The newly elected chairman of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Andy Harris, suggested that North Carolina’s Republican-controlled state Legislature should consider awarding the state’s electors to Donald Trump before all votes are counted, according to a video of his remarks posted on social media on Friday.
Citing North Carolina counties hit by Hurricane Helene where residents may have difficulty voting, Harris said during a Q&A at a Maryland county Republican Party dinner Thursday night that it “makes a lot of sense” for the state Legislature to convene a joint session to allocate the state’s electors on Election Day, Nov. 5.
The Maryland GOP congressman was responding to remarks at the Talbot County Lincoln-Reagan Dinner made by a pro-Trump activist, Ivan Raiklin, who proposed to the audience that Trump and others should call on GOP-led state legislatures in multiple states, including North Carolina and swing states like Arizona and Georgia, to convene on Election Day and award their electoral votes to Trump.
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Raiklin posted video of his exchange with Harris, as well as a full video of the event which includes Harris’ remarks, on X Friday.
“In North Carolina, that makes a lot of sense,” Harris said to Raiklin during the Q&A in front of dozens of GOP attendees. “I mean you statistically can go and say, ‘Hey, look, you got disenfranchised in 25 counties. You know what that vote probably would’ve been, which would be — if I were in the Legislature, enough to go, ‘Yeah we gotta convene the Legislature. We can’t disenfranchise the voters.’”
“But how do you make the argument in other states? I mean, otherwise it looks like it’s just a power play,” Harris continued. “In North Carolina, I mean, it’s legitimate. I mean, there are a lot of people who aren’t gonna get to vote and it may make a difference in that state.”
In a statement, Harris said Thursday’s “theoretical conversation” about state legislatures awarding electoral votes early “has been taken out of context.”
“As I’ve repeatedly said, every legal vote should be counted. Currently, voting is going well in western North Carolina,” Harris said before pointing blame at Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., for voicing doubts about whether he would vote to certify a Trump election victory if there are anomalies.
Swept into Congress in the Tea Party wave of 2010, Harris was elected just last month as chairman of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, succeeding Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., who lost his primary race after going against Trump.
Harris played a role in the GOP’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He attended a Dec. 21, 2020, White House meeting between Trump and House Republicans, where they strategized how to reverse the election results, according to the Jan. 6 committee.
Addressing the Lincoln-Reagan dinner Thursday, Raiklin said popular podcaster Joe Rogan — who was set to interview Trump on Friday — should ask the former president about “calling on the state legislatures in the entire country to just go ahead and convene on Nov. 5 to allocate their own state’s electors.”
“At a minimum in North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nebraska, Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin, so that those states guarantee that no illegals are voted, no illegal drop boxes, no illegal signature non-verification going on, and it’s fully free, fair, transparent,” Raiklin added. “And it can be live streamed on X, Rumble and C-SPAN for the whole world to see.”
Raiklin explained that Republicans have the advantage over Democrats in state legislatures: “Right now, 276 electoral votes are controlled by Republican legislatures, where they control the House and the Senate. And the case of Nebraska, it’s a unicameral controlled by Republicans. What happens when Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson all call on this? Do the chances increase?”
Democrats immediately condemned Harris for approving of the proposal to allocate North Carolina’s electoral votes before voters head to the polls.
“It’s really important to understand the mainstream Republican goal — to make Donald Trump President whether or not he wins the election,” tweeted Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.
This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:
