Holcomb said the election could be held safely and on time.
(Lauren Chapman/IPB News)
Gov. Eric Holcomb has joined other GOP officials pushing back on President Donald Trump’s suggestion to push back the 2020 election day.
“I think we have the ability to pull off a very safe election, and we plan to have ours on the date scheduled,” Holcomb told reporters Thursday.
Trump suggested the delay as he pushed unsubstantiated allegations that increased mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic would result in fraud.
But shifting Election Day is virtually impossible and the very idea represented another bracing attempt by Trump to undermine confidence in the American political system.
Other GOP officials from New Hampshire to Mississippi to Iowa quickly pushed back against Trump’s suggestion, which he cannot do without congressional approval.
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley was especially blunt: “All I can say is, it doesn’t matter what one individual in this country says. We still are a country based on the rule of law, and we want to follow the law.”
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu vowed his state would hold its November elections as scheduled: “End of story.”
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who leads the House Republican Conference, said, “The resistance to this idea among Republicans is overwhelming.”
The date of the presidential election — the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in every fourth year — is enshrined in federal law and would require an act of Congress to change.
Top Republicans in Congress also rebuffed Trump’s suggestion. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the election date is set in stone and House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy said the election “should go forward” as planned. Regardless, the Constitution makes no provisions for a delay in the end of Trump’s term — noon on Jan. 20, 2021.
“With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,” Trump tweeted Thursday. “It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”
After facing blowback from Republicans for even floating a delay, Trump appeared to retreat on Twitter Thursday afternoon, suggesting he was merely trying to highlight alleged problems with mail-in balloting. “Do I want to see a date changed, no,” Trump said later during a press conference on the coronavirus response. “But I don’t want to see a crooked election.”
Trump has increasingly sought to cast doubt on November’s election and the expected pandemic-induced surge in mail-in and absentee voting. He has called remote voting options the “biggest risk” to his reelection. His campaign and the Republican Party have sued to combat the practice, which was once a significant advantage for the GOP.
Stephanie Wiechmann and George Hale contributed to this report.
