People attend a rally in support of President Donald Trump on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana
- Supporters of President Donald Trump on Wednesday took to the streets of downtown Washington, DC, in protest of Congress' certification of President-elect Joe Biden's win in the 2020 election.
- Biden won 306 votes compared to Trump's 232 during the Electoral College vote in December.
- For the past two months, Trump has refused to accept his loss, and instead launched dozens of failed lawsuits while claiming — without evidence — that widespread fraud was responsible for his defeat.
- Trump, who spoke Wednesday to his supporters, had encouraged them on Twitter to come to DC to protest the certification.
Thousands of supporters of President Donald Trump took to the streets of the nation's capital Wednesday as part of the latest effort in support of "Stop the Steal," the name given to the movement that denies President-elect Joe Biden's winning of the 2020 presidential election.
For the past two months, Trump has refused to accept election defeat and has bemoaned a ploy by Democrats to rig it, despite him and his allies providing no substantial evidence of that or of widespread voter fraud. Dozens of lawsuits filed by Trump and his legal team have been fruitless in their attempts to subvert the results.
The "Stop the Steal" movement was birthed on Election Day when supporters of the president protested for state election officials to stop counting ballots to maintain Trump's early-in-the-race lead. Trump's lead waned and eventually disappeared in the hours and days following the election when mail-in ballots were counted. The president had discouraged his followers from casting ballots by mail, while Democrats encouraged them because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
About a dozen GOP senators have said they plan to object to the certification of the Electoral College vote, which in December reaffirmed Biden's win over Trump. Biden secured 306 votes to Trump's 232. Some Republicans in the House are also expected to object Wednesday, but none of the objections are expected to impact Biden's certification.
Trump, meanwhile, has implied that Vice President Mike Pence would himself refuse to certify the results of the Electoral College vote when he presides over the Senate on Wednesday, though Pence does not have the power for such a move.
As Congress prepared to meet to certify the results, supporters of the outgoing president from across the US showed up to Washington to once more reject the results of the election. Trump had encouraged them to descend on the city.