They stood the line

New York Times reporter Luke Broadwater was on the Fresh Air podcast talking about the 2020 election and the J6 committee. He was saying that there was a lot of pressure put on state election officials to overturn the election but that they “stood the line”. This is a congruent conflation of “hold the line” and “stand firm”, both meaning to not yield to the pressure of a difficult position. A big thank you to Mike Kovacs for hearing this one and sending it in!