In the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump unambiguously worked to spread conspiracy theories, undermine the legitimacy of U.S. elections, directly challenge longstanding electoral practices in key swing states, and even recruit hoards of MAGA poll workers and observers to challenge unfavorable results.
Now, he is doing it all over again – except this time, the MAGA camp is working even more aggressively to undermine free and fair election results. They are flooding the zone with partisan polls, and pushing scores of frivolous lawsuits, disinformation, and challenges. 2020 was a conscious, organized effort to undermine the election; in 2024, Trump has transformed his campaign into a well-oiled machine working to attack our democracy at every turn.
Alleging Fraud
THEN: Trump Spent Months Attacking The Legitimacy Of Mail-In Voting In 2020. As early as April 2020, Trump attacked mail-in voting, proclaiming that Republicans should “fight very hard” against the practice because, “it doesn’t work out well for Republicans.” Trump’s disinformation about voter fraud and mail-in voting was so egregious that by May 2020, X (then Twitter) began putting a warning label on his posts. In June 2020, the New York Times reported that Trump’s wild accusations of widespread fraud, “Have little or no basis in fact but are resonating with his supporters and give him the option of raising doubts about the legitimacy of the outcome.” Trump amped up his rhetoric throughout the summer, threatening to withhold federal funding to Michigan and Nevada if the states expanded access to absentee voting. In August 2020, Trump publicly admitted he was working to block USPS funding to curb mail-in voting. In November 2020, on the night before Election Day, Trump attacked the Supreme Court for its decision to allow Pennsylvania to count mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day, posting, “The Supreme Court decision on voting in Pennsylvania is a VERY dangerous one…It will allow rampant and unchecked cheating and will undermine our entire systems of laws. It will also induce violence in the streets. Something must be done!”
THEN: Trump Falsely Alleged Fraud In The Election And Claimed Victory While Votes Were Still Being Counted. At 2:30 am on November 4, in the early hours after Election Day while several states remained in the process of counting votes and neither candidate had won enough electoral votes to claim victory, Trump called to halt vote counting, and falsely described the situation as a “major fraud in our nation.” He baselessly accused local leaders in Wisconsin of fabricating “dumps” of hundreds of thousands of ballots, and claimed without evidence that the ballot counting process in Philadelphia was rigged.
NOW: Trump Has Already Accused Democrats of A Stolen Election More Than 500 Times Throughout the 2024 Election Cycle. Trump and MAGA Republicans never stopped pushing the Big Lie. Trump has continued to stand behind the very falsehoods that formed the basis of his criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. As of May, Trump has falsely accused Democrats of “trying to ‘rig,’ ‘cheat,’ ‘steal’ or otherwise ‘influence’ the next election – or of having done so in 2020” more than 500 times during the 2024 election cycle. By sowing doubt in the legitimacy of the results before the election even takes place, Trump and his allies are laying the groundwork to attack and reject any outcome in which he is not victorious. This is all part of Trump’s “heads I win, tails you cheated” approach to the election.
NOW: Republicans Are Pushing The Big Lie AGAIN Ahead of the 2024 Election. Like Trump, top Republicans in Congress are pushing the Big Lie again in 2024, repeating Trump’s lies about a stolen election. 170 election deniers are currently serving as members of Congress, and MAGA Republicans already tried to block election results they disagreed with during the primaries. MAGA election–denying incumbent Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), for example, tried to block certification of his GOP primary after his right-wing challenger received more votes.
NOW: Trump and MAGA Republicans Are Preemptively Pushing New 2024 Election Conspiracy Theories To Undermine Its Legitimacy. This cycle, Republicans are pushing a whole new set of lies and conspiracy theories designed to sow doubt in the legitimacy of the 2024 election before it even takes place. For months, former President Trump and his MAGA Republican allies have been pushing a widely debunked lie characterized as “far-right rhetoric detached from reality” about non-citizens voting in federal elections. They are pushing conspiracy theories about local election reforms, with MAGA Republicans pushing states to ban ranked-choice voting, claiming the system “disenfranchises voters.” They have also relentlessly attacked the Election Registration Information Center (ERIC), a system many states use to coordinate the accuracy of voter rolls, particularly when voters move across state lines.
Early Lawsuits Seeding Chaos and Disenfranchising Voters
THEN: Trump and His MAGA Allies Filed Frivolous Lawsuits Challenging Election Processes Months Ahead of Election Day 2020. In the lead-up to the 2020 election, Trump filed frivolous lawsuits attempting to make it harder to vote and seeding chaos. In June 2020, Trump filed a lawsuit to force changes to how Pennsylvania collected and counted mail-in ballots after the state expanded mail-in voting eligibility. He later filed a lawsuit in Nevada in August, challenging the state’s plan to send absentee ballots to all registered voters. After the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September 2020, Trump demanded that Republicans move quickly to confirm a new conservative justice so that election lawsuits could be settled in his favor.
NOW: Trump and His MAGA Allies Have Been Sowing Election Chaos In Court Throughout the 2024 Cycle. Just like 2020, MAGA Republicans have been filing lawsuits seeking to disenfranchise voters and reduce ballot access through the 2024 cycle. Republicans have filed dozens of election-related lawsuits in 25 states during this election cycle already, including some seeking to prevent states from counting mail-in ballots postmarked by local deadlines but received after Election Day, successfully challenging election laws in New York and Pennsylvania earlier in the cycle and recently getting a favorable ruling from the Arizona state Supreme Court giving MAGA attorneys more leeway to push election-related cases.
Refusing to Accept Election Results
THEN: Trump Never Accepted The Results Of The Election And A Peaceful Transfer Of Power In 2020. Trump repeatedly and explicitly refused to commit to accepting the results of the general election. In the months before the 2020 election, Trump accused state officials in Nevada of orchestrating a “stolen election” and preemptively refused to accept the results. At a September press conference at the White House, he again refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, and told a reporter, “Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation.” He accused Democrats of “rigging” the election and told crowds of his supporters that the only way he would lose is through fraud. In November 2020, local GOP officials organized news conferences and protests outside of election offices in Raleigh and Charlotte—even as tens of thousands of ballots had not been fully counted.
NOW: Trump and His Running Mate Are Once Again Refusing To Commit to Accepting The Results of The 2024 Election. Trump himself, his running mate, and MAGA Republicans in general are refusing to commit to accepting the election results in 2024. Trump outright refused to accept the 2024 presidential election results unless he thinks “everything’s honest,” and his running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, said he would only accept the election results if he thinks it’s a “free and fair election.” In a recent interview, when asked, “Who won the 2020 election? Could you just answer? Did Donald Trump win?” Vance replied, “Yes.” Vance even said he would have refused to certify the 2020 election results if he had been Vice President at the time.
Embracing Political Violence
THEN: Trump Embraced Violence and Far-Right Extremists Ahead of the 2020 Election. Throughout his 2020 campaign, Trump embraced far-right extremism. In August 2020, a group of Trump supporters held a “Trump cruise rally” that involved firing paint and pellet guns at protesters. Trump promoted the violent rally on social media and called the participants “GREAT PATRIOTS.” At a presidential debate in September, Trump refused to denounce white supremacy; when pressed to condemn white supremacists and militia groups, Trump responded by declaring, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll tell you what. Somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem. This is a left-wing problem.” Trump also embraced QAnon supporters, expressing appreciation that QAnon followers, “Like me very much.”
NOW: Trump Has Openly Embraced Insurrectionists and Extremism Ahead of the 2024 Election. During the 2024 election cycle, Trump has called insurrectionists “great people,” praising the rioters as having “spirit and faith and love, there was such love at that rally,” and painting them as martyrs. He has labeled Jan. 6 defendants “hostages,” released a tribute song with a “J6 Prison Choir,” and saluted their cause at campaign events, promising he will “very, very seriously” consider pardoning Jan. 6-related charges.
Recruiting An Army MAGA Poll Workers & Observers To Intimidate Voters and Attack Poll Workers
THEN: Trump And His Allies Recruited An “Army” Of 2020 Poll Watchers To Intimidate Voters In Key States. In repeated social media posts, speeches, and paid ads, Trump and his campaign called for an “army” of poll watchers to monitor elections across the country. The ads exhorted MAGA poll watchers to “Fight for President Trump,” and promoted the website “ArmyForTrump.com” – a reference to an effort by a private security company to recruit former U.S. Military Special Operations personnel to guard polling sites on Election Day.
NOW: Trump and His Allies Are Scheming With Local Election Deniers To Contest The 2024 Election Results. Five months before the 2024 election, the Republican National Committee – led by Trump’s daughter-in-law – reportedly began assembling lawyers and volunteers to prepare for lawsuits challenging the election results, installing 13 state directors of so-called election integrity to host training sessions with state and county party officials in key swing states, including Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Wisconsin, and contracting with 13 in-state counsels to help identify local litigation opportunities. Ahead of the election, Trump has built a sprawling network and recently released plans to jointly hire and deploy 100,000 poll watchers and observers at election precincts – in addition to targeting voter rolls. Republicans deployed a similar network in 2022, and experts have expressed serious concerns in the past that MAGA poll watchers could erode trust and undermine faith in the electoral process by spreading disinformation or violating local regulations. Election deniers now hold statewide office in 19 states, and untold numbers serve as local elections officials. A recent study by Public Wise found that 334 public officials in 5 swing states have recently undermined or cast doubt on elections. Since November 2020, local Republican elections officials in eight states have refused to certify election results in at least 15 instances.