CLEVELAND, Ohio – For the first time since a winner was projected, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine acknowledged Democratic President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the election.
To date, DeWine has resisted calling Biden the winner as Republican President Donald Trump continues to challenge the election results, largely with conspiracy theories – without any evidence – of massive voter fraud. On Monday, he issued a vague congratulations for Biden, though did not specify what he was congratulating his former U.S. Senate colleague for and did not call Biden the president-elect.
During a Thursday interview with CNN’s John Berman, DeWine – a co-chair of Trump’s Ohio campaign – said Biden was the victor.
“I think that we need to consider the former vice president as the president-elect,” DeWine said. “Joe Biden is the president-elect.”
DeWine and other Republicans have resisted calls to ease the transition process by declaring Biden the winner as Trump and his campaign embark on their ventures through the courts.
Biden is projected to win 306 Electoral College votes, well above the 270 needed to win. Trump won Ohio by around 8 percentage points, a similar margin as his 2016 results.
DeWine did say that Trump has every right to pursue legal recourse over the election, which he expected them to do.
“The White House, or the president and his campaign, has every right to go into court,” DeWine said. “Our courts are open. Our courts are the best place, frankly, to adjudicate facts. I’m a former prosecutor and I’m a great believer in the ability to have your courts and go in to make a case. And they have every right to do that and that looks like what they’re trying to do.”
DeWine becomes the highest profile Republican to recognize Biden’s victory, with most elected officials maintaining a stance that Trump still has a chance at victory and entertaining the idea that widespread voter fraud occurred. Nobody, including the Trump campaign, has produced any evidence that widespread voter fraud exists.
Still, Trump allies like Rep. Jim Jordan of Urbana and Sen. Rob Portman have stuck by Trump, whose White House is refusing to cooperate with Biden’s transition team to help with a smooth transfer of power by the Jan. 20 inauguration. Attorney General Dave Yost has given his blessing to a Trump lawsuit in Pennsylvania seeking overturn the state’s 3-day extension for mail-in ballots, rendering some votes invalid.