Senators Mitt Romney and Mike Lee (Photo: Associated Press, Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, is recognizing Joe Biden as President-elect after the Electoral College formally voted this week.
Despite the acknowledgement, Lee says his concerns regarding fraud and irregularities in the election remain in multiple states.
In a written statement he explained, in part, that those “concerns need to be addressed by Congress and state and local officials throughout the country.”
Meanwhile, Utah’s other senator, fellow Republican Mitt Romney, has a very different opinion. Romney urged President Donald Trump and his supporters to abandon any claims that Biden or his supporters somehow rigged or stole the election.
“The continued attack on our election system, the calls that suggest that it has been fraudulent or stolen… these things are not accurate, they are not true,” he said.
Romney told Shepherd Smith in a CNBC interview Monday night that these beliefs will only put President-elect Biden in a more difficult position going forward.
“The biggest concern that I have is that people here genuinely believe that somehow this election was stolen and there’s no evidence of that. The president was saying that it was stolen even before Election Day happened. He said if he loses it would be fraud. Well, no one knows that,” said Romney. “I thought I was going to win too when I ran for president in 2012. I didn’t. I didn’t go out and say ‘fraud.’ We have a process. We count the votes. That’s the way it is.”
Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, is the latest political leader in the state to recognize Joe Biden as President-elect and offer his congratulations.
Stewart tweeted on Tuesday, saying in part, “I look forward to working with President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris for the common good of the American people.”
Both Rep. John Curtis and Rep.-elect Blake Moore, also Republicans, have already recognized Biden as the winner of the election.