AP: “Monday seemed like the end of President Donald Trump’s relentless challenges to the election, after the federal government acknowledged President-elect Joe Biden was the ‘apparent winner’ and Trump cleared the way for cooperation on a transition of power. But his baseless claims have a way of coming back. And back. And back. By Wednesday, Trump was phoning into a local Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers’ meeting that had been orchestrated by his campaign to assert falsely, again, that the election was tainted. ‘This election was rigged and we can’t let that happen,’ Trump said by phone, offering no specific evidence.”

“The 2020 presidential race is turning into the zombie election that Trump just won’t let die. Despite dozens of legal and procedural setbacks, his campaign keeps filing new challenges that have no hope of succeeding and making fresh, unfounded claims of fraud. It’s a strategy tolerated by many Republicans, most notably Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who are clinging to Trump as they face a test of retaining their own power in the form of two runoff elections in Georgia in January. ‘This really is our version of a polite coup d’etat,’ said Thomas Mann, senior resident scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. ‘It could end quickly if the Republican Party acknowledged what was going on. But they cower in the face of Trump’s connection with the base.'”