Congress's move Monday to certify Donald Trump's presidential victory marked the return of a mundane ceremony that will be remembered mostly for what it was not: the rampage of four years ago, when a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in a failed effort to overturn Trump's defeat.
Those events of Jan. 6, 2021 — which was fueled largely by Trump's lies about a "stolen" election — have been a flash point of tensions between Trump's allies and critics in both parties ever since, sparking countless clashes over the nature of the riot, Trump's actions surrounding it and his fitness for returning to power.
This time around, the election outcome was not in dispute. Democrats were stung by Trump's victory, but none in the party are contesting it. And yet the violence of four years ago was still a potent feature of Monday's joint session on Capitol Hill, where the complex was encircled by a massive steel security fence, law enforcement officers were out in force and reporters flocked to cover every angle of the process, focusing the nation's attention squarely on a humdrum constitutional ritual that was largely ignored outside the Beltway before 2021.
Democrats made a point not to be confrontational or challenge state results, despite having done so in years past. That strategy, which was encouraged by party leaders in the weeks leading up to Monday, was designed to send a simple message: We are not like them.
“It was a peaceful day because we have no election deniers on our side of the aisle,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a former constitutional law professor who led Trump’s second impeachment following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, said Monday. “Constitutional virtue is its own reward, and we're standing up for the Constitution today.”
If observers needed another reminder of the contrasting approaches to election certification in the Trump era, the process was overseen by two figures who played outsize roles in the Trump saga: Vice President Harris, who was defeated by Trump in November and conceded the election, and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), a close Trump ally who had crafted the legal rationale for challenging President Biden's victory four years ago.
Then, the certification process stretched into the early hours of Jan. 7, delayed by the riot and Republican challenges to Trump’s defeat in two battleground states. On Monday, the entire ritual was over in 30 minutes.
Many Republicans have sought to reframe the history of the Capitol rampage, saying it was merely a protest that got out of hand. And Monday, they celebrated Trump weeks ahead of his swearing in at the Capitol on Jan. 20. Trump allies such as Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) wore MAGA hats around the Capitol.
Afterward, Johnson took a victory lap, characterizing Trump’s win as “the greatest political comeback in American history.”
“His landslide election and corresponding mandate from the American people dictate that Congress waste no time in delivering on the America First agenda, and we are prepared to hit the ground running,” Johnson said.
Harris, while presiding, was businesslike. She never clapped or changed her facial expression as four lawmakers, known as tellers, read out the election results. Once she gaveled in, she stood up, with her hands clasped and looking forward.
Johnson, sitting next to her, clapped along when a teller would read that Trump won a certain state, and Vice President-elect JD Vance (R-Ohio), sitting with his Senate colleagues during the certification, also clapped. Democrats would clap when a state was called that Harris won, but that was the extent of noise from that side of the aisle.
The whole event had very little fanfare.
To end the certification, Harris announced Trump received 312 electors out of the 538, and Republicans, including Johnson next to her, stood up and clapped and cheered.
“Kamala D. Harris of the state of California has received 226 votes,” she then said and stopped while Democrats stood up to clap for her. She smiled softly and then tapped the gavel.
In brief remarks afterward, Harris said a certification without fanfare “should be the norm.”
“Today, I did what I have done my entire career, which is take seriously the oath that I have taken many times to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, which included today, performing my constitutional duty to ensure that the people of America, the voters of America, will have their votes counted,” Harris said, adding that America’s democracy must be fought for and can be “very fragile.”
“Today, America’s democracy stood,” she said.
Four years ago, as Trump lobbed false allegations of a “stolen” election, a mob of his supporters stormed into the Capitol to protest the certification of Biden’s election. More than 140 law enforcement officers were injured, and three would die in the days and weeks that followed, including two by suicide. One rioter was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer as she tried to enter the Speaker’s lobby abutting the House chamber.
Later that night, a majority of House Republicans — 139 lawmakers — voted to overturn Trump’s defeat in Arizona, Pennsylvania or both.
Then-Vice President Mike Pence cemented his role in history that day when he bucked the pressure from Trump to overturn Biden’s victory. As a result, rioters storming the Capitol chanted “hang Mike Pence,” turning on Trump’s second-in-command.
Pence praised Harris on Monday for presiding over the election that she lost, calling the peaceful transfer of power “the hallmark of our democracy and today.”
Trump’s first vice president said on the social platform X that it was “particularly admirable that Vice President Harris would preside over the certification of a presidential election that she lost.”
Before four years ago, the vice president’s role in officiating the Electoral College count before Congress, the final step in the election process before a president takes the White House, was mostly uneventful.
Some Democrats highlighted the normalcy of Monday in comparison to 2021, criticizing Republicans and Trump while doing so.
“I’m in the Capitol right now to certify the electoral vote. It is quiet,” Sen Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), wrote on X. “Do not take that for granted. Do not think our democracy is healthy. No, our democracy is in grave peril because one party still believes in using violence to achieve power.”
Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), the Democratic House whip, said her party will vote to certify the results “because we are democracy believers, not election deniers.”
She added on X, “Because we will always honor the will of the people, not bow to the dictates of one man.”
Emily Brooks contributed.
