Trump campaign legal fight keyed to court of public opinion

The Trump campaign’s effort to change the outcome of the presidential election increasingly is moving from a legal setting to the court of public opinion, where the campaign continues to sow doubt about the contest's integrity and hopes to win over public officials with a role in certifying the results.

The shift in focus coincides with the appointment of Rudy Giuliani to head the campaign’s legal effort. The former New York mayor's strategy reportedly entails a longshot bid to pressure Republican lawmakers in key battleground states to approve pro-Trump electors rather than certify their state's popular vote.

Although the campaign has little success to show in the courts, at least by any traditional measure, the flood of post-election litigation is likely a major contributor to the perception among Trump’s supporters that the vote was tainted by widespread fraud. About half of Republicans believe Trump rightfully won the election, but that it was stolen from him by widespread fraud, and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans said the election was rigged, according to a Reuters poll.

“Whereas most ordinary Americans view the courts, politics and the media as separate spheres, Trump understands them all as information battlegrounds—avenues of influence to the central goal of casting doubt,” wrote Jon Rauch, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution.