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Donald Trump and his allies are preparing to make claims of election and voter fraud if he loses in November - according to election experts and a number of old-school Republicans.
Mesa, Arizona Mayor John Giles, a Republican who has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, said that if Trump loses, he and his associates “will throw everything at the wall and see what sticks,” according to The Guardian.
“They’ll claim everything went wrong if they lose. I’d be surprised if Trump doesn’t try to foment insurrection if he loses the election,” the mayor said.
Both Trump and his allies are pushing the same lies as they did in 2020 about voting machines and drop boxes, but they’re now also attacking prosecutors on the state and federal levels who have charged the former president for trying to overturn the election. They have claimed that the charges against Trump amount to “election interference” and “lawfare” in attempts to paint the former president’s legal woes as political prosecution.
David Becker at the Center for Election Innovation and Research told The Guardian that “A lot of false claims are masquerading as efforts to change policy to improve election integrity when in actuality they’re just designed to sow distrust in our system if Trump loses.”
“This is all designed to manufacture claims that if Trump loses, the election was stolen and to sow discord, chaos and potential violence,” he added.
The right-wing organization Turning Point USA claims to be spending tens of millions on getting out the vote for Trump in important battleground states, also hosting several large rallies where false allegations that the 2020 election was rigged are still being shared.
Both in 2016 and 2020, Trump was unclear if he would accept the election results. Similarly, at the presidential debate with President Joe Biden on June 27, he said that he would accept the results if the election is “fair and legal.” That response came after he was asked three times about accepting the results and shortly afterward he yet again claimed that American elections are fraudulent.
In April, Trump hosted House Speaker Mike Johnson at Mar-a-Lago for an event prompting the lower chamber to pass legislation making it illegal for noncitizens to vote – something that was already outlawed and in the past has happened on a very small scale.
The group True the Vote sent out a fundraising request in March pointing to their attempts to put together “arguments for litigation” as well as other measures to take aim at what they claim will be “chaos” around the election because of “illegal voter registrations.”
Both election experts and Republican stalwarts have told The Guardian that Trump and his allies are preparing to claim that November’s election has been rigged if the former president loses the election.
Former Republican Michigan Representative Dave Trott told the paper that “Trump continues to encourage his supporters like Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA to question the integrity of our elections.”
“He has no evidence or basis for claiming fraud and is only perpetuating these lies so he has a plan B to disrupt democracy in the event he loses,” he added.
Former Republican Pennsylvania Representative Charlie Dent told The Guardian that he believes Trump will yet again claim fraud if he loses in November.
“I expect he will do the same thing in 2024,” he said. “If he loses he will raise Cain in state capitals and he will descend on state capitals with his allies to make the case for fraud.”
