Page:Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.pdf/232



the election. There were not enough outstanding votes in the battleground States for President Trump to overcome Biden's lead. President Trump disagreed and insisted that he would still prevail through legal challenges.

But the data did not lie.

On November 7th, the Associated Press called Pennsylvania and the overall presidential election for former Vice President Biden. At that point, a small team of the President's campaign advisors including Stepien met with the President and told him that his path to victory was virtually non-existent. The campaign team conveyed to the President that his chance of success was only "5, maybe 10 percent," which Stepien explained to the Committee was a "very, very, very bleak" assessment.

In retrospect, the campaign's estimate of a 5 to 10 percent chance of winning, as of November 7th, was far too optimistic. In one of the most favorable possible scenarios, for example, President Trump and his team would need to win recounts in Arizona and Georgia, while also prevailing in litigation challenging absentee or vote by mail ballots in Wisconsin, or possibly Michigan or Pennsylvania. But the election wasn't even close enough to trigger automatic recounts in Arizona or Georgia.