Worries Grow Over Trump Prematurely Claiming 2024 Victory

With the US barreling toward another protracted and potentially disputed election result, one question hangs over offices across Washington, news organizations in New York, and social networks in Silicon Valley: What happens if Donald Trump again prematurely declares himself the winner?

The results or clear trajectory of the race may be apparent by Tuesday night, and polls suggest Trump has a roughly even chance of emerging victorious in his battle with Kamala Harris. 

But as the nation girds for the possibility that a final tally could take days, the speculation, worry and planning around Trump moving unilaterally to herald himself the next president has only grown. The greatest fear is a repeat of 2020, when the then-president falsely claimed he had won the election and cast states still counting votes as perpetrating fraud.

Those remarks set the tone for the ensuing weeks, which saw dozens of failed legal challenges mounted by Trump allies and his supporters ultimately storm the US Capitol in an effort to halt certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.

Voting closes Tuesday and some states will report the bulk of their results that night, while others are poised to again take several days, particularly as they grapple with fulsome early voting.

Trump told ABC News on Sunday that he expects the winner will be clear on election night — something only likely to come to fruition if there was a substantial error in polling. Then, at a rally in Pennsylvania, he suggested the results might “take weeks” and, without evidence, that Democrats would use the ensuing period to steal the election.

Some results may come more quickly than in 2020, with states including the pivotal battleground of Michigan taking steps to speed up counting. Last election, it took until Pennsylvania was called on Saturday to declare Biden the victor.

But Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are among the six US states that don’t allow officials to begin processing and counting mail-in ballots until Election Day. That virtually guarantees there will be outstanding ballots to count after election night and makes it impossible to call a race quickly if it is close. 

“Can you imagine — they spend all this money on machines, and they’re going to say, ‘We may take an extra 12 days to determine,’” Trump said. “And what do you think happens during that 12 days?”

Harris’ campaign has warned they expect Trump to seize on initial counts and delays to declare himself the winner and cast the painstaking process as fraudulent. 

Such a declaration could predate official race projections from broadcast networks and the Associated Press, but would spread quickly on social media and fuel the alternate reality Trump has sown. 

“I do believe that shortly after midnight, Donald Trump will say, ‘Hey, I won,’” Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, told reporters. “We’re prepared for it.”

Harris’ campaign chairwoman, Jen O’Malley Dillon, posted a video urging supporters not to worry if Trump does declare victory.

“Don’t be fooled, don’t be worried,” she says. “The nonpartisan decision desks that are watching these races and have been counting and calling them throughout the course of the last several elections, they’re not going to be swayed by what Donald Trump says.” 

But Trump’s false claims and disinformation are posed to spread more widely now.

Facebook has scaled back its efforts to fight disinformation. Elon Musk’s purchase of X has not only watered down those efforts, but Musk himself has become a prominent source of falsehoods.

A spokesperson for Meta Platforms Inc., Facebook’s parent, said the company is “prepared to respond” if a candidate disputes the election results or declares victory prematurely. But the company also said users felt labels that pointed people toward accurate election information were overused in 2020, when Trump and his allies unleashed a torrent of falsehoods about the results. In this cycle, Meta will monitor posts and deploy labels only in a targeted way, if at all, the spokesperson confirmed.

Perhaps the biggest shift is at X, formerly known as Twitter, which Musk has transformed into a tool of Republican messaging. While the platform uses community notes to fact-check claims, it’s unclear if the service will otherwise label any election falsehoods, and Musk himself has helped sow the false illusion of Trump being on pace for a crushing victory.

Federal law enforcement officials, meanwhile, have begun issuing broad notices when they observe disinformation being fanned by foreign actors. But even in the case of clearly artificial videos and photos posted online, the agencies have been reluctant to amplify the mistruths by specifically describing them — a restraint that underscores they’re unlikely to intervene against the Republican nominee.

Trump’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment, but Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump’s campaign, told reporters that “when we are confident we cross the 270 threshold, after that is when we will declare victory.” Miller declined to say what measure the campaign would lean on to count electoral votes.

Speaking to ABC, the former president acknowledged he could lose but said he believed he has a big lead, which is not reflected in polls. 

‘Shouldn’t Have Left’

“I think I have a pretty substantial lead, but, you could say, yeah, yeah, you could lose. Bad things could happen,” he said.

In Pennsylvania, Trump suggested he regretted ultimately leaving the White House after his 2020 loss — an action allies have routinely pointed to when Democrats claim Trump tried to impede the process.

“I shouldn’t have left, I mean, honestly,” Trump said. “We did so well.”

Dana Remus, who is leading the Harris legal team, said she ultimately believed Trump’s claims would not stand up to legal scrutiny.

“Donald Trump made all of these claims in 2020, and when he had to defend them in court, he lost,” Remus said.

“I would ask, in particular, people who have not yet voted to not fall for his tactic,” Harris said Sunday. “It is meant to distract from the fact that we have and support free and fair elections in our country.”

A delayed result, and Trump’s public agitations, will ratchet up pressure on media companies who must weigh how to cover and contextualize his claims. The fraught dance is particularly difficult for the networks and agencies projecting key states.

No call was more explosive in 2020 than Fox News’s early projection that Biden had won Arizona — one that beat competitors and ultimately proved accurate. Members of Trump’s campaign team — and some of the network’s conservative commentators — began immediately lobbying the decision desk to reverse the call.

“I’d say the over/under is Saturday” again for a result, Fox’s decision desk chief, Arnon Mishkin, told Politico last month. 

Republicans have often sidestepped the question of how they expect Trump to frame the results and whether he’d concede a loss.

“I’m confident that he’s going to win, without any question,” Senator Tim Scott told CNN on Sunday. “I do believe that we will have a fair election.”

The Associated Press, an authoritative source of projected winners, will rely on a team including 4,000 reporters stationed across the country. Executive Editor Julie Pace said the organization is trying to build trust by being transparent about its process, and that election calls are made only when it’s clear a trailing candidate can’t close the gap.

“We’re really confident that we’re going to be able to deliver on that accuracy but also be able to transparently explain to the public what we’re doing, come Tuesday and beyond,” Pace said in an interview on Bloomberg Television and Radio’s “Balance of Power.”

With assistance from Kurt Wagner, Alicia Diaz and Akayla Gardner.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.