Trump has reportedly given up hopes of overturning battleground defeats and is trying to delay a final vote count in a desperate bid to throw Biden's victory into doubt
President Trump's team now accepts they cannot disqualify enough mail-in votes to change the outcome of the election, according to the Washington Post.
Trump has instead decided to focus his efforts on a bid to delay final vote counts for long enough that Biden is unable to claim a clear victory, the Washington Post reported.
The shift has come after his campaign failed to prove widespread voter fraud through the courts.
The president's advisors reportedly believe the strategy could ease his path to a comeback victory in 2024.
President Trump has reportedly abandoned hopes of disqualifying enough mail-in votes to overturn the result of the election and is instead attempting to delay final vote counts for long enough to throw Biden's victory into doubt, according to a report.
The Washington Post reported that the Trump team is now pinning its hopes on a bid to delay vote certification in key battleground states such as Pennsylvania.
Rudy Giuliani, the lawyer leading Trump's team, reportedly told two Republican officials — who spoke to The Washington Post anonymously — that his plan is to delay the vote counts for long enough that Trump's campaign can pressure Republican lawmakers to handpick the electors on the electoral college when it meets to submit votes for the next president in December, and disrupt the process in Trump's favour.
The campaign paid $3 million to officials in Wisconsin to force a recount in its two biggest states, the Post reported, while Giuliani reportedly asked a federal judge in Pennsylvania if he would order lawmakers to select the state's electors.
The president's latest efforts appear almost certain to fail, The Washington Post reported, because elected officials in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — two battleground states where the Trump campaign would likely focus its efforts — do not select electors, and other states have not indicated they would agree to any such political pressure.
White House advisers have told Trump that it is hopeless to contest the election results, according to a CBS News report, but the president has refused. He believes that contesting the results of the election will energize his base and bolster his chances of securing a second presidential run in 2024, according to a separate Washington Post report.
Insider and Decision Desk HQ, along with other major media outlets, projected Biden as the winner on November 6 or 7, but President Trump has refused to concede defeat, falsely claiming victory and while he and his allies allege widespread voter fraud.
Biden will not officially be President-elect until each state certifies their vote counts — a process which is currently at different stages in individual states — before the electoral college meets in mid-December and confirms the next president.
The Trump campaign initially sought to frustrate the election outcome by filing multiple lawsuits alleging voter fraud and illegal activity while spreading false information about the results of an election he has without evidence suggested was "rigged."
But almost all of those lawsuits have failed so far, and those pending could have little effect on the outcome of the election in any case, and his campaign's new focus on delaying vote certification appears to represent a pivot to a new strategy.
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