The Electoral College has affirmed Donald Trump as the nation’s 45th president, pushing him past the 270-vote threshold for election, with scant evidence of the anti-Trump revolt among electors that some of his critics had hoped would occur.
Normally a political footnote, the electoral vote took on unexpected import this winter after Mr. Trump’s upset of Hillary Clinton, who won the popular vote, spawned a determined effort to block his path to the presidency by grass-roots advocates who saw him as unfit for the White House and, to some, a threat to the political system.
Presidential electors — and particularly Republican electors, who are bound by tradition and often state law to support Mr. Trump — were inundated with phone calls, emails and even threats demanding that they vote for someone else. Leaders of groups that were lobbying the electors had privately believed they had a chance to persuade enough Republican electors to defect, denying him an Electoral College majority and throwing the election to the House of Representatives.
But by late Monday, only a handful of electors had broken ranks. A full vote tracker is here.
Read the full report at The News York Times.
