Election Day is less than two weeks away, but Donald Trump is laying the groundwork to challenge the election if he comes up short against Vice President Kamala Harris.
On Wednesday, NBC News reported that Trump's allies expect that he will quickly declare victory on election night, regardless of whether the election has been called. One Trump ally said Trump would declare victory again if early returns skew more Republican, which is likely to happen again since they won’t include mail-in ballots, just like in 2020.
“There is no part of me who does not think that is part of the conversation,” a Trump donor from North Carolina told NBC News. “We have seen him do it before, and if he is up on election night, I think his campaign—maybe smartly—will try it again.”
As in 2020, Trump and his allies are spreading the same baseless lies that voting machines are stealing votes from Trump, a lie that cost Fox News $787 million in a defamation suit.
"Reports from Whitfield County, GA that Dominion machines are flipping votes," far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote in a post on X, with no proof to back up her claim. "This is exactly the kind of fraud we saw in 2020."
Meanwhile, Republicans in the battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin filed lawsuits to block the counting of military ballots cast overseas.
In September, Trump hinted at why Republicans are targeting these votes, writing on his Truth Social platform: “The Democrats are talking about how they’re working so hard to get millions of votes from Americans living overseas. Actually, they are getting ready to CHEAT!"
House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi slammed Republicans for their effort to block the counting of overseas military ballots.
“MAGA Republicans undermine overseas military voting rights because they know Kamala Harris is more fit to be our commander-in-chief than what’s his name,” Pelosi wrote in a post on X. “Democrats want ALL Americans’ votes counted—including those of our brave servicemembers.” Pelosi then linked to votefromabroad.org.
A judge in Michigan already tossed one of the suits, which was filed by the Michigan Republican Party, calling it an "11th hour attempt to disenfranchise" voters.
It’s not the only preelection lawsuit Republicans have filed to try to make it easier for Trump to win.
In Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Court ruled against a Republican National Committee lawsuit that sought to prevent people who had their mail-in ballots disqualified due to clerical errors from fixing them in order to let them be counted.
“We have known for some time that Donald Trump uses the legal system not to adjudicate things on the merits but rather to make a point,” Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias said in an interview on MSNBC.
“In the election context, we know he has used it to try to further a false narrative, the big lie, that serves as a permission structure for him and his supporters to deny the reality that he lost in 2020 and that he will almost certainly lose the popular vote and probably the election in 2024,” Elias continued. “But we have to be clear, those lawsuits are not succeeding.”
Harris said she is also planning for Trump's antics.
“This is a person, Donald Trump, who tried to undo a free and fair election, who still denies the will of the people, who incited a violent mob to attack the United States Capitol and 140 law enforcement officers were attacked," Harris told NBC News of why she believes Trump will try to cause chaos on election night.
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