Kansas and Missouri Republicans mostly silent on Biden win as Trump refuses to concede
Republicans from Kansas and Missouri have largely had the same reaction to Democrat Joe Biden’s election as president: Silence.
The Associated Press and other news organizations declared Biden the winner of the presidential election Saturday after the former vice president won Pennsylvania.
But as of Tuesday morning, no Republican member of Congress from Kansas or Missouri had congratulated Biden or even acknowledged his victory.
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican widely seen as a contender for the presidency in 2024, attacked the media Saturday for projecting Biden’s victory.
“The media do not get to determine who the president is. The people do. When all lawful votes have been counted, recounts finished, and allegations of fraud addressed, we will know who the winner is,” Hawley said on Twitter Saturday.
Hawley overlooks the fact that Trump celebrated the media’s call four years ago — just as Hawley did in his victory over Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in 2018.
Georgia, where Biden narrowly leads, will hold a recount, but if his lead there remains Biden is on pace to win 306 electoral votes. He is also on a path to winning the popular vote by 5 million votes or roughly 3 percentage points.
The recount will coincide with two Senate runoff races in which furor over the presidential race could be a big motivating factor for GOP voters.
Republican reluctance to acknowledge the election’s outcome is a reflection of Trump’s potential to remain a powerful force in the party for years to come. GOP lawmakers are wary of offending him or his base. Biden drew more votes for president than any candidate in history, but Trump is No. 2 on that list.
Trump has offered no evidence for his claims of massive fraud in either the 2016 or 2020 elections. His legal team has had little success in court as it has sought to pause the counting in multiple states.
Trump’s lawyers affirmed in federal court last week that the campaign had observers in the room as ballots were counted in Pennsylvania, despite claims otherwise by Trump and other Republicans.
The unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud from Trump’s campaign have largely focused on Democratic-leaning cities with large minority populations, such as Philadelphia and Detroit.
“Blue seems to be becoming the new Black,” said Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, the first African American to serve as Kansas City mayor. “In other words, when people start talking about blue cities… maybe it’s accidental or maybe it’s coincidental that those are cities with heavy Black populations.”
Hawley Tuesday introduced legislation to require that mail-in and absentee ballots to be counted upon receipt. That would have sped up the process in Pennsylvania, which was not allowed to begin counting mail ballots until Election Day under rules passed by the state’s GOP legislature.
Hawley’s legislation would also require round-the-clock video surveillance of absentee ballot drop boxes and that election offices take no breaks once the counting begins.
Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, said in an email that Hawley’s bill “seems more aimed at bolstering the president’s unsubstantiated claims of fraud than to offer principles for sound election administration.”
On Monday, Hawley implicitly acknowledged Biden’s status as president-elect in a tweet criticizing his decision to hire former high-ranking employees of Apple and Facebook for his transition team.
“Biden already selling out to the tech robber barons. Amazing,” said Hawley, who has called for sweeping new regulations of the tech industry throughout his Senate tenure.
Most of the delegation quiet
Most GOP lawmakers from the region have opted for a quieter approach than Hawley. They have said virtually nothing as Trump refuses to concede the election and seeks to disqualify tens of thousands of ballots in multiple states, a legal strategy unlikely to succeed but that will hang over Biden’s transition.
Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran’s office declined to comment Monday beyond referring to his post on Twitter from before the race had been called that said every vote should be counted. Spokesmen for GOP Rep. Ron Estes of Kansas and GOP Rep. Vicky Hartzler of Missouri similarly declined to comment.
Kansas Republican Senator-elect Roger Marshall’s team said nothing new on Monday after announcing last week that he was donating $20,000 to the Republican National Committee’s legal fund to pay for court challenges.
Marshall celebrated his own win last Tuesday following the AP’s call of the race and a concession phone call from Democrat Barbara Bollier.
He joined Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other newly-elected senators Monday for a photo opportunity—even though their results have not been legally certified. McConnell has used lack of certification as a basis for not recognizing Biden’s win.
Retiring Kansas GOP Sen. Pat Roberts, who served alongside Biden in the Senate, has also offered no statement on his former colleague’s victory. His office did not respond to multiple phone calls Monday and Tuesday.
“We’ll know when the electors come to town and states certify the election, but it’s just something we’re apparently going to have to go through,” Roberts told the Senate press pool Tuesday when asked if Biden won.
Roberts’ former chief of staff, Leroy Towns, decried the Kansas delegation’s reticence in recognizing Biden’s victory. Towns worked for Roberts from 1980 to 2003 and managed his 2014 primary campaign. He said he has known Moran since he was a teenager.
“The men I knew, the men I respected through those years, would never have perpetrated lies and falsehoods to destroy faith in our elections, the keystone of our democracy,” Towns said in an email. “Yet, their failure to speak now and acknowledge the outcome of the 2020 election supports President Donald Trump’s lies and his intentional and cynical effort to undermine support for our democracy, our elections and our elected leaders solely for his personal gain. I am sad and disappointed.”
Former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who served as secretary of Health and Human Services under President Barack Obama, said she was disappointed with both of the state’s current senators who she has known for decades.
Sebelius served with Moran in the Kansas Legislature and noted that Roberts “helped to raise my husband” when he served as a congressional aide to her father-in-law, Republican Rep. Keith Sebelius, in the 1970s.
“I keep promising myself i shouldn’t be shocked any longer, but I continue to be shocked at their willingness to buy into a false narrative and tiptoeing around telling Donald Trump (he lost),” Sebelius said.
Blunt walks careful line
Sen. Roy Blunt, the Missouri Republican who chairs the committee that oversees the inauguration, has come the closest among the delegation to acknowledging Biden’s victory.
A former Missouri secretary of state, Blunt said on ABC this weekend that results in the states were unlikely to change as election offices do their final canvasses ahead of certification and he has called on Trump’s team to provide specific evidence of its fraud claims.
But he hasn’t taken the step yet of calling Biden president-elect.
“The President has every right to exhaust his various legal possibilities. He put his heart and his energy into this campaign in ways that few candidates for president ever had,” Blunt told the Senate press pool Monday.
Blunt went further Tuesday and said the president “may not have been defeated at all” despite previously downplaying the possibility.
Blunt told The Star last month that he has a good relationship with Biden after serving in House leadership when Biden was in the Senate.
“Nobody that knows Joe Biden doesn’t like him,” Blunt said in early October. “It doesn’t mean you agree with him and on foreign policy issues I’ve almost always disagreed.”
A handful of GOP senators—Mitt Romney of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Ben Sasse of Nebraska— have congratulated Biden on his win.
But more broadly, Senate GOP leadership prepares to stand by Trump as long as he disputes the election’s outcome. The Electoral College does not formally vote until December 14.
“Let’s not have any lectures, no lectures about how the president should immediately, cheerfully accept the preliminary election results from the same characters who just spent four years refusing to accept the validity of the last election,” McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said in a floor speech Monday.
Governors react
A handful of moderate Republican governors have recognized and congratulated Biden on his victory—Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and Vermont Gov. Phil Scott.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s office, on the other hand, responded to a question about how he plans to work with the Biden administration to combat COVID-19 without acknowledging that there will be a Biden administration.
“Governor Parson has had a great working relationship with President Trump and Vice President Pence. The things they have been able to accomplish and deliver in 11 months during this pandemic have been remarkable,” said Parson spokeswoman Kelli Jones.
“Governor Parson’s job is to put Missourians at the forefront at all times. To the best of his ability, Governor Parson will take all necessary actions to protect and provide for every Missourian.”
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat whose state went for Trump, said she was looking forward to working with the president-elect.
“President-elect Biden has promised to be a President for all Americans. I’m going to take him at his word and I hope all Kansans will give him the same opportunity,” Kelly said in a statement.
“As I have with the Trump administration, I will continue to work with the Biden administration to slow the spread of this virus, protect our economy, and keep our schools open.”
This story was originally published November 10, 2020 at 12:53 PM with the headline "Kansas and Missouri Republicans mostly silent on Biden win as Trump refuses to concede."
