As Election Day approaches, former President Donald Trump increasingly warns that if he loses, it will be because of cheating.
‘They’re going to cheat. They cheat. That’s all they want to do is cheat,” Trump said of Democrats at a rally this month in Juneau, Wisconsin. ‘It’s the only way they can win. And we can’t let that happen, and we can’t let that happen again. We will have no land left.”
He followed up a rally in Greenville, North Carolina, last week by looking out into the crowd at Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley and asking, “They’re trying, but are they — they can’t get away with it ? , right?”
And at a rally in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, in September, Trump claimed he would win despite cheating and then prosecute those involved in the alleged voter fraud.
“If we win, we’re going to prosecute people who cheated in this election. And if we can, we’ll also go back to the last one, if that’s allowed,” Trump said, referring to the 2020 election. “We’re going to prosecute people, so at least they know that’s going to happen.”
Trump has long falsely claimed he is the legitimate winner of the 2020 election, and false claims of Democratic interference have been the centerpiece of his campaign this cycle. But by preemptively casting doubt on the results, Trump is paving the way to potentially call the outcome into question and throw the electoral system into chaos again.
An NBC News analysis found that Trump mentioned the likelihood of Democratic fraud in the November election at 14 of his last 20 rallies. By comparison, over the summer, Trump referred only five times in 20 rally speeches to Democrats trying to cheat in the 2024 race.
Democrats are already preparing for Trump to either declare a premature victory on election night or legally challenge the results if he loses. Some Trump allies have also speculated to NBC News that they expect him to declare himself the winner even if the results are not yet known.
“Of course,” Vice President Kamala Harris told NBC News in an interview last Tuesday when asked whether her campaign was preparing for such a scenario. “This is an individual, Donald Trump, who tried to overturn a free and fair election, who continues to deny the will of the people, who incited a violent mob to attack the United States Capitol and 140 law enforcement officers were attacked .”
Trump’s statements that he may not accept the election results are not new; it is the frequency that has increased. In May, he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “If all is fair, I would happily accept the results. If not, you have to fight for the right of the land.”
In late April, he would not dismiss the possibility of political violence, telling Time, “If we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of the elections.”
Printed on campaign signs scattered throughout the arenas and repeated in speech after speech from the former president is the phrase “too big to rig”; it’s about ensuring that so many voters choose Trump that any deception by Democrats is dwarfed.
In recent weeks, however, Trump has raised the possibility of widespread deception by Democrats:
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In an interview on the Sid Rosenberg podcast on October 7, Trump said: “These guys are going to an election and their first meeting is going to be [Democratic lawyer] Marc Elias and all these people who have them and figure out how to cheat. How do we cheat? And that’s all they think. It’s a passion for them.”
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Last month, Trump made a baseless accusation that Democrats are planning to use a decades-old law that allows Americans living abroad to vote by mail to “cheat.” In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote: “The Democrats talk about how they are working so hard to get millions of votes from Americans living abroad. Actually, they’re getting ready to cheat! …They want to dilute the TRUE voice of our wonderful military and their families…”
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Trump has repeatedly said, without evidence, that Democrats are registering undocumented immigrants to vote illegally. “They’re actually using it to cheat,” Trump said Oct. 8 on radio station KFI AM 640 in Los Angeles. “I think they’re putting a lot of people on the voter list and trying to get them to vote. ”
Last week, Trump claimed at a campaign rally that he would even win California in November, and claimed he would win it in 2020 as well, despite actually losing it to Joe Biden by 5 million votes — a claim he has made repeatedly since his tenure.
“If Jesus came down and was the voter counter, I would win California,” Trump told Phil McGraw in a September interview.
Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, and his billionaire ally Elon Musk have pushed similarly misleading claims about voter fraud.
At Trump’s return to Butler, Pennsylvania, this month, the Tesla CEO took the stage, encouraged the crowd to vote and warned them that if Trump loses, it would be the last U.S. election ever held.
“Gather everyone you know and everyone you don’t know, drag them to registration to vote,” Musk said. “Make sure they actually vote. If they don’t, this will be the last election,” he said.
On the same day, Vance falsely claimed that Democrats are working to give millions of undocumented immigrants the right to vote in U.S. elections.
“One of the things you’ve seen is the astonishing willingness of Democratic leaders in this country to talk about giving millions of illegal aliens the right to vote,” Vance claimed. “Giving the right to vote to millions of people who shouldn’t be here fundamentally deprives American citizens of their constitutional right to vote.”
But so far, Trump’s campaign has found no evidence that the 2024 election would not be free and fair, even when asked for comment for this article.
Trump himself acknowledged that he has not been able to identify a single instance of cheating so far in the 2024 election when he was asked by NBC News in Swannanoa, North Carolina, last week if he had any specific allegations.
“Well, I didn’t,” Trump replied. “Unfortunately, I know the other side and they are not good. But I haven’t seen it. Michael, have you seen anything suspicious? We are very early in the process.”
He then turned to Whatley, the chairman of the RNC, who responded: “Yes, we are very early in the process and we are now monitoring all fifty states to make sure that the systems we want have, work. in place. And we are very happy with the first results.”
Trump has had similarly mixed messages about early voting. He has remained outspokenly skeptical of the practice, noting on a handful of occasions that early voting will involve fraud.
“They have early voting, late voting, everything is so ridiculous,” Trump said on stage in Palm Beach, Florida, in July. “We should have one-day voting, paper ballots, voter identification and certification of citizenship. And that is what we strive for.”
But Trump has also spoken positively about early voting, usually in more choreographed settings. Trump posted a TikTok video encouraging people to vote early, and occasionally during campaign speeches he will make a prepared comment encouraging early voting, without reservations. Trump himself also voted early in Florida in September.
Trump also expressed doubts about the federal government’s disaster relief efforts in particularly rural, conservative areas of North Carolina that were hit by Hurricane Helene in September, suggesting the Biden-Harris administration was trying to cover victims in “Republican areas” not to help.
However, when asked last week if he had any concerns or reason to question the credibility or legitimacy of the election results in North Carolina as a result of the storm’s impact, Trump said this was not the case.
“No, I think it’s the opposite in a way,” Trump responded. “I mean, we’re so impressed, and I think they have a pretty good system here. Michael Whatley was responsible to some extent, and the new people who took Michael’s place. I don’t think I’ve heard any complaints about that yet.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
