There is no hope that will happen. “No lawsuit is active that can change one, much less three or four states’ results,” radio host and author Hugh Hewitt tweeted Thursday morning. “Perhaps one is forthcoming, but not filed yet.” Hewitt’s second sentence was charitable: Yes, there still is a possibility that some super-lawsuit is on the way, but no indication that one actually is.

But what if there were recounts in key states? In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning, Republican strategist Karl Rove notes that in the last 50 years there have only been three recounts that overturned the results of statewide elections — a Senate race in New Hampshire in 1974, a governor’s race in Washington state in 2004, and a Senate race in Minnesota in 2008. “The candidates in these races were separated, respectively, by 355, 261, and 215 votes after Election Day,” Rove notes. That strongly suggests there is no chance of a recount overturning a 10,000-plus vote lead, much less of that happening in three states.

None of this is terribly hard to believe. Look at it this way: In 2016, Trump won by pulling off narrow victories in a few key states. In 2020, he lost by suffering narrow defeats in some of those same places. There is not a huge difference between a narrow victory and a narrow defeat. The change from 2016 to 2020 is not surprising, especially given the beating Trump endured on every single day of his presidency.