President Trump has a new longshot strategy for overturning President-elect Joe Biden's win.
Over the past few weeks, Trump and his supporters have lost and dropped lawsuit after lawsuit aimed at throwing out ballots to take states away from Biden. But with a lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania and reported invitation to Michigan's Republican legislators, Trump is looking to shift the focus of his post-election campaign directly to GOP state legislatures.
On Wednesday, the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit alleging the presidential election in Pennsylvania was full of fraud — enough to suggest the ballots cast there shouldn't even be trusted. Instead, Trump's legal team suggested the court should "enter an order" declaring the results there — which gave Biden a nearly 80,000-vote lead — "defective" and allow "the Pennsylvania General Assembly to choose Pennsylvania's electors." That request would effectively strip Biden of his win, as Pennsylvania's assembly is in Republican hands.
And on Thursday, Trump invited leaders of Michigan's Republican state legislatures to the White House to discuss his attempt to reverse the election outcome there, unnamed sources tell The Detroit News and other outlets. Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and House Speaker Lee Chatfield, both Republicans, will visit Trump on Friday in what The New York Times calls a "brazen" attempt to stop the legislature from certifying the state's electoral votes for Biden.
Shirkey, for one, told Bridge Michigan on Tuesday he wouldn't be certifying the state's vote for Trump. "That's not going to happen," he said. Trump had reportedly reached out to canvassers in Michigan who had at first decided not to certify Wayne County's election results.