Trump Will Contest 2020 Election Results Unless Democrats Run To The Center, Pelosi Warns

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made an eye-opening assertion about Democrats and their strategy for the 2020 election: If the Democrats run to the left and win the election, President Trump might contest the results of it.

The comments came in an interview with The New York Times, published on Saturday. Pelosi, who continued to state that she opposes the impeachment of the president prior to the next election, stated that she believes it’s important that the Democrats win the 2020 election by so much that Trump can’t contest the results.

“We have to inoculate against that, we have to be prepared for that,” the speaker told the newspaper. She added that the Democrats won the 2018 midterm elections in the House by focusing on “health care, bigger paychecks, cleaner government — a simple message,” rather that what she termed “other exuberances that exist in our party,” such as Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and other proposals from some in the Democratic caucus. Pelosi did not express a preference for any particular Democratic candidate.

Pelosi argued that an impeachment inquiry that would lose in the Republican-held Senate, as well as a more overtly left-wing presidential campaign, would result in an election so close that Trump would refuse to accept the election’s legitimacy.

There was some concern among Democrats, during the 2016 election, that Trump would refuse to accept any election result in which he lost. Trump, after losing the 2016 Iowa caucuses to Ted Cruz, claimed on Twitter, without evidence, that the caucus had been rigged against him, per The New York Times.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi's “coldblooded” plan for defeating President Trump, who she worries would challenge a slim Democratic victory in 2020, focuses on moderate voters and avoiding a protracted impeachment bid https://t.co/hzfnfE7naf

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 4, 2019

In October of 2016, during the final presidential debate in that year’s general election campaign, CNN reported, Trump was asked if he would pledge to accept the results of the election, and he said he would, “if I win.” But even though he did win, Trump claimed on multiple occasions in 2017, also without evidence, that “millions” of undocumented immigrants had voted in the election, per NPR.

Many Democrats reacted negatively to Pelosi’s comments.

“Argggggggghhhhhgfhhh why are they so naive?, journalist Mehdi Hasan tweeted. “He will challenge it *regardless* of what ‘moderates’ think or who they vote for.”

“THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE JUST TOLD THE NEW YORK TIMES THAT SHE DOESN’T TRUST THE PRESIDENT TO STEP DOWN IF HE LOSES NEXT YEAR’S ELECTION,” historian Angus Johnston tweeted, before asking why Pelosi’s belief that Trump will refuse to leave office upon an election defeat isn’t a bigger deal.