NEW YORK, Nov 02 (Reuters/AP/BBC): Donald Trump has spent months laying the groundwork to challenge the results of the 2024 election if he loses - just as he did four years ago.
At rally after rally, he urges his supporters to deliver a victory "too big to rig," telling them the only way he can lose is if Democrats cheat. He has refused to say, repeatedly, whether he will accept the results regardless of the outcome. And he's claimed cheating is already underway, citing debunked claims or outrageous theories with no basis in reality.
"The only thing that can stop us is the cheating. It's the only thing that can stop us," he said at an event in Arizona late Thursday night.
Opinion polls, both nationally and in the seven closely divided states, show former President Trump locked in a tight race with Vice President Harris three days before Election Day.
Trump continues to falsely claim his 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden was the result of widespread fraud in multiple states that Trump lost, while he and his supporters have spread baseless claims about this election.
Trump on Thursday stepped up his unfounded allegations that probes into suspect voter registration forms in Pennsylvania are proof of voter fraud. Some of his supporters alleged voter suppression when long lines formed this week to receive mail-in ballots.
Harris' Democrats, meanwhile, are preparing for the possibility that Trump could try to prematurely claim victory before all votes are counted, as he did in 2020. Their initial plan is to flood social media and news media with calls for calm and patience should he do so.
"We are sadly ready if he does and, if we know that he is actually manipulating the press and attempting to manipulate the consensus of the American people ... we are prepared to respond," Harris said in an interview with ABC on Wednesday.
Trump's false claims about voter fraud after the 2020 vote preceded the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to halt or sway the congressional certification of the electoral votes that determine who becomes president.
"This is sowing the seeds for attempts to overturn an election," said Kyle Miller, a strategist with the advocacy group Protect Democracy. "We saw it in 2020, and I think the lesson Trump and his allies have learned since is that they have to sow these ideas early."
Trump's allies also have raised concerns that noncitizens could vote in significant numbers, though there are few examples of that happening.
On Friday, several US intelligence agencies said Russia had created a video circulating online that falsely show people from Haiti voting multiple times in the state of Georgia. The video is part of Russia's efforts to undermine confidence in the election and divide Americans, the agencies said.
Trump courts divided
voters in must-win
Michigan
On a crisp, sunny day in the largest Arab-majority city in the US, dozens of people gathered outside the Great Commoner cafe to catch a glimpse of Donald Trump.
"What we want is peace," Trump told a group of Arab-American business leaders inside the Dearborn, Michigan, restaurant - days before the presidential election.
But a crowd of pro- and anti-Trump voters shouting at one another nearby demonstrated how divided the Michigan community has become over choosing the best American president to handle the escalating Middle East war.
The Republican's Friday visit to Dearborn, once a reliably Democratic area, marks the culmination of his efforts to court the 200,000-plus Arab-Americans who live in must-win Michigan. It could sway a tied race between Trump and Kamala Harris. Hillary Clinton lost Michigan to Trump by only 10,000 votes in 2016, while Biden won it back by 150,000 votes in 2020.
