Hi, I'm Dan Premak, host of Axios Recap.

And welcome to another special Axios Election 2020 podcast.

What we're watching right now is how Donald Trump may have won even if he loses.

We're joined now by Axios co-founder and CEO even if he loses.

We're joined now by Axios co-founder and CEO Jim Vandahai.

So Jim, we still don't know who is going to win the White House. But you make an argument in a newsletter this morning that win or lose Donald Trump

in the last 24 hours has solidified his grip on the

GOP. Can you unpack that a bit? Explain what you mean? Yeah, I can't stress enough how much

more powerful today he is, even in defeat if he were to lose, than he was 24 or 48 hours ago.

And the reason is, not only did he defy expectations for himself, that he basically

expanded the electorate, did better with Hispanics, did better with women, brought all these

new people in in rural America, not only do that for himself, but look at how many House Republicans

won that didn't think they would win. And Donald Trump was the only one saying they had a

chance to win back the House. They were certain they were going to lose the Senate and they didn't.

And so now he stands here, even if he were to lose, not only just the titular head of the party,

he'll be seen almost as a profit that he just sees something in the Republican Party that most

Republicans don't see.

And he's not going to surrender that power.

He's going to use that power to basically demand allegiance as he takes this thing all the way to the Supreme Court if he can.

If he protests the results of this for potentially days, weeks, in months, he's going to expect total loyalty.

He's going to get total loyalty. There's

nobody in the establishment that has his power, that has his reach, that has his popularity.

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