So this is incorrect. If Trump hypothetically managed to delay the election past January 20, the result would not be President Pelosi. It would be President Patrick Leahy.
Allow me to explain why. /1 https://t.co/8OxwOy1Ejq
— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) March 18, 2020
Here’s his hypothesis:
Without an election, Trump and Pence’s terms would expire, as would every member of the House of Representatives. That means the president pro tempore of the Senate would become president. Because of the non-election, 35 members of the Senate would also be gone because of their expired terms. Of the 65 remaining members, there would be 36 Democrats and 29 Republicans, making octogenarian and die-hard Batman fan Patrick Leahy the president pro tempore (as he has been in the past), and therefore the new President of the United States.
(The Senate does not have to choose the longest-serving member of the majority party. That is just a custom.)