Donald Trump and the groups Turning Point USA, True the Vote and other MAGA-backed election deniers are spreading conspiracy theories about voter fraud to lay the groundwork for claiming the election was rigged if Trump loses, election experts and veteran Republicans are warning.
The consequences of this strategy could be dire. John Giles, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Arizona, who spoke at the Democratic National Convention in August in support of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, said former President Trump and his allies “will pull out all the stops to see what sticks” if he loses.
He added: “If they lose, they will claim it all went wrong. I would be surprised if Trump doesn’t try to incite an insurrection if he loses the election.”
The twin campaigns by Trump and MAGA allies are reminiscent of 2020 lies about fraud with voting machines and drop boxes, but are now pushing Trump’s conspiratorial attacks against federal and state prosecutors who have brought criminal charges against Trump for trying to overturn his 2020 defeat, and are promoting unfounded claims that foreigners are poised to vote in large numbers.
Turning Point USA, for example, has promoted a multimillion-dollar campaign to boost votes for Trump in key battleground states while also hosting several large rallies for him where it continues to make false claims that the 2020 election was rigged, raising new concerns about potential fraud this year.
President Trump and his MAGA allies have been blaming “election interference” and a “war on the law” for months to smear federal and state prosecutions of repeated heavy-handed efforts to block Joe Biden from being inaugurated on Jan. 6, 2021, a tactic experts say is aimed at rallying his supporters and undermining the rule of law.
Additionally, as he did in the 2020 and 2016 elections, Trump has been vague about whether he will commit to accepting the results of this year’s election in advance, as he did in a June debate with President Joe Biden.
“If it’s a fair and legitimate and good election, then of course I would accept it,” Trump said after being asked a third time if he would accept the results. But then he repeated his false claims that US elections are riddled with fraud to justify his widespread efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat. “I would have much preferred to have accepted the results, but the fraud and everything else is ridiculous,” he said.
False accusations of significant foreign votes have been commonplace in the MAGA ecosystem this year, fueled by the same issues that prompted President Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson to hold a press conference at Mar-a-Lago in April and lead the House to pass a bill to ban foreign voters from voting, which is already illegal and has historically only amounted to a tiny fraction of the votes.
True the Vote launched a fundraising appeal in March to stomp on fears about foreigners voting, saying it was working on plans including “drafting legal arguments” to stop what it baselessly claims would be “chaos” caused by “massive illegal voter registration” in this year’s elections.
Election experts and veteran Republicans have warned that these efforts by Trump and his MAGA allies are a precursor to claims that the election was stolen if Trump loses.
“Trump continues to encourage his supporters, like Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA, to question the integrity of the election,” former Republican congressman Dave Trott of Michigan told The Guardian. “He has no evidence or basis for his claims of fraud and he is only continuing these lies so he has a Plan B to disrupt our democracy if he loses.”
Other critics and experts agree.
“Many of these false claims are disguised as efforts to change policy and improve election integrity, but in reality they are just designed to sow distrust in our electoral system if Trump loses,” said David Becker, director of the Center for Research on Elections Innovation. “This is all designed to sow discord, chaos and potential violence by fabricating claims that the election was stolen if Trump loses.”
Elsewhere in the campaign, Trump also baselessly attacked Vice President Kamala Harris for leading the charge to install Biden as the party’s nominee with a “vicious and violent overthrow” and suggested that she and Biden deliberately failed to provide adequate security at the rally that led to the assassination attempt on Trump.
The dual campaign by Trump and his allies such as Turning Point USA to mobilize Trump supporters to vote and sow doubts about the electoral system began several months ago but appears to have gained momentum since Biden gave up on reelection and Harris became the Democratic nominee.
Kirk, the founder of Turning Point and a far-right media star, used his eponymous radio show in February to denounce the multiple criminal charges Trump faces as a Democratic conspiracy. “The Administration didn’t beat Trump in the primary,” said an online promotion for Kirk’s show, which also featured Will Scharf, a member of Trump’s legal team. “So they’re increasingly relying on legal wars to save themselves, in order to win in 2024.”
Turning Point Action, the political arm of Turning Point USA, announced plans in early 2024 to spend tens of millions of dollars encouraging votes for Trump in key battleground states such as Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin to boost his electoral prospects. The group said the plan is being carried out by hundreds of paid staff in those states.
Meanwhile, Kirk’s group hosted several large events that included false claims that mimicked previous claims about 2020 voter fraud in an effort to rally more support for Trump.
Kirk raised the specter of voter fraud at a June rally at Dream City Church in Phoenix, which Trump attended, declaring, “We’re going to make this November election so big it can’t be rigged, and we’re going to overwhelm the ballot box.” Trump also vowed at the rally to make the election “so big it can’t be rigged.”
Similarly, TP Action is expanding its appeal to Christian nationalist voters, a priority for Kirk in supporting Trump. In July, TP Action hosted a “Believers Summit” in Florida, where Trump cryptically called out, “Christians, go vote. Just this once. You don’t have to vote again,” raising further concerns about his loyalty to election integrity.
TP Action has backed far-right candidates like election denier Kali Lake, who lost the 2022 gubernatorial race and has since claimed fraud, and while it has performed mediocrely in recent general elections, it flexed its muscles in the July Republican primary, defeating Maricopa County’s top elections official, Steven Richer, who has denied the accusations of election denial in both 2020 and 2022.
Though it lacks the resources of Kirk’s well-funded operation, Texas-based True the Vote has long been a force for promoting election conspiracy theories about voter fraud at the ballot box and other false accusations, and the group is again working to sow doubt in Wisconsin.
In a July 30 interview with Christian nationalist and self-proclaimed prophet Lance Wallnow, Catherine Engelbrecht, who founded True the Vote in 2009, said the group has partnered with several Wisconsin sheriffs to monitor ballot boxes for voter fraud using camera equipment that the group will provide.
Indeed, The Boat’s plan for monitoring ballot boxes is similar to one the company implemented in 2020 when it funded right-wing firebrand Dinesh D’Souza to make “2000 Mules,” a film about alleged ballot box fraud that was widely discredited.
Engelbrecht has also boasted about his plans to use a new app he says is being used by 7,000 people to clean up allegedly bloated voter rolls in several states, but some election officials and experts have criticized the app for being inaccurate, as CNN reported in July. Becker told CNN that thanks to data-sharing tools, “voter rolls are more accurate than they’ve ever been.”
Republican veterans say the actions and rhetoric of Trump and his MAGA allies are aimed at once again sowing doubts about the security of the election system, which they will exploit if Trump loses in November.
As Trump continues to make false claims about the 2020 election being stolen, former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, Charlie Dent, told the Guardian that if Trump loses, “he will do the same thing in 2024. If he loses, he will call Kaine at his state capital and then storm there with his allies to complain about the election being stolen.”