Supreme Court Rejects Republican Effort To Reverse Joe Biden’s Victory In Pennsylvania

“The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied,” the court said in a one sentence order. They offered no other comment or information, and there were no noted dissents.

The decision was a major blow to Trump’s legal challenges to Biden’s victory, which were a longshot at the outset.

The case was brought by Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) and other Trump supporters, and claimed that the expansion of absentee voting in the state was unconstitutional. State officials said that the lawsuit was frivolous and sought to negate the will of the voters.

Kelly and other Republicans sought an order throwing out the 2.5 million mail-in ballots or to have the state’s legislature pick the electors when the Electoral College votes on Dec. 14.

Trump has made repeated unfounded claims that the election was rigged, but his campaign has been defeated in courts dozens of times, as judge dismiss cases for lack of evidence.

Earlier on Tuesday, the attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, asked the high court to throw out the votes of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and have state legislatures in those states appoint electors. But the perfunctory nature of the Supreme Court’s order in the Pennsylvania case may be a signal that the justices do not want to be put in the position of weighing in on a presidential election, as they did in 2000.

Trump and his legal team had expressed hopes that the Supreme Court, with three Trump appointees, would change the dynamics in their legal challenges and provide their best chance for overturning the results. At the White House earlier on Tuesday, Trump held out the possibility that one of the justices would rule his way.

Biden won a decisive popular vote victory — with a lead of more than 7 million votes — and he amassed 306 electoral college votes, matching the number that Trump had four years ago.

Trump has given little indication that he will concede the election, and in recent weeks it has become clear that has campaign has benefited from trafficking in conspiracy theories over the results. The campaign has raised more than $170 million from donors since the election.

Meanwhile, few Republicans on Capitol Hill have publicly acknowledged Biden’s victory, and some conservative TV commentators have been in lock step with Trump in claiming that an election victory was stolen from him. After the Supreme Court decision, Fox Business host Lou Dobbs said that it was “cowardly” of the court to rule against Trump. The editorial side of Fox News, however, declared on Nov. 7 that Biden was the projected winner.