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WASHINGTON — Four years after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to keep Donald Trump in power, lawmakers gathered for a joint session of Congress to certify the president-elect’s 2024 Electoral College victory two weeks before he returns to the White House.
The proceedings were far less eventful than in 2021, when rioters attacked law enforcement and attempted to reach lawmakers behind barricaded doors, with then-Vice President Mike Pence and other senior officials whisked off the House floor to heavily guarded locations. This time, Trump’s general election rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, oversaw a calm, peaceful and relatively short certification process that saw no objections from House or Senate members.
“The votes for president of the United States are as follows: Donald J. Trump of the state of Florida has received 312 votes,” Harris said after each state’s electors had been counted. “Kamala D. Harris of the state of California has received 226 votes.”
Trump also beat Harris by around 2 million ballots in the popular vote. Unlike the 147 Republican lawmakers who objected to Trump’s 2020 losses in certain states, frustrated Democrats have accepted the decision of the voters.
The day’s return to a U.S. tradition that launches the peaceful transfer of presidential power comes with an asterisk as Trump prepares to take office in two weeks with a revived sense of authority. He denies that he lost fairly four years ago, muses about staying beyond the Constitution’s two-term White House limit and promises to pardon some of the more than 1,250 people who have pleaded guilty or were convicted of crimes for the Capitol siege.
What’s unclear is if Jan. 6, 2021, was the anomaly or if this year’s expected calm becomes the outlier. The U.S. is struggling to cope with its political and cultural differences at a time when democracy worldwide is threatened. Trump calls Jan. 6, 2021, a "day of love."
Vice President-elect JD Vance, still a senator from Ohio, was in attendance Monday but declined to answer questions from reporters on whether Trump should pardon those convicted for their actions during the Capitol attack. He has previously said he would not have certified President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory had he been in Pence’s shoes that day.
On Monday, Pence congratulated Trump and Vance, while commending lawmakers for doing "their duty" and describing Harris’ role in the proceedings as "particularly admirable." The former vice president did not endorse his old running mate after mounting a brief primary challenge.
Biden, speaking Sunday at events at the White House, called Jan. 6, 2021, "one of the toughest days in American history."
"We’ve got to get back to the basic, normal transfer of power," the president said. What Trump did last time, Biden said, "was a genuine threat to democracy. I’m hopeful we’re beyond that now."
Still, American democracy has proven to be resilient, and Congress, the branch of government closest to the people, will come together to affirm the choice of Americans.
With pomp and tradition, the day unfolded as it had frequently before 2021, with the arrival of ceremonial mahogany boxes filled with the electoral certificates from the states — boxes that staff were frantically grabbing and protecting as Trump’s mob stormed the building last time.
Senators walked across the Capitol — which four years ago had filled with roaming rioters, some defecating and menacingly calling out for leaders, others engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police — to the House to begin certifying the vote on Monday afternoon
Harris presided over the counting, as is the requirement for the vice president, and certified her own defeat — much the way Democrat Al Gore did in 2001 and Republican Richard Nixon did in 1961.
"The peaceful transfer of power is one of the most fundamental principles of American democracy," Harris said in a social media video posted Monday morning. "This duty is a sacred obligation, one I will uphold, guided by love of country, loyalty to our Constitution, and my unwavering faith in the American people.
"As we have seen, our democracy can be fragile, and it is up to then each one of us to stand up for our most cherished principles, and to make sure that in America, our government always remains of the people, by the people, and for the people," the outgoing vice president added.
She stood alongside House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., at the dais where then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was abruptly rushed to safety last time as the mob closed in and lawmakers fumbled to put on gas masks and flee, and shots rang out as police killed Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter trying to climb through a broken glass door toward the chamber.
“I unambiguously condemn in the strongest possible terms any and all forms of violent protest. Any individual who committed violence today should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Johnson wrote on Jan. 6, 2021. “It is beyond time to remember that while we may disagree, we are all Americans, and there is far more that unites us than divides us.”
But Johnson helped lead his fellow House Republicans in seeking to undo Trump’s 2020 losses in four swing states after that election and has pledged to investigate members of the House committee who probed the attack on the Capitol. A loyal ally to the president-elect, Johnson continued to spread false claims about the 2020 election and insist Biden did not win it fairly as recently as last year.
There are new procedural rules in place in the aftermath of what happened four years ago, when Republicans parroting Trump’s lie that the election was fraudulent challenged the results their own states had certified.
Under changes to the Electoral Count Act, it now requires one-fifth of lawmakers, instead of just one in each chamber, to raise any objections to election results. With security as tight as it is for the Super Bowl or the Olympics, law enforcement is on high alert for intruders. No tourists will be allowed.
But none of that ended up being necessary.
Republicans, who met with Trump behind closed doors at the White House before Jan. 6, 2021, to craft a complex plan to challenge his election defeat, have accepted his win this time.
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., who led the House floor challenge in 2021, said people at the time were so astonished by the election’s outcome and there were "lots of claims and allegations."
This time, he said, "I think the win was so decisiv … it stifled most of that."
Democrats, who have raised symbolic objections in the past, including during the disputed 2000 election that Gore lost to George W. Bush and ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, had no intention of objecting. In a 10-minute floor speech before the certification Monday, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer recounted the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, warned that pardoning convicted rioters would undermine U.S. democracy and urged an end to election denialism.
"We are setting an example today," Schumer said. "Even though the elections did not go Democrats way, I want to be very clear, on this Jan. 6 our side will not engage in election denialism. We Democrats accept the will of the people. We hope that the way we Democrats conduct ourselves today helps those Republicans who tried to subvert the election of four years ago understand the grave nature of their mistake."
In social media posts, Trump acknowledged the anniversary of the attack by posting a photo of the crowd from that day and only briefly mentioned the certification of his 2024 victory in the hours before the proceedings. Neither he nor his campaign immediately commented after the certification process concluded.
"CONGRESS CERTIFIES OUR GREAT ELECTION VICTORY TODAY — A BIG MOMENT IN HISTORY. MAGA!" Trump wrote Monday morning.
