Vice President Kamala Harris, her campaign team and some of Donald Trump’s allies say they expect the former president to quickly declare victory on election night — even if the outcome in key swing states is not yet settled.
Between the time it takes to process mail-in ballots and provisional ballots in some battleground states, votes won’t be fully tabulated on election night. Projections on who will win a close presidential race may not come until days later, similar to the 2020 election.
NBC News spoke to four Trump allies, all of whom speculated that the former president could be willing to pull a repeat of 2020 and quickly declare that he is the winner on election night when that is not yet certain. The sources all noted that they did not immediately know this was a formal Trump campaign plan.
Others noted that this could be different in November as he is surrounded by a new set of top aides who would not force him to make such a statement.
Seven of Harris’s aides — and the vice president himself — said they are preparing if Trump does indeed prematurely say he has won or if he legally challenges the results if he loses.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
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Such a move could signal to Trump’s supporters that he has won and lead to skepticism that any votes received after Election Day are illegitimate and signs of unproven fraud.
“Of course,” Harris said in an interview with NBC News on Tuesday when asked whether her campaign was preparing for Trump to declare an early victory. “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 .”
“100%,” said a former Trump adviser when asked what the person thought were the chances of the former president prematurely saying he had won. “Duh! Is the Pope Catholic? There are few things in politics that I would ever say you could make a solid bet on. That’s one of them.”
An early declaration of victory could be facilitated by what is known as a ‘red mirage’. That happens when Republicans appear to have a lead on election night as in-person votes are generally counted quickly — but that lead could disappear in the days after Nov. 5 as absentee and early voting ballots are counted.
In 2020, Trump quickly declared victory on election night, even though he ultimately lost to Joe Biden.
A longtime Republican and Trump supporter said when talking to other Republicans, there is a widespread belief that the former president will claim a victory on election night no matter what.
“I’ve heard this from about 10 different people,” the person said, making it clear they had no direct knowledge of Trump’s plans. “Because of the way things are counted, it’s probably impossible for Democrats to be ahead on election night in places like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.”
“He will be able to tap into what Democrats called the ‘red mirage’ in 2020,” added this person, who, like others in this article, was granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Trump continues to cast doubt on the 2020 election, and the false idea that it was stolen from him through Democratic deception has been a rallying cry for his supporters throughout this campaign. He also continues to push the false narrative that non-citizens will vote in the 2024 elections and the scales will tip against him.
Aside from the fact that Trump has employed a similar strategy in the past, the likelihood of a “red mirage” is further increased by the fact that key swing states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia do not begin counting until after the election. the ballot papers. Day.
“That window between the polls closing and the election being called has, I think, proven to be a real vulnerability, where people who want to undermine confidence in those results if they’re going to lose have really taken advantage of that,” says Al Schmidt, Pennsylvania’s top elections official, told CBS on “60 Minutes” earlier this month.
Harris and other Democrats have been raising alarm bells about the possibility that Trump could declare a premature election victory, but even Republican supporters of the former president fully expect his campaign to consider this move.
“There’s not a part of me that doesn’t think this is part of the conversation,” said a Trump donor in the key swing state of North Carolina. “We’ve seen him do it before, and if he’s there on election night, I think his campaign will — perhaps smartly — try it again.”
Others do think that Trump has more to consider and different voices in his ear than 2020, and that several factors will be taken into account.
“The last time he was let down by Rudy Giuliani,” a former Trump adviser said, referring to the former New York City mayor’s role in pushing election conspiracy theories as Trump’s lawyer in the aftermath of the 2020 election . “That’s not going to happen. So who’s going to give him a spin this time?
The person said top campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita will not do that, and there is a sense among Republican supporters that his team of close advisers will try to suppress any effort to have Trump claim victory if it is not clear. he won.
A lawyer who worked for Trump in both 2016 and 2020 said a key indicator will be the kind of lawyers he has around him in the final days of the campaign, on election night and beyond. Those with great backgrounds who work for well-known law firms are less likely to risk their reputation for political shenanigans.
“The thing to watch is what lawyers will end up being around him. I was in this with him for two cycles,” Trump’s former lawyer said. “The difference in lawyers was incredible. It was night and day the difference between 2016, when he had the best law firms and attorneys in the country, and 2020.”
Roger Stone, a longtime Trump ally who continues to advise him politically, says there are past examples of presidential advisers telling candidates to call for an early election victory, including James Baker and George W. Bush in 2000, and Joseph Kennedy who are son John told F. Kennedy would make a similar move in 1960.
In documentary footage from 2020 election night, Stone is caught on tape advising Trump to declare victory even if the results are in doubt.
“I suspect it will be, I really suspect it will be up in the air,” Stone said at the time. “When that happens, the most important thing to do is claim victory. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Now we won, f— you.”
“When I said it in 2020, I was accused of saying that Trump should declare victory even if he ‘lost,’ which is not even remotely what I said,” Stone told NBC News. He did not specify whether he was urging Trump to secure an early victory for himself this year.
He added that he was simply following a well-worn path laid out by former presidential advisers. The comment became a piece of evidence used by the House of Representatives committee on January 6, 2022, when it tried to show that Trump wanted to prematurely claim that he had defeated Biden.
Harris aides told NBC News that they not only expect Trump to claim victory on election night even if the outcome remains in doubt — or legally challenge the results if he loses — but that they are also actively planning for that scenario.
“There is no one in the campaign who believes the election will happen on Election Day,” said one longtime aide.
Campaign officials have instead been preparing for the results to be announced within a few days of Election Day, but the big question will be whether a legal challenge will ultimately decide the election. To that end, the Harris campaign has assembled a team of lawyers to fight back against Trump’s lawyers if the former president loses but then seeks to overturn the results through the courts.
There is no expectation, even from her own team, that Harris will talk during the campaign about the fact that the courts could ultimately decide the election, because they don’t want to depress voters with the idea that their votes could ultimately win . thrown out by a judge sympathetic to Trump.
“People need to vote,” the aide added. “You don’t want people thinking about legal challenges.”
A second Harris aide who requested anonymity to speak about Harris’ election week plans said the campaign and Democrats are looking at both the 2000 and 2020 elections and bracing for what could be a legal fight with Trump are.
“We’re not doing 2000 again,” the person said. “She’s a fighter. Like ‘I eat no for breakfast. I knock down doors.’ That’s Kamala Harris. She is a very strong person and a whole legal team is focused on that.”
The person underlined that Harris is a trained lawyer and that she is considering Trump possibly trying to challenge the election results in court. But the campaign is also focused on “closing holes” so that the race isn’t even close enough that a legal challenge in one state would affect the outcome of the entire election.
Polls show a neck-and-neck race, with razor-thin poll margins in key battleground states. But while Harris and her allies have painted the vice president as the underdog in the race, Trump’s message is less nuanced and more focused on the idea that he will win, sending signals to supporters that any outcome where he doesn’t does is fraudulent.
“She is a threat to democracy,” Trump said Monday. “She’s a threat to a lot of things, but that’s the way it has to be because we’re winning by a big margin. We are leading the way with many things. We are at the top of the polls.”
“Every state,” he added.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
