Trump Adviser: Trump Loss an ‘Utter Improbability’ After Winning Florida, Iowa, Ohio

Then-President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden in file photographs. (AP Photo; Getty Images)

President Donald Trump’s campaign adviser Steve Cortes is continuing to highlight irregularities in the election results, saying that it’s extremely rare for a presidential candidate to win in Ohio, Florida, and Iowa and lose the overall race.

Trump won those three battleground states. Former President Richard Nixon, who lost during the 1960 election against former President John F. Kennedy, also won Florida, Ohio, and Iowa, and is the only other candidate to have experienced that in more than 150 years.

“Since before the Civil War, only once has a candidate swept Ohio, Iowa, & Florida and ‘lost’ the presidential race - Nixon in 1960. President Trump handily won this trifecta of key states on Nov 3rd. Unlike 1960...we will NOT allow the Dems’ theft to stand!” he wrote on Twitter.  He went on to point out that some historians believe that Nixon actually won the 1960 election and was “cheated out of it” in Chicago.

Cortes flagged the scenario as an “utter improbability,” noting that Trump “handily” won the three states. Trump won by more than 3 percentage points in Florida, 8 percentage points in Ohio, and more than 8 percentage points in Iowa.

“Let’s make sure we count every legal vote; if we do so, we will once again swear in President Donald J. Trump for a second term,” he said.

It comes as dozens of GOP lawmakers in the House and one in the Senate have pledged to challenge key states that were flagged by Trump’s campaign and some state lawmakers as having irregularities or fraud during the Nov. 3 election. On Wednesday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) became the first member of the upper chamber to announce he would be challenging the Electoral College votes, joining an effort led by Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), during the Joint Session of Congress on Jan. 6.

Some GOP senators have said their effort is doomed to fail. After a challenge is lodged during the Joint Session, it triggers a two-hour debate per state, and then, both chambers will have to vote on whether to certify a state’s Electoral College votes. Trump has said he supports the effort.

And on Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence’s lawyers asked a federal judge to reject a lawsuit from Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and other Republicans to expand Pence’s powers to allow him to overturn electors.

Pence argued via his lawyers that he is not a proper defendant in the lawsuit.

“A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction,” a Department of Justice attorney representing the vice president wrote.