Ben Jacobs: “The path to successfully contesting election results required a number of contingencies to come into place in several states. It hasn’t happened in a single one. State election officials have found consistent Biden victories in contested states and, as a result, state legislatures have declined to send competing slates of electors. However, Trump has been undeterred by his legal team’s constant failures in courts of law (as well as frequent humiliations in the court of public opinion). At this point, the strategy of his legal team is far more Jim Jones than James Baker.”

“But this has long left the realm of a legal fight. Instead, it’s a political battle governed by two facts. Donald Trump refuses to acknowledge that he has lost the election, and he has a sky-high approval rating with Republican voters. This means many Republican elected officials have either fully drunk the Kool-Aid (no one has ever attributed Machiavellian motives to Texas congressman Louie Gohmert, who filed a failed lawsuit against Mike Pence last week to force him to declare Trump the victor on Wednesday) or just believe that their prospects for future electoral success rely on staying in Trump’s good graces. After all, gerrymandering in the House has meant most members are far more vulnerable in a primary than a general election. Those who publicly acknowledge Biden’s victory risk ending up in Trump’s Twitter crosshairs and potentially seeing some of the hundreds of millions that Trump has raised since November for his personal PAC against them.”