ELECTION/GOP/SENATE/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE/VOTER FRAUD: “The concerted effort by Republicans in Washington and Florida to discredit the state’s recount as illegitimate and potentially rife with fraud reflects a cold political calculation: Treat the recount as the next phase of a campaign to secure the party’s majority and agenda in the Senate. That imperative — described by Republican lawyers, strategists and advisers involved in the effort — reflects the G.O.P.’s determination to tighten its hold on power in the narrowly divided Senate. The outcome of the Florida race will decide whether the party controls as many as 53 seats and has a freer hand to confirm Republican-backed judges with the vote of the man at the center of the recount, Gov. Rick Scott, who is trying to oust a three-term Democrat, Bill Nelson…The effort that Mr. Scott and Republican allies are waging today is strikingly similar to that multifront war in 2000 led by the George W. Bush campaign and an army of party consultants…There is one new variable, however: Mr. Trump. The president, who has long fanned unfounded claims of voter fraud, is especially concerned with the Florida outcome, according to people in touch with him about the recount…Mr. Trump sees the recounts, one person close to him said, as akin to a personal attack.”
–Jeremy W. Peters and Maggie Haberman, “Inside the Republican Strategy to Discredit the Florida Recount,” The New York Times online, November 12, 2018