Trump lays groundwork to challenge 2024 results if he loses

Jill Colvin

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump has spent months laying the groundwork to challenge the 2024 election results if he loses – just as he did four years ago.

At rally after rally, he urges his supporters to win a victory “too big to falsify,” telling them the only way they can lose is if the Democrats cheat. He has repeatedly refused to say whether he would accept the results regardless of the outcome. And he said fraud was already taking place, citing debunked claims or outrageous theories that had no basis in fact.

“The only thing that can stop us is fraud. This is the only thing that can stop us,” he said at an event in Arizona late Thursday.

In 2020, Trump prematurely declared victory in the White House. He mounted legal and political efforts to overturn his defeat by Democrat Joe Biden, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol by his supporters.

Democrats fear he could do the same this year before the election is called. On Friday in Dearborn, Michigan, he did not answer a question about those Democratic concerns, instead moving on to attack Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump has made election lies a centerpiece of his 2024 campaign, feverishly warning of fraud while vowing revenge on people he believes stand in his way.

This year, he is supported by a sophisticated election integrity operation created by his campaign and the Republican National Committee, which has already filed more than 130 lawsuits and recruited more than 230,000 volunteers who are being trained to work as poll watchers and election workers. throughout the region. country on election day.

Here’s a look at Trump’s strategy to sow doubt in this year’s election and the facts behind each claim.

Non-citizen voting

CLAIM: Trump claimed, without evidence, that Democrats allowed millions of migrants to enter the country illegally so they could register to vote. In a September interview with Newsmax, Trump said such efforts were already underway.

“They are working overtime trying to illegally sign people up to vote in elections,” he said. “They are working overtime signing and registering people – many of the same people you just saw crossing the border. That was probably their initial thought, because otherwise why would they want to destroy our country?”

FACTS: It takes years for newcomers to become citizens, and only citizens can legally vote in federal elections. Isolated cases in which noncitizens have been caught attempting to vote—such as the University of Michigan student from China arrested on charges of illegal voting—do not reflect a larger conspiracy.

Studies have shown that illegal registration and voting by non-citizens is extremely rare and is usually done by mistake.

Ballots for voting abroad

CLAIM: Trump pointed to Democratic efforts to secure votes for Americans living abroad as another opportunity for fraud. He claims they are “getting ready to FUCK!” and “want to weaken the TRUE voices of our wonderful military and their families.”

FACTS: The former president himself campaigned for the votes of Americans abroad, promising to end so-called “double taxation” for people who frequently pay taxes in the country where they live, as well as the US government.

Ominous Warnings

CLAIM: Trump began to suggest that Harris might have access to some secret inside information about the outcome of the election race, which has not yet been decided.

As the vice president took the day off to do interviews with Telemundo and NBC, he repeatedly suggested, “Maybe she knows something we don’t know.”

Last weekend in Michigan, he suggested that Harris would never have campaigned alongside Beyoncé – one of the world’s biggest stars – if the race was truly as close as polls suggest.

“First of all, they cheat like hell. So maybe they know something we don’t, right?” – he said. “They may know something that we don’t know, I don’t know. Why the hell would she celebrate when you’re depressed? Maybe—I never thought about it—maybe she knows something we don’t. But we won’t let that happen.”

FACTS: There is no evidence to support a democratic conspiracy. Indeed, Trump fanned fears about his own domestic plans at a rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden when he looked at House Speaker Mike Johnson and revealed a “little secret” they had.

Johnson, before becoming speaker, took the lead in drafting a widely criticized document seeking to overturn Trump’s 2020 defeat and repeated some of the wildest conspiracy theories to explain his defeat.

When asked about Trump’s reference to a “little secret,” Johnson issued a statement saying, “By definition, a secret cannot be shared—and I have no intention of sharing it.” (He later told the audience that this was due to “one of our get-out-the-vote tactics,” according to The Hill. Trump’s campaign released a statement noting that he had “held countless televised rallies” to support Republicans in Congress ). candidates.)

Turning to Pennsylvania

CLAIM: Trump in recent days has turned his ire to Pennsylvania, a state that both campaigns consider critical and where he says fraud is already happening.

Earlier this week, he said York County, Pennsylvania, “received THOUSANDS of potentially FRAUDULENT voter registration forms and mail-in ballot applications from a third-party group.” He also pointed to Lancaster County, which he said was “caught with 2,600 fraudulent ballots and forms written by the same person.” Really bad things.”

During a campaign event in Allentown on Tuesday, the former president said: “They’ve already started cheating in Lancaster. They cheated. We caught them with 2600 votes. No, we took them by surprise. 2600 votes. Think about it, think about it. And every voice was written by the same person.”

FACTS: In Lancaster, County District Attorney Heather Adams, an elected Republican, said election officials raised concerns about two sets of voter registration applications because of what she called numerous similarities. Officials are currently checking a total of about 2,500 forms.