Dozens of House Democrats are skipping President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, but not a single Democratic senator has so far joined them.
Democrats in the Senate give a variety of explanations.
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They say Trump won the election and that they want to respect the peaceful transition of power in the United States.
“He won the Electoral College, I don’t think there’s any question that didn’t win through the process that we have,” Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) said in an interview with The Hill’s Molly K. Hooper.
Another Democrat, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, said he was attending “out of respect for the peaceful transition of the democratic process.”
Other Democratic Senators, including Maria Cantwell (Wash.) and Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), said they also are attending the inauguration.
In the House, nearly 60 Democrats have said they will skip the inauguration.
Many are citing Trump’s divisive rhetoric for their actions, while some took offense to his description of Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) as a man of all talk and no action.
Lewis has said Trump is not a legitimate president.
Another factor may be that senators represent entire states, rather than districts. Even in states won by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, they could alienate a sizable number of voters.
Peters and Baldwin both represent states that Trump won in upsets.
Watch the video above to hear the senators in their own words.