Trump's Pre-Election Strategy: Preparing to Challenge the 2024 Results

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As the 2024 presidential election approaches, Donald Trump is building a comprehensive narrative to contest the outcome if he loses. Through a combination of public speeches, posts on Truth Social, and over 100 preemptive lawsuits, Trump appears poised to reject the results, echoing his efforts from 2020.

 

In 2020, Trump's attempts to overturn the election results, whether through legal means or more extreme actions, took much of the country by surprise. But this time, Trump has made it clear that he's laying the groundwork ahead of time, leaving little room for shock should he lose and contest the results again.

 

Recently, Trump's attacks on voting procedures in the U.S. have intensified. He has cast doubt on various aspects of the electoral process, especially in the lead-up to a critical election that could potentially result in his return to the White House or, if he loses, criminal consequences including jail time.

 

 

On the subject of overseas voting, Trump made a baseless claim that Democrats were exploiting voting programs meant for expats and military members. According to Trump, this was a way to circumvent "any citizenship check or verification of identity." Meanwhile, during a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump criticized early voting, calling it a "stupid" concept and linking it to conspiracy theories about his loss in the state four years ago. Mail-in voting, another frequent target of Trump's attacks, has also been in his crosshairs. He recently accused the U.S. Postal Service of being unreliable and untrustworthy, even as Republicans continue to encourage their base to use mail-in ballots.

 

Fueling his rhetoric is the issue of undocumented migrants, which has been central to Trump's campaign. He has tied this to new voter fraud conspiracies, suggesting that millions of migrants crossing into the U.S. during the Biden administration could influence the election. Earlier this month, Trump urged House Republicans to use the threat of a government shutdown as leverage to pass a law requiring proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. Though this effort failed, it gave Trump and his allies a fresh talking point, despite the fact that non-citizen voting is already illegal and rare.

 

Even without concrete evidence of voter fraud, Trump is preparing a broader argument that the election will be inherently unfair. He has accused Democrats of "cheating" by hypothetically swapping out President Biden for Vice President Kamala Harris. Furthermore, Trump has claimed that criminal prosecutions against him amount to "lawfare," a tactic Democrats are using to undermine his candidacy.

 

"If there was no cheating — if God came down from on high and said 'I'm going to be your vote tabulator for this election,' I would leave this podium right now," Trump declared at a rally in Pennsylvania. "We have to have a landslide because they cheat so damn much."

 

Since his loss in 2020, the Republican Party has made significant changes to align itself with Trump's narrative of election fraud. His campaign and the Republican National Committee have established a network of around 175,000 volunteer poll watchers and workers, all in the name of ensuring "election integrity." In Georgia, where Trump lost by a narrow margin in 2020, a hard-right election board has implemented new rules that some Democrats worry could be used to undermine confidence in the state's results if Trump loses again.

 

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a staunch Trump ally, recently sparked controversy when he pledged to certify the 2024 election results only if it is a "free, fair, and safe election," hinting at the potential for disputes over the legitimacy of the process.

 

The 2020 election night strategy may also make a return. On November 1, 2020, Axios reported that Trump had privately told confidants he would declare victory on election night if early results showed him ahead, regardless of the actual outcome. True to form, Trump did just that. Given the likelihood that it will once again take days to determine the winner, it wouldn't be surprising if Trump follows the same playbook in 2024.

 

Based on a report from: AXIOS 2024-10-01