NEW YORK– NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump has spent months preparing the ground to challenge the 2024 election results if he loses — just as he did four years ago.

In rally after rally, he urges his supporters to achieve a victory “too big to fake,” telling them the only way they will lose is if Democrats cheat. result. And he claimed cheating was already happening, citing debunked claims or outrageous theories with no basis in reality.

“The only thing that can stop us is cheating. This is the only thing that can stop us,” he said at an event in Arizona Thursday evening.

In 2020, Trump victory declared prematurely from the White House. He launched a legal and political effort to overturn his defeat against Democrat Joe Biden which culminated with the storming of the Capitol by his supporters on January 6, 2021.

Democrats fear he will do the same thing this year before the race is called. He did not respond to a question Friday in Dearborn, Michigan, about those Democratic concerns, turning instead to attacking Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump has made election lies central to his 2024 campaign, issuing feverish warnings about fraud while promising revenge against people he sees as getting in his way.

This year, he is backed by a sophisticated “election integrity” operation built by his campaign and the Republican National Committee that has already filed more than 130 lawsuits and recruited more than 230,000 trained volunteers to be deployed as observers and election officials across the country. country on election day.

Here’s a look at Trump’s strategy to sow doubt in this year’s election and the facts behind each claim.

THE CLAIM: Trump alleged, without proofthat Democrats allowed millions of migrants to enter the country illegally so they could register to vote. In a interview with Newsmax in SeptemberTrump claimed such efforts were already underway.

“They are working overtime to try to convince people, illegally, to vote in the elections,” he said. “They are working overtime to get people signed and registered – many of the same people you see crossing the border. What is probably their initial thought, because why else would they want to destroy our country?

THE FACTS: It takes years for newcomers to become citizens and only citizens can legally vote in federal elections. Isolated cases of non-citizens caught trying to vote – such as a Chinese student at the University of Michigan arrested for allegedly voting illegally – do not reflect a larger conspiracy.

Research has shown that non-citizens register and vote illegally is extremely rare and usually done by mistake.

THE CLAIM: Trump highlighted Democrats’ efforts to capture votes from Americans living abroad as another opportunity for fraud. He alleged that they are “preparing to CHEAT!” » and “want to “dilute the REAL vote of our beautiful soldiers and their families”.

THE FACTS: The former president himself campaigned for the votes of Americans abroad, promising to end This is called “double taxation” for people who often pay taxes to the country where they reside as well as to the U.S. government.

THE CLAIM: Trump has begun to suggest that Harris might have access to some kind of secret insider information about the outcome of a race that hasn’t yet been decided.

Since the vice president took the day off to sit down for interviews with Telemundo and NBC, he has repeatedly suggested, “Maybe she knows something we don’t.”

In Michigan last weekend, he suggested there was no way Harris would campaign with Beyoncé – one of the world’s biggest stars – if the race was really as close as the polls suggested.

“First, they cheat like hell. So maybe they know something we don’t, right? » he said. “Maybe they know something we don’t know, I don’t know. Why the hell would she be partying while you’re down? Maybe – I never thought about it – maybe she knows something we don’t. But we’re not going to let that happen.

THE FACTS: There is no evidence to support a Democratic conspiracy. Indeed, Trump stoked fears about his own internal planning at a rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden when he looked at House Speaker Mike Johnson and talked about a “little secret” that ‘they had.

Johnson, before becoming president, took the lead writing a widely criticized memoir seeking to overturn Trump’s 2020 defeat and echoing some of the wildest conspiracy theories to explain his loss.

Asked about Trump’s reference to a “little secret,” Johnson issued a statement that included the following: “By definition, a secret should not be shared – and I have no intention of sharing this one . (He later told an audience that this was related to “one of our get-out-the-vote tactics,” according to The Hill. Trump’s campaign released a statement noting that he had “organized countless tele-rallies” to help strengthen Republican congressional candidates.)

THE CLAIM: In recent days, Trump has turned his ire on Pennsylvania, a state that both campaigns view as critical and where he has claimed cheating is already underway.

Earlier this weekhe claimed that York County, Pennsylvania, had “received THOUSANDS of potentially FRAUDULENT voter registration forms and absentee ballot applications from a third-party group.” ” He also highlighted Lancaster County, which he said was “caught with 2,600 fake ballots.” and Forms, all written by the same person. Really bad stuff.

At a campaign event in Allentown on Tuesday, the former president said, “They’ve already started cheating in Lancaster. They cheated. We caught them with 2,600 votes. No, we caught them cold. 2,600 votes. Think about this, think about this. And every vote was written by the same person.

THE FACTS: In Lancaster, County Attorney Heather Adams, a Republican lawmaker, said election workers expressed concerns about two sets of applications for registration on the electoral lists due to what she describes as many similarities. Authorities are currently reviewing a total of around 2,500 forms.

To be clear, Lancaster reviews voter registration applications, not “votes.” Lancaster officials said some forms contained fake names, suspicious handwriting, questionable signatures, incorrect addresses or other problematic details, but did not say they were all written by the same person.

York County Chief Clerk Greg Monskie confirmed this week that his county was reviewing the suspect forms. County Commissioner Julie Wheeler released a statement saying the voter registration forms and absentee ballot applications were part of a “large delivery containing thousands of election-related documents” that the county elections office county received from a third-party organization.

State officials say the discovery and investigation of applications — not votes — is proof that the system is working as it should.

THE CLAIM: Trump has threatened serious consequences for those who engage in what he considers “unscrupulous behavior.”

In a social media post that falsely cited “the widespread cheating and shenanigans that took place by Democrats in the 2020 presidential election,” he warned that “WHEN I WIN, people who CHEATED will be prosecuted as far as possible.” the law, which will include long prison sentences.

The messages then threaten “those involved in unscrupulous behavior,” including election officials, lawyers and donors, who it says “will be sought out, arrested and prosecuted at levels, sadly never seen before in our country.” “.

THE FACTS: Judges, election officials and even Trump’s own Attorney General, William Barr, have all asserted that there was no widespread cheating in the 2020 election.

If re-elected, Trump has vowed to go after rivals he considers “enemies within,” including saying he would appoint a special prosecutor to target Biden. This is more than a theoretical threat given that when he was president, Trump repeatedly insisted on investigations into his alleged political adversaries.

Although the Justice Department has controls in place intended to ward off political influence, Trump could appoint leaders who would facilitate the opening of cases at his request.

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Associated Press writers Christine Fernando in Chicago, Adriana Gomez Licon in Dearborn, Michigan, and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.