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But others have grown frustrated that Mr Hawley has pushed the party into a lose-lose choice and has done little to explain his actions. When Republican senators convened on New Years Eve to discuss the impending certification process, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, twice asked Mr. Hawley to explain his views. The requests were met in silence; Mr Hawley was not online, aides said, due to a scheduling conflict.
He still has not said which states he intends to oppose. House Republicans are eyeing six – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But so far, Mr Hawley has chosen only Pennsylvania, where he argues that a law relaxing restrictions on postal voting violated the state’s Constitution.
Mr McConnell had vigorously discouraged senators from joining the House’s objections, warning that this could put Republicans in a difficult position, especially those who would be re-elected in 2022. Senator Roy Blunt, the senior state senator of Mr. Hawley is one of them.
“I think if you have a plan, it should be a plan that is likely to work,” Mr Blunt told reporters on Sunday, although an aide declined a request for an interview with Mr Hawley.
In the face of Republican criticism, Mr. Hawley wrote to his colleagues saying he would rather have a Senate debate “for all the American people to judge” rather than “by press release, conference call or email.”
It is a position other senators might be reluctant to put their colleagues in, but like Mr. Trump, Mr. Hawley prides himself on breaking Washington conventions.
He often promotes his education in a small town in western Missouri, invoking the coastal elites who he says have used big business, technology and the media to slowly marginalize workers. Although he has deeply conservative views on abortion rights and other cultural issues, he speaks comfortably about the dignity of work and unions in language often used by the left. When the coronavirus pandemic began to ravage the economy last year, he first pushed for government-sponsored salary replacement and then $ 2,000 direct payments to Americans, teaming up with Senator Bernie Sanders , independent from Vermont.
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