Landslide or fraud

SALEM, Nov 03 (AFP): Three days before the US presidential election, supporters of Donald Trump are ready to reject the results-unless their man wins.

"I really wouldn't believe it if they told me she won," Brandon Dent, 22, told AFP, referring to Trump's rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

"He'll take it in a landslide," the delivery driver said, observing the thousands of fellow Trump supporters lining up to see the president speak in the Virginia city of Salem, nestled among gentle mountains brushed in red and orange by the fall foliage.

The Republican candidate has spent his 2024 campaign preemptively casting doubt on the integrity of Tuesday's upcoming vote, reprising the rhetoric surrounding his failed 2020 reelection bid-which culminated in his supporters storming the US Capitol in a deadly riot to "stop the steal."

After three presidential runs and nearly a decade of Trump on the US political scene, his signature brand of skepticism or denial has thoroughly set in among swaths of conservative voters, across age, race and occupation.

"Kamala's going to be president, but I think Trump is going to win" the real vote count, said Jace Boda, an engineer at a nuclear facility.

"I suspect there's going to be a lot of fraud."

While Trump has been quick to whip up fears of fraud on the campaign trail, the Republican National Committee and allied groups have also pressed such claims in courts, filing lawsuits targeting ballot-counting procedures, voting machines, voter registration, absentee ballots, the certification of results and a host of other issues.

While many of the suits have been dismissed, observers worry that they could further muddy the waters around what people believe about this year's vote, especially with Trump so insistently repeating his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

"I've been skeptical since the last election of the Democrats," said Olen, a rallygoer who, like many others, declined to share his last name with the media.