by
N. Peter Kramer
Despite intense pressure on state electors across the US to reject Mr Trump, he easily won more than the 270 electoral votes needed to become president. Some electors defied the will of the voters in their states. Two Texan Republican electors cast ballots for other Republicans than Trump, John Kasich and Ron Paul. On the Democratic side, it was worse. Four Washington state electors refused to cast ballots for Hillary Clinton. In Hawaii, one Democratic elector voted for Bernie Sanders. In Colorado and Main, Democratic electors tried also to cast votes for Bernie Sanders. But in Maine the elector was ordered to vote again, while in Colorado the elector was replaced.
The vote of the Electoral Trump has broadly unified the Republican Party behind him in the weeks since his election. In a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, some 75% of Republicans had a positive view of Trump, up from 57% in the week before the election.
Halfway through a transition from election to the inauguration, Donald Trump is forging a transactional path to the presidency. He is passing over loyalists, defending people he once pilloried and rethinking central campaign promises as he assembles his administration. This pragmatism of the President-elect has been in evidence at recent campaign style rallies. He stopped the crowd from booing former rival Hillary Clinton or heckling President Obama.
Trump extended olive branches to the highest ranked Republicans who didn’t support him in the campaign. He appointed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s wife, former Labour Secretary Elaine Chao to head of the Transportation Department. And one of House Speaker Paul Ryan’s closest friends in the House, representative Tom Price from Georgia, as the next Health and Human Services secretary.
Kellyanne Conway, Trumps campaign chief, said recently in an interview: ‘the thing people don’t understand about Donald Trump is that he’s a transactional guy, and he has been his whole life. This is how he built his career. There is no doubt Mr Trump wants to get the job done.’
