This is how Trump loses the election but becomes president

The rules. There are two ways to become president. Either the outcome is decided in the Electoral College or, if no candidate gets a majority, the decision is made by the House of Representative. The easiest Harris victory is for her to achieve 270 electoral votes by winning the core Democratic states plus MI, PA and WI among the swing states. Game over. However, to deny Harris the electoral votes she has legitimately won scores of Republican elections officials will refuse to certify the results at the county level, making it “impossible” for the state to certify statewide results. A Republican legislature or governor will stand with them and against a majority of the voters of their state.  No candidate having received a majority of electoral votes, the election will be decided by the House of Representatives with each Congressional delegation casting one vote. As the Democrats control 24 state delegations and the Republicans control 26 the election would be decided in favor of Trump.

The President of the Senate (Harris, because this is a duty of the vice president) will read the state certificates. Any one member of the House together with one member of the Senate may object, after which each chamber must vote to accept or reject the objection or objections.

Then 3 US Code Section 15 on counting electoral votes gets tricky. “No electoral vote or votes from any State which shall have been regularly given by electors whose appointment has been lawfully certified according to section 6 of this title from which but one return has been received shall be rejected. This is why the Republicans named fake electors in 2020. Both Houses of Congress must agree if electoral votes from a state are rejected for not having been “regularly given” or if the legitimacy of the electors from that state is in doubt.

How Trump Cheats: It is always a risk to say that these are all the possible ways that Trump can cheat, but these are the top contenders:

In Arizona and Georgia Harris may win the state but their delegations to the House have Republican majorities so, citing vague allegations of some violation of election procedures, they vote for Trump. Harris can still win without these two states.

Wisconsin has Republican majorities in their House delegation and Republican majorities in their state legislature. If Harris wins the state and the state legislature refuses to certify the results then these electoral votes would be removed from Harris’s total. Can she win without Wisconsin? Yes.

Pennsylvania has a split legislature. Its House delegation has a Democratic majority by just one vote. If Harris wins Pennsylvania the Democratic-majority House delegation will vote to give her their electoral votes. But if the election is decided in the House it is unlikely that Republicans could get the Democratic chamber to go along. Pennsylvania’s General Assembly is constitutionally barred from not certifying elections or awarding presidential electors in any way other than by Pennsylvania law, which is to say that the legislature is barred from substituting its judgment for that of the voters. It is technically possible for Harris to win without Pennsylvania but only if she gets at least 40 EVs of the 58 remaining, so 40 EVs from AZ (11), GA (16), MI (15), NV (6) and WI (10). There are a few potential victorious combinations.

Michigan and Pennsylvania have an additional vulnerability. Their Congressional delegations give the barest possible majority to Democrats, so if the Republicans managed to turn one of the Democratic members of the state’s House delegation (or flip the chamber in the 2024 election) they would have a majority and could hand the state to Trump, even if he got fewer votes than Harris. Be assured that the one Democratic Member of Congress who betrayed his party and his country would be enormously well compensated for becoming the Benedict Arnold of our time.

There is less risk with Nevada, since both houses of the legislature are controlled by Democrats and its House delegation also has a Democratic majority. A Republican governor could attempt to refuse to certify the state’s results but it is unlikely that he would prevail over a unified legislature.

Maine and Nebraska are special cases. Both apportion electoral votes by Congressional district rather than statewide winner take all.

Both of Maine’s CDs are held by Democrats. The statewide winner will get two electoral votes. The state’s other two are allocated by CD. ME-1 seems safe as Chellie Pingree won her House seat with 63% of the vote. Jared Golden (D) won his race 53%, but a Daily KOS analysis calculated that following redistricting Trump would have defeated Biden 51.6% to 46.9%. Trump got one EV from victory in ME-2 in both 2016 and 2020, as perhaps one might expect from a district that is 90% white. Still, that is three EVs for Harris even if she does not get the fourth.

Nebraska is an even more dangerous place with three House seats, all held by Republicans. It is among the most reliably Republican states with 91 of its 93 counties having Republican majorities. In NE-1 the Republicans won with 56% of the vote, in NE-2 by 51.3% and NE-3 with 78.3% of the vote. Trump won the state by 19 points in 2020 and by 25 points in 2016 so it is hardly a place to look for good news for Harris. But while Trump received two EVs for his statewide victory and both NE-1 and NE-3 Biden won NE-2 in 2020 and so got one EV here. It is rare but it happens. Obama also got one EV from NE-2. There are some scenarios where this one electoral vote is the deciding electoral vote but that remains quite unlikely.

In theory it will be difficult for Trump to deny Harris an electoral vote majority. Trump can only do that by either winning these states or successfully challenging the electoral votes cast by PA (19), MI (15), GA (16), AZ (11), WI (10) and NV (6) to deny Harris the 40 EVs she would need to get 270. PA, MI and GA would do it. She could win the election without PA with MI, AZ and GA. If the election is decided in the House, however, Trump will once again have lost the election but won the presidency.

Finally, a bit of Constitutional interpretation. There are American political scientists who believe it was the intention of the founders that it would be common for presidential elections to be decided in the House. They were skillful political scientists and may have thought this would tie the fortunes of the president to those of a majority of the House. The presidential candidate would need them if he was to prevail, making something almost inconsequential (which party has a majority in state House delegations) into an absolutely crucial fact. Yet, of the 58 presidential elections we’ve had since Washington was inaugurated in 1790 only two (1800 and 1824) actually were decided by the House. The founders did not have political parties and looked down upon them as sources of dispute and faction. If the founders wanted the presidential candidate and Members of the House to be dependent upon one another to govern that really did not work out as planned. Now are you convinced to help us?