Pennsylvania AG Defends Post Insisting Trump Will Lose State

Pennsylvania AG Defends Post Insisting Trump Will Lose State
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro in Philadelphia, Pa., on March 2, 2017. (Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images)
Zachary Stieber
11/3/2020
Updated:
11/3/2020

Pennsylvania’s attorney general defended a social media post in which he insisted Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will win.

“First off, there’s a lot of nonsense coming from the other side,” Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said in a Tuesday morning virtual appearance on CNN.

“But let’s examine the record here. Donald Trump and his enablers have gone to court time and time again to limit voter participation. To, as I referred to, to subtract votes from the equation. And I think it is clear, if someone felt that they had a good shot at winning the election—and the polls are what they are, suggest that he’s not—if someone felt confident in their ability to win the election with a certified electorate, then why would they be going to court over and over and over again to try and subtract votes?”

Shapiro received widespread criticism after posting on the social media website Twitter last week.

“If all the votes are added up in PA, Trump is going to lose,” Pennsylvania’s top law enforcement official claimed.

President Donald Trump’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.

On left, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks at a get-out-the-vote drive-in rally at Cleveland Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland, Ohio, on Nov. 2, 2020. On right, President Donald Trump gestures while addressing a campaign rally at the Wilkes-Barre Scranton International Airport in Avoca, Pa., Nov. 2, 2020. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images; Gene J. Puskar/AP Photo)
On left, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks at a get-out-the-vote drive-in rally at Cleveland Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland, Ohio, on Nov. 2, 2020. On right, President Donald Trump gestures while addressing a campaign rally at the Wilkes-Barre Scranton International Airport in Avoca, Pa., Nov. 2, 2020. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images; Gene J. Puskar/AP Photo)

Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes are coveted by both Trump and Biden. The candidates have spent significant amounts of time in the state in recent days to try to woo voters.

Trump has repeatedly criticized election officials in Pennsylvania, who received a boost from the Supreme Court last week that let ballots postmarked on or before Election Day be received up to three days later.

The decision from the nation’s highest court will “allow rampant and unchecked cheating and will undermine our entire systems of laws“ and ”induce violence in the streets,” the president claimed.

The extension was originally ordered not by the state Legislature, but by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

The Biden campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment on the matter.