Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump (File)

Six weeks after the November 3 election, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell finally recognizes President-elect Joe Biden.

McConnell had held out against the recognition, as Donald Trump pursued disinformation and lawsuits in a futile attempt to overturn the vote. He had supported the Trump camp’s legal effort, in which it lost 60 of 61 cases, and said little else about the result.

But on Tuesday, a day after the Electoral College confirmed Biden’s 306-232 triumph, McConnell said on the Senate floor:

Many of us hoped that the presidential election would yield a different result, but our system of government has processes to determine who will be sworn in on January 20.

The Electoral College has spoken. So today, I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden.

McConnell and other Republican Senate leaders then pleaded with colleagues in a private call, asking them not to object to the Electoral College vote when it is formally presented to Congress on January 6 for ratification.

A group of House Republicans, led by Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, say they will object to the electors of five key states — Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona — that were instrumental in Biden’s victory.

If at least one senator was to join them, the faction can force a vote, putting McConnell in the position of publicly breaking from Trump and his Congressional backers and defying the decision of the American people at the ballot box.

The Majority Leader despatched his deputy, John Thune of South Dakota, to lobby GOP legislators one by one.

McConnell also spoke with the President-elect for the first time since November 3.

“I called to thank him for the congratulations, told him although we disagree on a lot of things, there’s things we can work together on,” Biden told reporters about the “good conversation”.

Backlash v. McConnell

Moments after McConnell’s statement, Donald Trump reacted on Twitter, “Tremendous evidence pouring in on voter fraud.”

On Wednesday night Trump assailed the Majority Leader, pushing criticism by figures such as Michael Flynn, whom Trump has pardoned over his crime in the Trump-Russia affair:

Hard-right polemicists rounded on McConnell, despite his essential cover for Trump since January 2017, including in Trump’s impeachment trial early this year.

Mark Levin used his radio show to pronounce that McConnell was “AWOL” from “challenging the lawless acts of the Biden campaign and Democrats”. He called for McConnell’s replacement:

But Sen. Mitt Romney said Republicans must go further than recognition of Biden:

How many Republicans will say that what the president is saying is simply wrong and dangerous? We need to have people who are strong Trump supporters say that as well, or you are going to continue to have this country divided, which is pretty dangerous.

Other stalwart Trump supporters also began to shift. Sen. Mike Lee said, “Absent new information that could give rise to a judicial or legislative determination altering the impact of today’s Electoral College votes, Joe Biden will become president of the United States.”

Despite staging a “hearing” on Wednesday to promote Trump’s unsupported claims of electoral fraud, Sen. Ron Johnson said he thought the outcome was legitimate and he would not object to the Electoral College results.

However, the top Republican in the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, was non-committal: