Donald Trump To Break A Century-Old Tradition If He Refuses To Concede To Joe Biden

Donald Trump will break a 124-year tradition if he refuses to deliver a public concession speech following his loss to Joe Biden. Political experts said his refusal to concede would also undermine the election results and aggravate the political tensions in the U.S.

Donald Trump claimed on Saturday that the election was far from over. As his Democratic rival inched closer to victory, Trump made a series of baseless claims about election fraud and accused Democrats of trying to “steal” the election. His attorney, Rudy Giuliani, also declared on Saturday that Trump would not concede and revealed plans to challenge the election results in the courts.

William Howell of the University of Chicago said Trump would hurt the country’s democracy if he would not concede to Biden. “Concession speeches are a kind of affirmation about the legitimacy of elections,” he said. “They’re about losing candidates recognizing the outcome and calling on their followers to do the same, which is essential for the health of our democracy,” he added.

Scott Farris, the author of “Almost President: The Men Who Lost the Race but Changed the Nation,” said, however, that Donald Trump would hardly be the first losing candidate to question the election results. He said Richard Nixon was also sure he had been cheated in the 1960 elections against John Kennedy but later realized the need to prove he was a good loser if he did not want his future in politics to be over.

Farris said like Nixon, Trump might also realize being a sore loser would reflect badly on him and his children so he might end up acknowledging his defeat. “As he looks ahead, I think it’ll come to him that ‘I need to say something and be fairly a good sport about this,” said Farris.

Farris added that even if Trump publicly recognizes Joe Biden’s win and decides to give a concession speech, it could be one of the less gracious concession speeches the Americans would have ever heard. “I certainly don’t expect him to say, ‘Well, that’s the way the breaks go,” he said. “It was a fair fight and c’est la vie.”

Every losing presidential candidate in the U.S. since 1896 has delivered a concession message, whether by telegram to the winning candidate or via a televised address to the nation.