With recounts and run-offs pending, the 2020 election is in the home stretch. Most of the votes are counted, and the liberal media has already named its preferred candidate, Joe Biden, the president-elect.
But the 2020 election is not over—far from it. President Trump has not yet conceded, nor should he until the legal process runs its course. In Georgia, voting irregularities and potential fraud have been discovered, raising questions about Biden’s presumed victory in the Peach State. For example, more than 2,600 ballots in Floyd County were recently found uncounted, and they are likely to help President Trump narrow his 14,000-vote deficit to Biden.
To ensure accuracy, fairness, and transparency in America’s electoral process, the Trump campaign should leave no stone unturned in Georgia or elsewhere. We certainly won’t: The Committee to Defend the President recently invested more than $100,000 in the Georgia recount effort, simply to ensure that all legal votes are properly counted. Despite Biden and his media allies putting pressure on the Trump campaign to concede, Americans won’t know the final outcome until the electors’ December 14th meeting—and there is nothing wrong with that.
Look at it this way: 70 percent of Republicans believe that the 2020 election was not conducted fairly or freely. Why would President Trump abandon his voters to prematurely admit defeat?
No matter the final outcome, the Republican coalition is stronger than ever. President Trump received more than 72 million votes in the 2020 election, the most for a sitting president in U.S. history.
In 2008, Barack Obama received fewer than 70 million votes. In 2012, then-President Obama picked up fewer than 66 million. And the Obama campaign was universally praised (by the liberal media, that is) for putting together the most diverse coalition ever.
President Trump just smashed the Obama totals, adding to his minority support in the process. Over the course of four years, President Trump became even more popular among African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Hispanics. In Florida, 55 percent of Cuban-Americans voted for President Trump, in addition to 30 percent of Puerto Ricans and 48 percent of “other Latinos.” That is diversity.
Beyond 2020, Republicans need to take a page out of the Trump playbook. Gone are the days of establishment politics, exercised by Republicans In Name Only who are all too eager to compromise with left-wing Democrats. Gone are the days of political correctness, when Republicans were crucified by a biased media and played along with it. Gone are the days of flip-flopping, when Republicans campaigned on issues like border security but governed as open-borders advocates.
President Trump showed Republicans the way: Don’t make excuses for high taxes, burdensome regulations, runaway healthcare costs, globalist trade deals, illegal immigration, and other issues long accepted as the status quo. Don’t apologize for contrived scandals, propagated by Democrats with an axe to grind or liberal activists masquerading as “journalists.”
Always speak your mind—from the heart, to the people. The Trump rally is the blueprint for Republicans to message traditional conservatism to the masses, not like politicians, but as fellow Americans.
Which brings up the last point: Be proud of America. There is a reason why slogans like “America First” or “Make America Great Again” resonate with tens of millions of Americans—because tens of millions of Americans love this country. Regardless of skin color, those Americans are ready to support political leaders who believe in common-sense principles, such as free speech or law and order. When Democrats resort to anti-Americanism, as they increasingly do, the Republican Party needs to position itself as the party of the people.
Whether President Trump wins or loses in the weeks to come, the future is bright for Republicans. Our party is in a better place than it was a decade ago—but only if we learn the right lessons.
Ted Harvey serves as chairman of the pro-Trump Committee to Defend the President.