcome to be affected by recounts and court challenges (as we saw in the 2000 election) then the Republicans would of course fight those battles. But if the results turn out as lopsided as polling indicates right now, Republicans will have to accept that the writing is on the wall, whether Trump likes it or not.[/quote]
Here is the thing though...in a poll, roughly 1/3rd of democrats said they planned to vote on election day, whereas roughly 2/3rds of republicans said they would. That is a substantially large disparity, and could dwarf even a large democratic victory.
Unlike Trump, they have to think of the future. And to attempt to overturn the results of an election would damage their future for a long time to come.
First of all, keep in mind that congress critters tend to be quite interested in their own political fortunes. Staying in power NOW (even for a brief time) may be more important to them than some hypothetical Republican victory down the road (when the current crop of politicians have long retired.)
Secondly, in the past 2 decades we have seen Republicans get the courts to interfere with elections in the past, they had a president get them involved in a war that ended up very unpopular, and they have selected a racist con artist to be the nominee. And yet their current presidental candidate may get ~40% of the vote. Seems like they may think they are somehow bulletproof.
Mitch McConnell has already gotten what he wanted out of Donald Trump. When Amy Coney Barrett is installed on the Supreme Court, McConnell's biggest dream will have come to fruition: conservative control of the courts for decades to come. He has already filled lower courts with conservative judges, and when Coney-Barrett is confirmed, that will be the conclusion of his ambitions. McConnell has already won, so what else does Trump have to offer to get McConnell to stick his neck out?
But the problem is, the Democrats do have tactics that can be used to undo so much of what the republicans have done, if they do win both the Senate and the White House. (Assuming of course they want to play hardball.)
Ending the fillibuster will allow them to cram through all sorts of legislation. Granting statehood to Puerto Rico and Washington DC will make it much harder for the Republicans to win the white house or senate (since those would likely be solid republican seats.) Expanding both the supreme court and lower courts will undo all of Moscow Mitch's dirty tricks in manipulating the judiciary. And they can pass a new version of the voting rights act, to prevent state-level republicans from gerrymandering and voter suppression.
I suspect they would want to maintain as much power as they can to try to block that.
And, even if McConnell himself did commit to helping Trump cling to power, there's the question of how many other Senators would be on board. They have only the barest majority right now. Mitt Romney will not support any attempted coup attempted by Trump. Neither would Lisa Murkowski. Several other senators are no fans of Trump.
Yet they all voted not to impeach him. Seems being 'no fans of Trump' doesn't mean they actually want to actually do anything to remove him.
What about the Supreme Court? They don't have to worry about re-election. But, they also don't owe Trump anything. They have their reputations and credibility to think of. They have their legacy to think of. After seeing the accolades bestowed on RBG after her death, none of these judges will want to be remembered best for having overturned an election.
You assume that the judges are thinking that 1) their decisions need to be popular, and 2) even if they think they want to do the 'popular' thing, they may still mistake what Trump wants as what "the nation" wants.
Maybe I'm naive, maybe I am underestimating the amount of legal hijinks the Republicans might be willing to attempt, but I don't think they will.
Well, so far in this election we have seen the republicans:
- Install a bunch of fake ballot boxes in California (they were told to remove them, they said 'nah')
- Eliminate a bunch of drop-off sites for mail in ballots on Texas
- Royally screw-up the postal office
Don't put anything past the republicans.
Remember, they didn't want Trump in the first place, and this is their chance to be rid of him.
They had a chance during the impeachment. Could have replaced Stubby McBonespurs with Racist Bannon (i.e. Mike Pence). Would have been like the Republicans standing up to Nixon. Sure, they might have lost some of the MAGAchuds who were hard-core Trump supporters (and it might have cost them the 2020 election), but they would have been in a better position to see a rebound.
Yet instead of attempting to remove Trump, they decided to tie themselves even more to him.