Trump’s Campaign Says Elections In Deep Blue States Were Rigged (They Weren’t)

Topline

As President Donald Trump and his allies offer up wild allegations about voter fraud, their ambitions have expanded beyond swing states: the campaign has also falsely suggested President-elect Joe Biden benefitted from vote-rigging in indisputably blue places like New Mexico and Virginia, a strange twist on Trump’s continued efforts to reverse his electoral loss.

Key Facts

Key Background

Trump’s lawyers falsely claim the president won reelection in a landslide, implying a shadowy network of multinational corporations, communist dictators and local officials from both parties colluded for the sole purpose of stealing the election from Trump. The campaign’s legal blitz to overturn Biden’s win has not matched this conspiratorial rhetoric: Their legal challenges focus on a small number of swing states, and lawyers like Giuliani have avoided making direct fraud accusations in court, instead accusing local officials of violating various state election laws. However, the campaign has continued to feed claims of nationwide vote-rigging in public, including in safe Democratic states like Virginia and New Mexico, even if Trump’s allies are unwilling to make the same allegations in a courtroom.

Tangent

Trump also lobbed baseless voter fraud accusations at deep blue states after the 2016 race. He falsely claimed California counted more than a million illegal votes, and he said he would have won the nationwide popular vote (which he lost by 2.87 million votes in 2016) if not for millions of fraudulent ballots.

Surprising Fact

A handful of Republican congressional candidates have followed Trump’s lead and also blamed voter fraud for their losses. In the weeks following Election Day, longshot Republican House contenders in deep-blue parts of Florida, Maryland and Pennsylvania raised false allegations about election irregularities, the Daily Beast reported.

Further Reading

Down-Ballot Republican Losers Blame Voter Fraud, Too (The Daily Beast)