The election is decided and Joe Biden will become the 46th president of the United States.

At least that’s the understanding shared by 80% of the public, the media, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and one of the GOP’s top strategists – Karl Rove. 

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Rove wrote, “the president’s efforts [to challenge the election] are unlikely to move a single state from Mr. Biden’s column, and certainly they’re not enough to change the final outcome.”

But President Trump isn’t accepting these facts.

He continues to tweet out unfounded allegations of voter fraud while his team bombards supporters with fundraising emails and texts imploring them to finance his effort, featuring messages like, “I need YOU to FIGHT BACK!”

In reality, those fundraising efforts have been financing the repayment of Trump campaign debt, and funding the Republican National Committee as well as a new Trump Political Action Committee called “Save America.”

Meanwhile, lawyers are advancing the president’s claims of fraud in swing states across the nation. In many cases, they are being thrown out or dismissed by judges. And those that are advancing – as Rove wrote – will not change the outcome. 

For example, in Pennsylvania the campaign and the GOP have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out ballots that arrive after Election Day, but those votes have not even been tallied, and aren’t included in Biden’s current lead of more than 53,000 votes (or 1%, well above the recount margin of 0.5%). 

In Georgia, a campaign lawsuit, asserting that ballots arriving after Election Day were being counted in Chatham County, was rapidly dismissed for lack of evidence. The state has announced a hand recount, but with Biden leading by more than 14,000 votes, it’s unlikely that the state’s 16 Electoral College votes will end up in the president’s column.

That hasn’t stopped some Republican leaders from advancing the president’s message.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has not recognized Biden as the president-elect, and suggested that he won’t until the Electoral College votes. The majority of Republican senators are falling in line.

One stands out: Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who sits on the Intelligence Committee.

He said that despite the president’s allegations of voter fraud, Biden should be receiving the President’s Daily Brief, or PDB – the daily report on intelligence threats: “If that’s not occurring by Friday, I will step in,” he told Tulsa radio station KRMG.

In a bad case scenario, this dispute could continue until the Electoral College meets and votes on Dec. 14.