“Stolen Election” Time

Trump Reprises Old Pitch

As Donald Trump’s numbers sink on almost all fronts including the economy and with GOP midterms looking increasing dire, it’s time for Trump and his cronies to resurrect the most emotionally charged issue for many MAGA voters. It’s time for “stolen election” to take center stage again!

Forget “affordability.” That’s yesterday’s mantra for mobilizing the MAGA voter base. With prices rising and Trump’s tariffs taking their toll, “stolen election” is the revived and already proven mantra to mobilize his voters.

And as deep-red districts turn blue in off-year contests and Trump’s poll numbers weaken further, the betting odds for a continued Trump/MAGA stranglehold on the House and maybe the Senate are slipping each day. What’s worrisome is that Trump may be using his “stolen election” playbook this year as a launching pad for a concerted drive to undermine the entire upcoming midterm election.

In Trump’s Words

Speaking on a podcast hosted by former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino, Trump again revived his unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 election was marred by fraud and “stolen” from him. He urged Republicans to assert control over election administration in what he described as “crooked” states and cities. Without naming names of states, but we can guess with high certainty he’s pinpointing Democratic states, he said:

“We should take over the voting in at least… 15 places…Take a look at Detroit. Take a look at Philadelphia. Take a look at Atlanta. There are some areas that are unbelievably corrupt. I could give you plenty more too. I say that we cannot have corrupt elections.”

Fear Factor: ICE Agents Surrounding Polls?

Maybe more disturbing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has refused to rule out stationing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at midterm polling stations. That follows remarks from former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who said that ICE would “surround the polls” to prevent the election from being “stolen.”

What it will actually accomplish is instilling fear and suppressing turnout, particularly among people of color including naturalized citizens who might fit the ICE profile. Even the threat of such a deployment has already raised alarms among legal experts and civil rights groups.

Election Denialism in Trump’s Base

Let’s explore Trump’s regrasp of election denialism as he faces a likely midterm collapse. Election fraud is a cornerstone of a majority of Republican voters. It’s usually laced with conspiratorial beliefs as well. Until Trump’s 2024 win, most Republican voters believed the 2020 election was stolen.

Here’s a rundown of what the polls found prior to the 2024 election:

• As of their late 2023 and early 2024 tracking, 63% of Republicans believed the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, according the PRRI (Public Religion Research Institute) polling. This figure remained remarkably stable for several years.

• In this same time frame CNN/SSRS found that around 70% of Republicans did not believe Biden legitimately won the presidency.

But with Trump’s win in 2024, many Republicans became election believers again. Here’s what AP/NORC polling found – a shift from pre-election 23% believing in the vote count accuracy to 64% following Trump’s win.

For the Record: Where’s the “Fraud?”

Much of Trump’s MAGA base still remains unconvinced that Joe Biden won the 2020 election fairly. Yet in the five years since the 2020 contest, Trump and his allies have produced no evidence of widespread fraud, just a lot of hot air. Across the country, Trump and his allies lost more than 60 lawsuits challenging the 2020 election outcome. A group of Republicans, including former federal judges, examined Trump and his allies’ fraud and miscount claims and concluded that they “failed to present evidence of fraud or inaccurate results ‘significant enough to invalidate the results.”’

At least four states conducted recounts of their 2020 presidential election results to no avail: Arizona, Georgia, Texas, and Wisconsin.

• After months of work and some $6 million spent, a so-called GOP-backed audit of Arizona’s largest county that Trump supporters claimed would show that the election had been stolen found that Joe Biden actually won Arizona by more votes than the official tally — and it found no conclusive evidence that the election had been influenced by fraud.

And no, undocumenteds did not swing the 2020 election in Georgia.

• A 2024 Georgia audit found only 20 non‑citizens among 8.2 million registered voters, and only nine had ever cast ballots — contradicting claims that undocumented immigrants cast votes and swung the George vote to Biden in 2020.

Reigniting “Stolen Election”

Keeping the issue alive for 2026, Trump and his Congressional supporters are taking multiple steps to reignite the “election fraud” issue – even though more than five years have passed since the 2020 election. The Department of Justice (DOJ) under the Trump administration is seeking voter records, voter rolls, or election data from at least 19 states, including Colorado, Alaska, Arizona, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Oklahoma, among others.

Not to be deterred by the previous audit of Atlanta/Fulton County’s 2020 voting records, federal agents executed a Department of Justice (DOJ) court‑authorized search warrant at the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operations Center. They seized 2020 election ballots, voter rolls, tabulator tapes, and other original voting records as part of an ongoing criminal grand jury investigation ordered by the DOJ.

Tulsi Gabbord: Her Role?

What is Tulsi Babbard’s role? Oddly, the New York Times reports that there were four different explanations of why wayward Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was sent to “observe” the Fulton County search. Maybe Trump sent her. Maybe Attorney General Pam Bondi sent her. When asked in an NBC interview, Trump said, “I don’t know, but you know, uh, a lot of the cheating comes from — it’s international cheating. You have people, they say, from China trying to — let me ask you, do you think China tries to influence our election?”

The Wall Street Journal reported that Gabbard has spent months re‑examining the 2020 election and “is preparing a report” on her findings. The Journal notes that the “national intelligence director is usually focused on ensuring the president has the best intelligence available to make national-security decisions. Gabbard has been sidelined from some of those deliberations, including the Venezuela operation earlier this month.”

GOP Congressional Initiatives

To be clear, the Constitution gives states the primary authority to administer elections for Congress. This comes from the Elections Clause in Article I, Section 4. States decide the “Times, Places and Manner” of holding elections for the House and Senate. Article 1 does give Congress some limited authority.

The White House has authored the SAVE Act as the legislative vehicle for Trump’s call to “take over” or “nationalize” voting. Trump and his Congressional leadership are promoting the SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act) which would:

• Require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship before a person can register to vote in federal elections.

• Mandate states to verify citizenship using federal databases.

• Expand federal oversight of voter rolls.

• Potentially require states to adopt uniform standards for verifying eligibility.

Rather than reviewing the Congressional provisions under Article 1, Section 4, the National Constitution Center provides a thorough analysis of this complex issue. See:

https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/articles/article-i/clauses/750

I’ll leave it the legal experts to analyze the constitutionality of the SAVE Act and other measures Trump is contemplating.

Overview: Election Fraud’s Multiple Uses

MAGA identity, proof of loyalty, voter mobilizer – essential elements in the Trump playbook. Lose an election? Cry “voter fraud!” It’s the litmus test. Want an appointment to Trump’s cabinet or a senior post? Need to influence executive or regulatory issues? Need Federal Trade Commission or Department of Justice approval for an acquisition or merger? You must sing of 2020 election denial: “Stop the Steal Again…” and sing it again and again, even off-key. It’s music to Trump’s ears.

Oh, and if you’re a media owner seeking favor with Trump, make sure endorsements tilt Trump’s way and add a bit of Trump sweetener to the mix. (a nod to Jeff Bezos)

And when a large crowd of Trump supporters marched to the U.S. Capital to halt Congressional certification of the 2020 election, candidates who echoed Trump’s fraud claims and went “full MAGA” often gained favor with his base, while those who rejected fraud claims often faced backlash. Think Liz Cheney and Mike Pence, for example.

In Sum

“Stolen election” is as central to Trump’s playbook as are grievance politics and his ongoing claim of being unfairly targeted. Voter audit after voter audit and court case after court case find no evidence. Yet it’s a mobilizing principle of his MAGA followers. And, in the face of grim GOP midterm predictions, he’s reigniting it perhaps as an excuse to take control of elections in Democratic states to tilt the vote his way.

In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt (1951) wrote:

“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. ...Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.”

Let’s hope that we have not descended to that level.

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