What are the chances Republicans would actually steal the election given a chance?

[Barack Oganja]

If the 2024 election is close, and Republicans control both houses of Congress or key governorships, what are the chances Republicans would actually overturn the results even if Democrats clearly won (think 2020 style margin vs 2000)?

[Leroy McPherson fan]

0%

[Roll Roons]

Bear in mind that Biden's term wouldn't expire until January 20, so he'd be able to activate the National Guard if necessary.

[SnowLabrador]

100%.

[MargieCat]

It really depends on the nominee.

I think Trump will try to steal it again if given the chance.

Cruz, Cotton, Hawley, Paul, and DeSantis can all be pretty extreme. I'm not sure if they would attempt to steal it though for themselves. Cruz and Hawley were posturing to Trump this election.

[Pericles]

If the election is close enough that Republicans can't win it without stealing but they still have both houses of Congress, I'm guessing their majorities in at least the House and perhaps the Senate would be narrow. That means even if the party as a whole is a lot more committed to stealing the election than in 2020, it is hard to see them lining up the required votes to pull it off.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Having non traitors as President, Vice President , the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense would prevent any attempted coup by Trump cultists. The insurrection happened because the Trump administration wanted it to happen.

[Ron DeSantis enthusiast]

You guys look that you wish that GOP want to succesfully try to steal an election to say "Look, I was right!!!", it's never going to happen. Keep dreaming.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

You guys look that you wish that GOP want to succesfully try to steal an election to say "Look, I was right!!!", it's never going to happen. Keep dreaming.

Nobody thinks they'll succeed. They will probably try though, if only on the disorganized meme-driven January 6th level.

[Leroy McPherson fan]

Having non traitors as President, Vice President , the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense would prevent any attempted coup by Trump cultists. The insurrection happened because the Trump administration wanted it to happen.

They didn’t want it to happen. They wanted protesters to peacefully and patriotically make their voices heard.

[brucejoel99]

I'm sure that they would if they could, but if the votes from earlier this year were any indication, then they'd have to hold at least 300+ seats in the House & ~90 seats in the Senate (lol) since there'd still be a ton of members who wouldn't be willing to do it, & if they were able to secure numbers like those, then I highly doubt that Biden would've been winning the simultaneous presidential election anyway, because a scenario in which Democrats are winning the presidency while the GOP win such huge majorities would be nigh-impossible. Not to mention, controlling both the House & the Senate in addition to key governorships would certainly put the GOP in a tough spot: it's all too easy to talk about overturning an election when you know that you don't have the votes to do so, but it'd be another thing entirely to actually try & do so.

Having non traitors as President, Vice President , the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense would prevent any attempted coup by Trump cultists. The insurrection happened because the Trump administration wanted it to happen.

They didn’t want it to happen. They wanted protesters to peacefully and patriotically make their voices heard.

Trump literally incited his supporters to swarm the Capitol by calling for his election loss to be overturned via his exhorting of his supporters to "take back our country" by marching to the Capitol, where they could "show strength" & "fight like hell" for him. Now, I don't know if you've ever read a dictionary, but the word "fight" doesn't tend to be invoked when calling for patriotic actions to be undertaken peacefully; rather, "fight" invokes, y'know, fighting: in this case, doing whatever it took (e.g., pushing past police barriers onto the Capitol grounds & breaking into the building in order to, at the very least, disrupt the certification, if not harm or even kill the Vice President & members of Congress) to overturn the election loss.

[NewYorkExpress]

They don't even need to control Congress to do this, just the key Governorships and State Legislatures, so they can send Republican Electors to be counted regardless of how those states voted.

The chances of that happening 99.9% of Republicans holding Governorships and State Legislatures in enough states to get 270 electoral votes.

90% that they'll have majorities in enough state legislatures to be willing to go through with this.

[MABA 2020]

Somewhere in the 90% range. Trump is absolutely going to run again, he may well win and even if he doesn't the result will probably be close enough and now he has a party behind him prepped for election theft, of course they're going to steal it.

I feel way more pessimistic about the future of the US now then when Trump was in office and I'm dreading 2024

[Lemmiwinks]

At the current rate, 2020 will be the last “free and fair” presidential election for a long, long time.

[MarkD]

- snip -

Having non traitors as President, Vice President , the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense would prevent any attempted coup by Trump cultists. The insurrection happened because the Trump administration wanted it to happen.

They didn’t want it to happen. They wanted protesters to peacefully and patriotically make their voices heard.

Trump literally incited his supporters to swarm the Capitol by calling for his election loss to be overturned via his exhorting of his supporters to "take back our country" by marching to the Capitol, where they could "show strength" & "fight like hell" for him. Now, I don't know if you've ever read a dictionary, but the word "fight" doesn't tend to be invoked when calling for patriotic actions to be undertaken peacefully; rather, "fight" invokes, y'know, fighting: in this case, doing whatever it took (e.g., pushing past police barriers onto the Capitol grounds & breaking into the building in order to, at the very least, disrupt the certification, if not harm or even kill the Vice President & members of Congress) to overturn the election loss.

This isn't like you, brucejoel.
It is literally correct that Trump explicitly told his audience, gathered at the Ellipse that day, he wanted them to march to the Capitol and to "peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard."
Are the only definitions of the words "fight" and "strength" ones that include physical violence? Let's consult online Merriam-Webster dictionary:
"Essential Meaning of fight
1: to use weapons of physical force to try to hurt someone, to defeat an enemy, etc: to struggle in battle of physical combat
2: to be involved in (a battle, struggle, etc.)
3: to argue in an angry way [examples] He and his wife are always fighting over/about money. They fight (with each other) all the time.
Full Definition of fight
1 a: to contend in battle of physical combat; especially to strive to overcome a person by blows or weapons
b: to engage in boxing
2: to put forth a determined effort [example] They were fighting to stay awake.

Definition of strength
1: the quality or state of being strong: capacity for exertion or endurance
2: power to resist force: solidity, toughness
3: power of resisting attack: impregnability
4 a: legal, logical, or moral force
b: a strong attribute or inherent asset
5: .....
6: force as measured in numbers: effective numbers of any body or organization
7: one regarded as embodying or affording force or firmness: SUPPORT"

It is certainly possible to interpret Trump's use of the words "fight like hell," and so on, in more than one way. If you want to accuse him of literally inciting violence then make up some false quotes and attribute them to him, like saying that Trump literally told the audience to storm INTO the Capitol building, "Stomp on anyone who gets in your way! Smash windows if they won't let you in! Bash any Capitol Police in their heads, with blunt objects, if they try to stop you! Destroy furniture! Invade the Speaker's office and steal her belongings! Remember to bring all types of guns and rifles, because overthrowing your government if it becomes tyrannical is why the Second Amendment was adopted!"

[Mr. Morden]

Too many in this thread are focused on the balance of power in Congress, rather than the situation at the state level.  Yes, I agree that unless the GOP had giant majorities in both houses of Congress (which wouldn’t happen at the same time that Biden wins the presidency) there aren’t going to be majorities in Congress to overturn whatever electoral votes they get from the states.

But that presumes that the electoral slates representing each state are actually legit.  What *didn’t* happen in 2020 was any state secretary of state or governor tampering with the vote count in a way that flipped a state from Biden to Trump.  Raffensperger et al. wouldn’t steal the election for Trump.  And neither would any state legislatures vote to replace their state’s electoral college slates with a slate representing the party that didn’t win the popular vote in their state.

But that could easily change in 2024, with Trump attempting to purge all GOP officials who wouldn’t help him steal the election last time:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/16/politics/trump-secretary-of-state-big-lie/index.html

Next time around, secretaries of state in at least certain key swing states could tamper with the vote counting, and/or state legislatures could send their own electors in place of the legitimate ones, and the courts may well just leave it up to Congress to decide which electors are legit.  In *that* case, where secretaries of state in Arizona or Georgia or wherever are actually saying “No, despite the allegations you’ve read about in the NYT, we counted the votes here fairly, and our states’ electoral votes were legitimately won by Trump”, I’m skeptical that a GOP Congress would actually say “No, we don’t believe you.  Biden won your states.”

[ultraviolet]

What republicans? As a whole it’s hard to say since some (most) 100% would but of course there are some that wouldn’t.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Either party is capable of it.  I don't see the GOP being in a good position to do it at present.

[Tekken_Guy]

They don't even need to control Congress to do this, just the key Governorships and State Legislatures, so they can send Republican Electors to be counted regardless of how those states voted.

The chances of that happening 99.9% of Republicans holding Governorships and State Legislatures in enough states to get 270 electoral votes.

90% that they'll have majorities in enough state legislatures to be willing to go through with this.

I doubt enough Philly/Atlanta/Phoenix area lawmakers will go through with this.