Washington
CNN
—
Republican leaders are already rushing to buy into new theories of a stolen 2024 election sown by former President Donald Trump, eager to appease the party’s presumptive nominee.
Key party figures have increasingly warned that they would certify the results of November’s presidential election if there was no fraud, but there is no sign of any election fraud and their warnings come even as many Republican state legislatures have taken steps to tighten voting rules based on Trump’s lies about 2020 fraud.
The new Republican trend of casting doubt on the integrity of the 2024 election in advance was signaled by Sen. Ted Cruz in an interview with CNN’s Caitlin Collins on Wednesday. The Texas senator, who supported Trump in 2016 despite the former president’s insults to his father and wife, falsely claimed the 2020 election was tainted by fraud. Trump claimed there were voting irregularities, but multiple courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, rejected the former president’s claims that he was tricked out of power, and Trump’s then-Attorney General William Barr investigated his claims and found no widespread fraud that would have changed the election outcome.
But Cruz told Collins that the question of whether he would accept the results of the 2024 election was “absurd.”
“So you’re asking, ‘Do you promise to recognize the election as legitimate, no matter what happens?’ That’s a ridiculous claim,” Cruz said. “We have a system of election law where people challenge elections, the results are overturned, voter fraud is proven. It happens all the time.” On January 6, 2021, Cruz challenged the results of Arizona, where Trump narrowly lost to Biden, suggesting there was significant fraud in 2020 and that the same thing could happen this year.
“If Democrats win, we will accept that result, but we will not ignore fraud no matter what happens,” Cruz said.
Republican leaders’ ambivalence seems to be due to fear of angering Trump, a twice-impeached Republican leader who has the power to end a party career simply by going against an individual lawmaker. It also paves the way for Trump to challenge the integrity of the 2024 election if he loses in November. Undermining an election before it even takes place is a grave threat to democracy.
Attempts to cast the shadow of election fraud this year are particularly dangerous because the 2024 election is likely to be decided in a handful of battleground states by just a few thousand votes, raising the possibility of drawn-out litigation by the Trump campaign and further tarnishing U.S. elections. Trump continues to falsely claim that Mike Pence had the constitutional power to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and the former vice president is deeply alienated within his party for overseeing the certification of Biden’s victory in accordance with the Constitution.
Cruz is just the latest party official to try to avoid incurring Trump’s wrath when asked if he would accept the results of the 2024 election. The attempt to win Trump’s support follows an interview Trump gave to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel earlier this month. “I’m willing to accept the results if everything is honest. That doesn’t change,” Trump said. “If it’s not, we have to fight for our country’s rights.” His remarks included an implicit threat that he would decide the election wasn’t fair if he lost, as he did in 2020. Trump frequently claims that he did better in the popular vote four years ago than any incumbent president, creating a false argument that he couldn’t lose to Biden, who received more popular votes.
Trump’s new election denialism is disturbing for several reasons. First, it overlaps with his spin before the 2020 election, when he suggested the election may not have been fair. He then doubled down on that spin after his loss to Biden with a widespread campaign that culminated in a mob attack on the Capitol by his supporters to disrupt the certification of Biden’s victory. Trump often gives the impression that an election he loses cannot, by definition, be legitimate. His false claims about 2020 election fraud are now believed by millions of Republican voters, even though he has been indicted twice in federal court and in Georgia for trying to steal the election and stay in power.
Comments like Cruz’s on Wednesday could raise expectations among some voters that the upcoming election will not be fair, even though there is no indication that this election, or any other in the United States, is tainted by fraud, which has historically occurred at very low levels.
The Texas senator is not the only party official who believes Trump’s claims. The trend shows Trump’s overwhelming power within the Republican Party. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley also announced on Wednesday that she would vote for Trump, despite calling him “outrageous” during the primary elections earlier this year and saying he was unfit to hold the Oval Office again. Haley’s move is seen as an attempt to maintain her viability within the Republican Party for future presidential elections.
It would seem like an easy thing for Republicans to do: accept the results of the 2024 election and state that modern U.S. presidential elections have not been tainted by fraud. But they can’t seem to do that.
Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, whom President Trump mentioned on Thursday as a possible vice presidential pick, expressed doubts about mail-in voting, saying on CNN that evening that “I will accept the results if they are done in a fair and transparent manner.”
Also on CNN Thursday night, Rep. Byron Donald of Florida, who has been mentioned as a possible running mate for Trump, was asked if he would accept the election results if Trump lost. “If state and local governments actually followed the rules and procedures and you see that the rules are being followed by everybody, then of course you would accept the results,” Donald replied.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who ran against Trump in 2016 earlier this week and has since taken a more pro-Trump stance, was asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday if he would accept the election results “no matter what happens,” to which he replied, “If it’s an unfair election, I think both sides will contest it.” He argued that Democrats have “opposed every Republican victory since 2000,” adding, “If it’s unfair, we’ll do what Democrats do…we’ll get our lawyers to go to court and point out the fact that states are not following our election laws.”
Rubio’s comments are misleading because, while a few Democrats allege that the 2004 and 2016 elections were rigged, both Democratic candidates quickly conceded defeat to the Republicans, whereas Trump has never conceded defeat. The 2000 election was fought between Republicans and Democrats over a recount in the central state of Florida. Democratic candidate and then-Vice President Al Gore eventually conceded defeat after the case was ruled by the Supreme Court. Trump never took such a step, as he sought to destroy the American tradition of a peaceful transfer of power.
The idea that the 2024 election may not be free and fair was also recently raised by Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, who is reportedly on the shortlist to be President Trump’s running mate. Earlier this month, Vance told CNN’s “State of the Union” that he was “fully prepared to accept the results of the 2024 election,” implying that the election may not be fair if Trump loses.
“I think Donald Trump will be the winner. And if it’s a free and fair election, I think Dana, all Republicans will enthusiastically accept the results. And, again, I think the results will show that Donald Trump has been elected and re-elected president.”
Vance argued that any party involved in the election must be prepared to prosecute its own case if it believes there was fraud. But academic studies and multiple legal cases show that fraud in presidential elections occurs only in isolated cases. That hasn’t stopped Republicans from demonstrating their loyalty to Trump by casting doubt on the fairness of the 2024 election before it even takes place.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
