It was true that there had been unprecedented allegations about the 2020 election. Donald Trump and his allies had spent months making these allegations, spreading stolen-election lies they knew to be false. The senators cited a poll showing that 39 percent of Americans believed “the election was rigged.” In other words, these 11 senators were taking the position that because Donald Trump had successfully spread falsehoods about election fraud, and because a poll showed many people believed those falsehoods, Congress could refuse to do what the Constitution explicitly required.
