CNN
Fact check: 12 election lies Trump is using to set the stage to dispute a potential 2024 defeat
By Marshall Cohen and Daniel Dale, CNN
18 minute read
Published 12:00 AM EDT, Mon September 30, 2024
Former President Donald Trump holds a campaign rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania, on September 23. Brian Snyder/ReutersWashingtonCNN —
Former President Donald Trump has escalated his long-running assault on the integrity of US elections as the 2024 presidential campaign enters its final stretch, using a new series of lies about ballots, vote-counting and the election process to lay the groundwork to challenge a potential defeat in November.
Nonpartisan democracy experts say they’re seeing many of the same warning signs that were blinking red before Election Day four years ago, when Trump flooded the zone with election lies and conspiracy theories that he amplified after losing to Joe Biden. His campaign of deception culminated in the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“The threats have not abated; they have only increased,” said Lindsay Daniels, a senior director at the nonpartisan Democracy Fund, which works to strengthen US democracy. “We saw a lot of activity in 2020 around peddling false claims and frivolous lawsuits. We are already seeing signs now, stage-setting, that these things may be attempted again.”
Trump has made at least 12 distinct false claims over the last two months that raise baseless doubts about the validity of a potential victory by Vice President Kamala Harris. (Recent polls suggest the race is very close, and Trump could certainly still win.)
Trump, who wrongly insists the 2020 election was marred by massive fraud, said at a debate in June that he will accept the 2024 results regardless of who wins “if it’s a fair and legal and good election.” A majority of Trump supporters in battleground states like Michigan, Arizona, and Pennsylvania now say they’re “not at all confident” or only “just a little” confident the results will be accurately tallied, according to recent CNN polling.
Trump has lied about the legitimacy of the vote counts in key states, the reliability of mail-in and overseas ballots, the size of Harris’ crowds at rallies, and more. Here’s a fact check of these and other claims.
False claim: Harris can only win through cheating
For months, starting long before any votes were cast in the 2024 general election, Trump repeatedly claimed that he already has enough votes to win and simply needs to ensure Democrats don’t cheat — insinuating that the only way he could possibly lose is through fraud.
Trump said at an August rally in Arizona: “The only way they can do anything is if they cheat like hell, and we’ve been victims of that. … We don’t need the votes, we just want to make sure that they don’t cheat.” He said at an August rally in North Carolina: “Our primary focus is not to get out the vote, it’s to make sure they don’t cheat, because we have all the votes you need.”
And in a Friday speech in Michigan, he said, “If I lose – I’ll tell you what, it’s possible. Because they cheat. That’s the only way we’re gonna lose, because they cheat.”
Facts First: This is nonsense. It’s obviously entirely possible that Harris could legitimately win the presidential election. While it’s also entirely possible that Trump wins legitimately, he could not possibly know for sure at the time of these comments that he already had “all the votes you need.”
False claim: It was ‘unconstitutional’ for the Democrats to replace Biden with Harris
Trump has repeatedly claimed the fairness of the 2024 election was tarnished because Biden dropped out of the race in July and Harris subsequently became the Democratic presidential nominee. In August, he called Harris’ ascension “an unconstitutional coup” and claimed Biden’s “Presidency was Unconstitutionally STOLEN from him” by Harris.
Facts First: Trump’s claims are false. There was nothing unconstitutional or unlawful about Biden dropping out and Harris then being chosen by Democratic delegates as the party’s presidential nominee.
Biden quit the race before he had become the official Democratic nominee — the party makes the official nomination at its convention, which hadn’t happened yet. That means Biden dropped out before his name was placed on any state ballots.
CNN spoke in July with election authorities in 48 states, and not a single state authority, Republican or Democratic, said there were any legal issues with Harris getting on the general election ballot in place of Biden after she was formally nominated in August. She did not end up facing obstacles getting on the ballot in any state.
And while Biden certainly faced heavy Democratic pressure to leave the race after his poor performance in a debate against Trump in June, the decision to drop out was his alone; he could have kept running if he had chosen to do so. In other words, the candidate switch was the product of politics, not a forcible takeover.
False claim: Voting by non-citizens is a widespread problem in US elections
Trump and his allies have repeatedly raised concerns that the 2024 election will be tarnished by widespread voting by non-citizens and undocumented immigrants.
Republicans put this issue front and center in April, when Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled legislation to require all voters across the country to prove their citizenship. Efforts to pass the bill fizzled earlier in September amid disunity within the Republican caucus.
Further fanning the flames, billionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk has championed the conspiracy theory that Democrats are “importing voters” so they can create a “one-party state.” At the presidential debate earlier this month, Trump similarly accused Harris and Democrats of plotting to tip the election with illegal voters.
“Our elections are bad, and a lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote,” Trump said. “They can’t even speak English. They don’t even know what country they’re in practically. And these people are trying to get them to vote.”
Facts First: This specific Trump claim is false, and it’s also generally untrue to claim that voting by non-citizens is a widespread problem plaguing US elections. There is simply no evidence to back up that claim; it’s already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections, and the various safeguards already in place are working effectively to stop it from happening en masse.
Both liberal and conservative think tanks have found only a tiny number of examples of non-citizens voting in elections where they are ineligible. The right-wing Heritage Foundation’s database of confirmed fraud cases lists less than 100 examples of non-citizens voting between 2002 and 2022, amid more than one billion lawfully cast ballots.
Further, nonpartisan experts on election law say such cases are almost always caught, thanks to layers of identity verification built into the registration and voting process.
Here is CNN’s previous fact-check debunking false claims about non-citizens voting widely in federal elections. And here is CNN’s breakdown of the underlying data in key states, showing how Republicans have massively inflated the size of this problem.
Trump has a long history of blaming electoral losses on undocumented immigrants. When he won the presidency in 2016, he lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million — and to explain this away, he concocted the lie that “millions” of non-citizens had voted illegally.
False claim: The US Postal Service admitted it is ‘a poorly run mess’
In a social media post in mid-September, Trump claimed that the US Postal Service “admitted that it is a poorly run mess that is experiencing mail loss and delays at a level never seen before” and asked “how can we possibly be expected to allow or trust the U.S. Postal Service to run the 2024 Presidential Election?”
Facts First: Trump’s claim is false. There’s no evidence of the USPS ever admitting that it is a “poorly run mess.” Reacting to Trump’s comments at a September 19 press conference, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said, “My response is like my response to everyone who says we’re not prepared for the election — it is that they’re wrong.”
DeJoy became postmaster general in June 2020 after being selected by the bipartisan USPS Board of Governors, whose members were all appointed by Trump. DeJoy has touted the fact that in 2020, USPS delivered 99% of all mail ballots within one week.
The National Association of Secretaries of State, an umbrella organization that represents election officials from both parties, started raising alarm bells earlier this month with a sharply worded letter to DeJoy expressing “ongoing concerns” about the postal service’s “ability to deliver election mail in a timely and accurate manner.”
In response, DeJoy said the USPS was undertaking “extraordinary measures” to make sure all mail ballots are delivered on time, including designated lines at post offices for people with ballots, extra deliveries and collections by letter-carriers, “after-hours” drop-offs to election offices, and keeping processing facilities open longer.
Asked by CNN for proof of the supposed USPS admission that it was a “poorly run mess,” a Trump campaign spokeswoman responded with two news articles that were not evidence.
The articles were about the recent letter that the election officials sent to DeJoy — which didn’t originate from USPS and wasn’t an admission of anything.
Trump has continued raising unfounded doubts about mail-in voting, predicting in a recent interview with a right-wing radio host that USPS “will lose hundreds of thousands of ballots, maybe purposely.”
There is no evidence of the USPS ever losing ballots on this scale, though isolated mishaps have occurred and been remedied in past election cycles. Furthermore, most mail-in ballots are trackable these days, with tracking tools offered in almost every state.
False claim: There is no identity verification for overseas and military voters
Trump rolled out a new lie in late September about military and overseas voting.
For this tiny slice of the national electorate, voters can receive and submit ballots over email, because they are civilians who live abroad or servicemembers that are stationed overseas.
These are often called “UOCAVA voters,” from the acronym for the federal law that set up this system: the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, which passed with bipartisan backing and was signed by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1986.
The deadline for states to send out UOCAVA ballots was September 21. In a social media post two days later, Trump baselessly accused Democrats of using this program “to CHEAT” in the election. “They are going to use UOCAVA to get ballots, a program that emails ballots overseas without any citizenship check or verification of identity, whatsoever,” Trump claimed.
Facts First: It’s not true that UOCAVA ballots are sent to people with no verification “whatsoever” of their identity. These special ballots are only sent to registered voters who request them, and states require people to verify their identity when registering.
David Becker, founder and executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, who regularly advises state and local election officials from both parties, blasted Trump on social media for “actively spreading false information about a bipartisan program.”
“Military and overseas ballots have gone out to registered, verified voters (as required by law) and they are secure,” Becker wrote the day after Trump’s claim. “I can tell you election officials of both parties take great pride in giving military and overseas voters a secure voice in our election, and it’s unfortunate to see a candidate spread lies about that process.”
Democrats Abroad, an arm of the Democratic Party, condemned Trump’s “absurd rant” in a statement to CNN, and said UOCAVA ballots “are only sent to people whose registration have been confirmed and validated by their local elections office.”
False claim: Harris spied on Trump’s campaign
Trump launched a new attack on Harris after news broke over the summer that Iranian hackers breached some Trump campaign email accounts and sent some of the stolen materials to journalists and Democratic campaign operatives.
“THE FBI CAUGHT IRAN SPYING ON MY CAMPAIGN, AND GIVING ALL OF THE INFORMATION TO THE KAMALA HARRIS CAMPAIGN. THEREFORE SHE AND HER CAMPAIGN WERE ILLEGALLY SPYING ON ME,” Trump posted on Truth Social in mid-September.
Facts First: Trump’s claim that the Harris campaign spied on him is baseless. Iran did breach the Trump campaign, but there’s no evidence anyone from the Harris campaign was involved in the breach, solicited hacked materials, or weaponized these materials in any way. The Harris campaign condemned Iran’s “unwelcome and unacceptable” election interference.
The federal government announced in August that Iranian hackers successfully targeted the Trump campaign, and that they also attempted to breach the Biden-Harris campaigns.
US intelligence agencies later disclosed that the Iranian hackers sent unsolicited messages containing some of stolen Trump materials to some people associated with the Biden campaign. This included “a few individuals” who are currently involved with Harris’ campaign, her team told CNN.
Despite Trump’s claims, there is no evidence the Iranian hackers provided the Harris campaign with “all of the information” they stole. The US spy agencies said “an excerpt” of some stolen material was provided. More importantly, the US spy agencies said “there is currently no information indicating those recipients replied” to the hackers.
The Harris campaign’s condemnation of Iran and refusal to use the stolen material is a stark contrast to how Trump embraced Russia’s hack-and-leak against his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign. Even after the US announced that the leaks were part of a Kremlin plot to interfere with the US election, Trump and his campaign built a strategy to capitalize off Russia’s illegal actions and used the emails to attack Clinton on a near-daily basis.
False claim: California’s vote counts are dishonest
Trump has wrongly claimed for years that US vote counts are plagued by major fraud. In the last month, he has even declared that he would win Democratic-dominated California if there was an “honest” vote count. (California’s large population means that a candidate’s vote totals there have a significant influence on the national popular vote — which Trump has baselessly cast doubt on for years, even when he won the presidency in 2016.)
Trump said in September that “if I ran with an honest vote counter in California I would win California, but the votes are not counted honestly.” In late August, he said, “If Jesus came down and was the vote counter, I would win California, okay?”
Facts First: This is fiction. The votes are counted honestly in California, as they are in every other state. Trump loses California because it is an overwhelmingly Democratic state that no Republican presidential candidate has carried since 1988.
Trump lost the state in 2020, fair and square, by more 5 million votes and more than 29 percentage points. It’s ridiculous to suggest that fraudulent vote-counting was responsible for a margin that large.
Like several other states, California conducts post-election audits to verify the accuracy of the vote count. These audits use mathematical models and statistics to access the accuracy of the overall tally based on random samples of ballots.
False claim: Election officials use early voting to commit fraud
Trump has encouraged his supporters this year to make use of early voting. But at a rally in Pennsylvania last week, he suggested that the lag time between when an early ballot is cast and Election Day is used by nefarious actors to fraudulently manipulate the count.
“Now we have this stupid stuff where you can vote 45 days early. I wonder what the hell happens during that 45 — ‘Let’s move the … see these votes, we’ve got about a million votes in there, let’s move them, we’re fixing the air conditioner in the room,’ right? No, it’s terrible. What happened the last time was disgraceful, including right here. But we’re not going to let it happen again,” Trump said.
Facts First: This is another phony narrative. There is no indication that there was any counting fraud involving early ballots in 2020, in Pennsylvania or anywhere else. Early ballots are securely stored in election offices until they are counted. People who interfere with ballots during this period are subject to prosecution.
False claim: Trump won Minnesota in 2020
Trump declared in March and May that he won Minnesota in the 2020 election.
At a Minnesota rally in July, he claimed, “If they don’t cheat, we win this state easily, Okay? They cheat.” He added, “They’re the most crooked. They cheat. They cheated in the last election, and they’re going to cheat in this election, but we’re going to get them.”
Facts First: Trump’s claims are false.
He lost Minnesota by more than 7 percentage points in the 2020 election, fair and square, and he can certainly lose the state legitimately in 2024.
The state hasn’t chosen a Republican for president since 1972, and Trump has consistently trailed in opinion polls against Harris — whose running mate is the sitting Minnesota governor, Tim Walz.
False claim: A large percentage of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania are fraudulent
Pennsylvania is one of the most important swing states in the 2024 election. Trump claimed in a social media post in September that an “election expert” interviewed by right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson had suggested a large percentage of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania are fraudulent.
“An interview by Tucker Carlson of an election expert indicates that 20% of the Mail-In Ballots in Pennsylvania are fraudulent. Here we go again! Where is the U.S. Attorney General and FBI to INVESTIGATE? Where is the Pennsylvania Republican Party? We will WIN Pennsylvania by a lot, unless the Dems are allowed to CHEAT,” he wrote.
Facts First: There is no valid basis for the claim that 20% of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania — or any other state — are fraudulent. This claim appears to be based on a flawed 2023 poll by a right-wing pollster, not the discovery of any actual problems with ballots in Pennsylvania or anywhere else from 2020, 2022 or this year.
The 2020 election was fair and secure in Pennsylvania, as it was in the rest of the country, according to officials from both parties who affirmed the results. There was a tiny smattering of voter fraud in the state in 2020 —– some of it committed by Trump supporters — but not even close to enough to have affected the outcome.
Pennsylvania’s Department of State said in a September email to CNN: “Voting by mail is safe and secure, and no evidence exists of widespread mail voting fraud in Pennsylvania.
Mail ballot fraud has been proven to be exceptionally rare. Claims of systemic voter fraud are devoid of any supporting evidence and have consistently been rejected by judges, government agencies, and election experts across the political spectrum.”
So what was Trump referring to?
Trump and his campaign didn’t specify what interview he was talking about. But in April, Carlson interviewed someone who spoke of a 2023 poll conducted by a right-wing firm, Rasmussen Reports, that has itself promoted false election claims. Among likely voters in that poll who said they had been absentee or mail-in voters in 2020, 21% claimed to have filled out a ballot for a friend or family member and 17% claimed they had voted in a state where they were no longer a permanent resident.
There are lots of reasons not to treat this poll as evidence of mass fraud in Pennsylvania.
First, this was a national poll, not a Pennsylvania poll. Second, the pollster is viewed skeptically by many polling experts. Third, people making claims to a pollster about their past behavior does not prove that they actually did what they said.
Fourth, as FactCheck.org pointed out earlier this month, it’s legal to fill out a ballot for a voter with disabilities who has asked for the assistance — so someone saying they filled out someone else’s ballot isn’t necessarily a confession of fraud. Fifth, as FactCheck.org also noted, the wording of the residency question was ambiguous enough that people could have thought it was asking about legal behavior — such as having voted in 2020 in a different state from the one they currently lived in three years later.
False claim: Harris fabricated an image to inflate her crowd size
Since 2020, various Trump supporters have claimed that Biden’s unimpressive crowd sizes are proof that Biden’s 2020 vote total, about 81 million, was fraudulently inflated. (Trump earned about 74 million votes in 2020.)
In August, Trump launched an attack on Harris’ crowd sizes. He claimed on social media that Harris should be disqualified from the race because, he claimed, she had faked an image of a large crowd at her rally at a Michigan airport. He wrote: “There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST!”
He also wrote, “This is the way the Democrats win Elections, by CHEATING – And they’re even worse at the Ballot Box. She should be disqualified because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Anyone who does that will cheat at ANYTHING!”
Facts First: Trump’s claims are false. Harris did not create a fake image of the Michigan crowd using artificial intelligence or anything else. As genuine photos and videos showed, and reporters on scene confirmed, she had a real crowd of thousands of people at the airport event.
The false claim that the Harris campaign was pushing fake images of this Michigan crowd had been circulated by some far-right influencers before Trump adopted it.
Asked by CNN in August why he made the false claim, Trump said he “can’t say what was there, who was there” and could only speak about his own large crowds. But he made another false claim about Harris’ crowds at the presidential debate against Harris in September, wrongly saying, “People don’t go to her rallies.”
False claim: Biden or Harris orchestrated Trump’s legal cases
Trump has repeatedly claimed this year that “all” of the legal cases against him, including local and state cases, were all orchestrated by Biden for the purpose of “election interference,” to help Democrats win the election.
In July, when Biden dropped out of the race and Harris became the Democratic candidate, Trump began claiming she was the one behind the cases.
Facts First: These claims are false. There is no evidence that Biden personally orchestrated any of these cases. Trump never presented any evidence for that claim, let alone for suddenly making the vice president the target of the claim after months of directing it at the president.
There is no sign that either Biden or Harris had any role in bringing charges against Trump in Manhattan, New York (where Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records) or Fulton County, Georgia (where an election subversion case against Trump is on hold over a battle about whether the district attorney should be disqualified). Those prosecutions have been led by elected local prosecutors, both Democrats, who do not even report to the federal government.
Trump’s two federal criminal cases, one about election subversion and one about Trump’s retention of classified documents after his presidency, were brought by a special counsel, Jack Smith. A judge dismissed the classified documents case in July, but Smith is appealing.
Smith was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden appointee, but that is far from proof that Biden orchestrated the prosecutions – and certainly not proof that Harris did. Garland has said he would resign if Biden ever asked him to take action against Trump, but expressed confidence that Biden would never put him in that position.
By Alayna Treene and Kate Sullivan, CNN
2 minute read
Published 9:43 PM EST, Mon November 4, 2024
Joe Rogan is seen at the ceremonial weigh-in for the UFC 292 mixed martial arts event, Friday, Aug. 18, 2023, in Boston. Gregory Payan/AP/FileCNN —
Popular podcast host Joe Rogan officially endorsed Donald Trump on the eve of the election, a move Trump’s team swiftly touted as a major win in the final hours of their campaign.
Rogan on Monday released his latest podcast featuring a two-and-a-half-hour interview with billionaire X owner and top Trump surrogate Elon Musk. Rogan then posted on X: “The great and powerful @elonmusk. If it wasn’t for him we’d be f**ked. He makes what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you’ll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way.”
“For the record, yes, that’s an endorsement of Trump. Enjoy the podcast,” he added.
The endorsement comes just weeks after Rogan interviewed Trump on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” an interview that was months in the making for the Trump campaign and viewed widely by the former president’s advisers as the crowning achievement of their media strategy to target young men and low-propensity voters by having Trump appear on podcasts catering to the demographic.
Trump, who was onstage in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for his penultimate rally when Rogan made the endorsement, swiftly touted the development.
“It just came over the wires that Joe Rogan just endorsed me, is that great. Thank you, Joe. That’s so nice. And he doesn’t do that, he doesn’t do that stuff,” Trump said.
Trump said, “And he tends to be a little bit more liberal than some of the people in this room.”
Last week, Rogan posted on X that he had declined an offer from Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign to do an interview.
“Also, for the record the Harris campaign has not passed on doing the podcast. They offered a date for Tuesday, but I would have had to travel to her and they only wanted to do an hour. I strongly feel the best way to do it is in the studio in Austin,” Rogan said. “My sincere wish is to just have a nice conversation and get to know her as a human being. I really hope we can make it happen.”
The Harris campaign declined to comment on Rogan’s post.
By Eric Bradner and Kate Sullivan, CNN
4 minute read
Updated 2:10 AM EST, Tue November 5, 2024
Former President Donald Trump gestures during a campaign rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Monday, November 4. Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty ImagesCNN —
Donald Trump described the United States as an “occupied country,” pointing to both undocumented and legal migrants as he pledged Monday to “rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered.”
The former president’s comments, at his election eve rally in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania, underscore the dark and dystopian image he is portraying as he and Vice President Kamala Harris make their final arguments to voters ahead of Tuesday’s election.
Trump made little distinction between undocumented immigrants he said had overrun an apartment complex in Colorado and thousands of Haitian migrants who entered the United States legally and live in Springfield, Ohio.
“These are military invasions without the uniforms. That’s all it is,” Trump said, as he vowed to launch a massive deportation effort.
Trump was closing his third presidential campaign Monday with the same anti-immigration rhetoric that he used to launch his first White House bid. He described a nation in decline, overrun by migrant crime, much as he did in his first inaugural address, when he vowed to stop the “American carnage.”
The former president said he would target migrant gangs, ban sanctuary cities and seek the death penalty for any migrant that kills a US citizen. He invited conservative commentator Megyn Kelly on stage. Kelly listed several people killed by undocumented immigrants. Her appearance was particularly notable after Trump ripped Kelly for the way she asked him tough questions while moderating a Republican presidential primary debate in 2015, starting off months of sparring over social media and in subsequent interviews.
Trump also said he would rejuvenate US manufacturing by imposing steep tariffs on automotive products manufactured in Mexico, steel made in China and more – a proposal that economists have said would increase inflation, because the businesses charged those tariffs for importing foreign-made goods would pass the additional costs on to American consumers.
“Four years of Kamala have delivered nothing but economic hell for the American workers,” Trump said.
And Trump railed against the length of time it takes for votes to be counted and the usage of electronic voting machines, calling for single-day voting that would all be done on paper. It was a long discussion that is contrary to previous messaging from Trump and his campaign, which has encouraged people to vote early.
“I do believe it is too big to rig. I think it’s too big to rig. They’ll try. And they are trying, you know, but it’s too big to rig. This is a big movement. This is, you know, we did great in 2016, we did much better in 2020 but a lot of bad things happened,” Trump said. “This is that big, powerful, vicious party, though. No, it’s a vicious machine. I mean, they can take all these bad ideas and win elections. It’s like, there’s only a way you can do that. One way, there’s only one way.”
He added, “We have to win the old fashioned way and then fix it. But we have to fix it. We can’t allow this to happen. And remember, the states are essentially an agent, if I can use that term, but they’re an agent of the federal government. The states are doing the collecting, so to speak, and they have to take their orders from the federal government. And how can they do this when they say it’s going to take days long.”
The former president’s closing message of the 2024 race was a familiar one, as he delivered a lengthy speech in Pittsburgh – his third of four rallies scheduled for Monday after visits to North Carolina and eastern Pennsylvania with one more stop in Michigan. In a nod to the city’s sporting history, Trump discussed Pittsburgh Pirates’ star Roberto Clemente for an extended period near the end of his speech and brought the late Puerto Rican star’s son on stage for a few words.
Harris also ended her campaign with a blitz across Pennsylvania. The two candidates’ time spent in the Keystone State underscores the importance of its 19 electoral college votes — without which both candidates’ paths to the 270 necessary to win the presidency would be much more daunting.
Both campaigns have largely focused on seven battlegrounds: the “blue wall” of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which Trump won in 2016 but President Joe Biden reclaimed in 2020, and four Sun Belt states: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.
CNN
Trump argues he’s really running against “an evil Democrat system,” not Harris, during his final rally
From CNN’s Kate Sullivan
Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan on November 5. Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP/Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump argued during the final rally of his campaign that his real opponent this election was not Vice President Kamala Harris but instead “an evil Democrat system.”
“We will defeat the corrupt system in Washington. Because I’m not running against Kamala, I’m running against an evil Democrat system. These are evil people,” Trump said during his rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that started well after midnight.
“The silent majority is back and tomorrow you need to get out and vote,” Trump said.
“This has been an incredible journey. And it’s very sad in a way, because, you know, we’ve done all these, and this is the last one, but here’s the good news, all we were doing is putting ourselves in a position to win, which we can do tomorrow very easily if we show up,” he added.
It’s decision day in America. Here’s what to watch for
From CNN’s Eric Bradner and Gregory Krieg
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. AP
It’s decision day for voters in America’s battle for the White House and control of Congress — even if the results could take days or weeks to sort through.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are hoping to win over seven swing states: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the three Great Lakes states that make up the “blue wall” that Trump cracked in 2016 but President Joe Biden carried in 2020, and Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, the four Sun Belt battlegrounds.
While the election of either candidate would be historic, there’s much more being decided Tuesday, including five states — Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota — voting on whether to turn back abortion bans with constitutional amendments.
Republicans hope to take advantage of a favorable Senate map, with Democrats defending seats in the red-leaning states of Montana, Ohio and West Virginia. The party’s hopes of holding onto its narrow House majority winds from the coast of Maine through New York’s Hudson Valley, the rolling hills of Virginia’s Piedmont, a “blue dot” in Nebraska and into California’s Orange County, where the political ebbs and flows of the Trump era have been on vivid display.
The initial results in the hours after polls close might not be determinative. States decide their own election procedures, and the order in which states count early, mail-in and Election Day votes varies across the map — as does how quickly certain cities, counties and regions report their results.
Read more about what to expect from the day.
Trump finishes final campaign rally after speaking for nearly 2 hours
From CNN’s Jessie Yeung
Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Tuesday. Paul Sancya/AP
Former President Donald Trump has ended his final campaign rally after speaking for nearly two hours in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
He repeated many of his campaign promises, such as vowing to impose hefty tariffs and to crack down on illegal immigration.
At one point he also brought several of his children and their spouses to the stage, who delivered brief remarks, including Tiffany, Eric and Donald Jr.
His marathon address ends a long campaign trail — with Trump saying he had attended more than 900 rallies this year.
Walz says he’s disappointed but not surprised the race is so closely contested
From CNN’s Aaron Pellish
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz participates in an interview with Stephen Colbert. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert/CBS
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he’s disappointed the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is so closely contested.
In an interview on CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” taped in Bucks County, Pennsylvania last Thursday, Walz laid out the contrast between the two candidates to show that the difference is “stark.”
He said of the election being so closely contested: “It disappoints me, I think, because I think that the choice is so stark, but it’s not surprising.”
“The country’s really divided. There’s been a group of people out there who figured that out, and I think they’ve done a wonderful job of making people think it doesn’t matter, everybody’s the same,” Walz said.
Walz then laid out how he saw the differences between Harris and Trump, particularly noting insults directed toward Puerto Rico made by a speaker at a Trump rally in October.
“In this case, you’ve got the Constitution versus not the Constitution. You’ve got reproductive rights versus I don’t care if you like it or not. I’ll tell you what to do, from Donald Trump in closing with insulting people. I know we’re sitting in Pennsylvania, there’s — there’s 500,000 Puerto Ricans here, and Puerto Ricans, as all Americans, are very proud of where they come from,” he said.
In the past, Walz has expressed some disbelief at the competitiveness of the presidential election. He has regularly mused at private fundraisers and campaign stops that “I’ll go to my grave not understanding” how the election is so close.
Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake says “silent majority” will back her and Trump
From CNN’s Veronica Stracqualursi
Kari Lake speaks at a campaign rally, Monday, November 4, in Prescott, Arizona. Julio Cortez/AP
Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake has held her final campaign rally, telling supporters that on Tuesday they have “a chance to change the trajectory of this country and save this Republic.”
Campaigning on the steps of the Yavapai County Courthouse in Prescott, Arizona on Monday — where US Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona launched his presidential campaign — Lake, a former TV newscaster up against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego in a key Senate race, argued that the “Make America Great Again” movement “is not dead,” and claimed that a “silent majority” will back her and former President Donald Trump tomorrow.
Lake and Gallego, a Marine veteran who represents Arizona’s 3rd congressional district, are vying for the pivotal Senate seat held by independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.
Lake, who did not concede her 2022 election loss and promoted Trump’s false theories about the 2020 election, said she believes in “fair and honest elections” and argued “I really believe that our Founding Fathers never envisioned we’d have elections that are run so horribly.”
“That’s why they never put in term limits because they figured we’d be able to vote the people that we didn’t respect out of office. And unfortunately, we haven’t been able to do that. And we’re going to change that after January. But the only way to change that is to show up in such a massive movement that we have their heads spinning,” she said, pointing to the media.
She also thanked GOP congressional candidate Abe Hamadeh and said: “When they did to us what they did to us in 2022, and everyone else ran and hid, guess who stood with me and said, damn it, we’re going to fight — Abe Hamadeh.”
She argued the election is not “Republican-Democrat anymore” but “Americanism versus communism.”
Trump teases using sexist language to refer to Nancy Pelosi
From CNN’s Jessie Yeung
Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Tuesday, November 5. Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP/Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump slammed US Rep. Nancy Pelosi during his final rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, verging on using a profanity to describe the former House Speaker.
“She’s a crooked person, she’s a bad person. Evil, she’s an evil, sick, crazy bi— It starts with a ‘B’ but I won’t say it. I wanna say it,” Trump said to cheers from the crowd.
“I don’t use much (foul language), you know, every once in a while, and it’s never a real bad word, it’s never bad … But it is a little better when you use foul language. These are bad people,” he said.
Trump constantly rails against Pelosi and recently called the California Democrat “an enemy from within.”
Throughout the end of his campaign trail, Trump’s message has gotten increasingly dark and often offensive. At an event in North Carolina last week, Trump chuckled approvingly at an audience member’s suggestion that Vice President Kamala Harris worked as a sex worker.
Harris will spend Election Day doing radio interviews
From CNN’s Brian Rokus
Vice President Kamala Harris will spend Election Day in Washington, DC and participate in radio interviews, according to her office.
Trump has held his final campaign rally in Grand Rapids in 3 presidential races
From CNN’s Jessie Yeung
Former President Donald Trump has taken the stage in Grand Rapids, Michigan — giving the city a special shout-out for being the location of his final rallies in past presidential campaigns.
“I want to say a very special hello to Grand Rapids, it’s been a special place, remember 2016?” he said to a cheering crowd that chanted his name.
Trump previously also finished his campaign trail in the city in 2016 and 2020.
NOW: Trump is speaking at his final rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan
From CNN staff
Former President Donald Trump walks on stage for his final campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Monday, November 4. Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP/Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump is speaking at his final rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he ended both his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. His remarks were originally slated for 10:30 p.m. ET.
Grand Rapids is a Western Michigan city in Kent County, which swung from Trump in 2016 to Joe Biden in 2020.
Harris and Trump tie in Dixville Notch midnight vote to kick off Election Day
From CNN’s Gary Tuchman
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Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have tied with three votes each in the tiny New Hampshire township of Dixville Notch, kicking off Election Day in one of the first places in the country to report its presidential preference.
Four Republicans and two undeclared voters participated.
The unincorporated township, located along the US-Canada border in New Hampshire’s northern tip, opened and closed its poll just after midnight ET in a tradition that dates back to 1960.
Read more about how Dixville Notch voted.
Harris calls on Pennsylvania voters to turn out, saying “the race ain’t over yet”
From CNN’s Jessie Yeung
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Monday, November 4. Hannah McKay/Reutes
Speaking at her final campaign rally in Philadelphia before Election Day on Monday night, Vice President Kamala Harris said her team was “optimistic and excited” — but urged voters to make their voices heard, saying Pennsylvania could “decide the outcome” of the election.
“The race ain’t over yet, and we must finish strong. This could be one of the closest races in history. Every single vote matters,” she said.
“With only a few hours left, we still have work to do, and as you’ve heard me say before, we like hard work,” she added.
At points, the crowd broke into cheers of “We will win” and “We’re not going back.”
Harris reiterated several campaign promises, such as lowering the cost of living, housing, childcare, elderly home care, and taxes for workers and small businesses. She also vowed to pass a bill to restore reproductive freedoms after the rolling back of Roe v. Wade.
She sought to contrast herself with Donald Trump by using several familiar refrains — such as promising a seat at the table to those who disagree with her, compared to the former president’s often vehement rhetoric against his political opponents.
“We started this campaign 107 days ago,” she said. “From the beginning, ours has not been a fight against something, it has been a fight for something. A fight for a future with freedom, with opportunity, and with dignity for all Americans.”
“Tonight, we finish as we started — with optimism, with energy, with joy, knowing that we the people have the power to shape our future, and that we can confront any challenge we face when we do it together.”
NOW: Harris speaking in Philadelphia in final rally before Election Day
From CNN staff
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Monday,November 4. Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images
Vice President Kamala Harris is speaking at a rally in Philadelphia, her final stop in front of voters before Election Day.
Harris has made the key battleground of Pennsylvania her priority on Monday with several stops across the state culminating in her final one in the state’s largest city.
She was joined by Oprah Winfrey and Lady Gaga, among other celebrities, musicians and elected officials at the famous “Rocky Steps” at the Philadelphia Museum of the Arts.
Oprah takes the stage at Harris rally with 10 first-time young voters
From CNN’s Jessie Yeung
US television producer Oprah Winfrey arrives on stage with 10 first-time Philadelphia voters during a rally for Kamala Harris in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 4, 2024. Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images
Oprah Winfrey took the stage at Kamala Harris’ final rally in Philadelphia on Monday night alongside 10 young people – all first time voters.
“The policies that Kamala Harris has proposed for women’s reproductive rights and education equality are what led me to cast my ballot for her,” one voter told Winfrey.
Another first-time voter said it was especially significant for him as an African American to “exercise my right to vote, which my ancestors fought so hard for.”
“We don’t get to sit this one out,” Oprah said.
“If we don’t show up tomorrow, it is entirely possible that we will not have the opportunity to ever cast a ballot again.”
“We are voting for healing over hate,” she said.
“What you can do for your country, what you can do for democracy here, and what you can do for the spirit of John Lewis and all the others who dared to walk across that bridge in Selma and fight for justice for us all … What you can do for every pregnant young woman who has died bc she was not eligible to receive the emergency medical care she desperately needed bc of an abortion ban, what you can do for everyone and everything you cherish — is vote.”
Lady Gaga performs “God Bless America” at Harris’ final rally in Philadelphia
From CNN’s Jessie Yeung
Lady Gaga waves before performing during a campaign rally for Vice President Kamala Harris in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Monday, November 4. ( Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images
Musical superstar Lady Gaga appeared at Vice President Kamala Harris’ final rally in Philadelphia, performing a rendition of “God Bless America.”
“For more than half of this country’s life, women didn’t have a voice. Yet we raised children, we held our families together, we supported men as they made the decisions,” she said in brief remarks after her performance. “But tomorrow, women will be a part of making this decision.”
Oprah Winfrey is also expected to make an appearance tonight, before Harris delivers remarks.
Walz focuses on abortion during final campaign rally in Michigan
From CNN’s Aaron Pellish
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz focused heavily on access to abortion and reproductive health care, driving home a core message of Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign in Detroit, Michigan on Monday.
In his remarks at Hart Plaza overlooking the Detroit River, Walz reiterated his attacks on former president Donald Trump, who claimed to be the “protector” of women and said he would look after women “whether they like it or not” at a campaign rally in Wisconsin last week.
He also made a direct pitch to male voters on abortion, asking them to consider the implications of abortion restrictions on the women in their lives.
“Let me speak to the guys in the crowd tonight. I want you to think about the women in your life that you love. Their lives are at stake in this election. Donald Trump appointed those Supreme Court justices who repealed Roe versus Wade, and he brags about it. He is glad that those women you’re thinking about and you love have fewer rights than their mothers and their grandmothers,” he said.
“We’re seeing women turned away from emergency rooms, miscarrying in parking lots, whether they like it or not. Survivors of rape being forced to carry those pregnancies to term, whether they like it or not. Fertility clinics turning couples away at the door, whether they like it or not,” he said.
“Now, tomorrow, women all across America of every age, both parties, are going to send a loud and clear message to Donald Trump, whether he likes it or not.”
Harris offers Americans a chance to turn the page on Trump — without mentioning him
From CNN’s Gregory Krieg
Vice President Kamala Harris appears during a campaign rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Monday, November 4. Quinn Glabicki/Reuters
Her message has been consistent, but Kamala Harris has in the closing days of the presidential race dropped two notable words from her stump speech: Donald Trump.
The former president’s name was again absent from the vice president’s speech on Monday night in Pittsburgh, where she again promised voters a clean break from the discord of the Trump era in American politics. It was a notable switch in rhetoric for the vice president, who had mentioned Trump’s name so often in previous versions of her stump speech that the Republican’s campaign had put together a video compilation of Harris saying “Donald Trump” that he often played at rallies.
“We have an opportunity in this election to finally turn the page on a decade of politics driven by fear and division. We are done with that,” Harris said. “We’re done. We’re exhausted with it.”
That promise has been threaded through her campaign, usually implied but increasingly delivered in explicit terms.
“It can be easy to forget a simple truth,” Harris said in Washington. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
The way it is, she said in Pittsburgh, is not so good.
“So much about these last several years has been about trying to make people point their fingers at each other,” Harris said, “to have Americans point their fingers at each other, to try and make people feel alone or feel small.”
Elon Musk cancels virtual town hall event minutes after it started after technical problems
From CNN’s Clare Duffy
Elon Musk held a digital version of the town-hall-style rallies he has hosted on behalf of former President Donald Trump. But the event on X ended just a few minutes after it started on Monday night, when Musk encountered technical difficulties.
The event began streaming more than 20 minutes after its scheduled 8 p.m. ET start time. When the billionaire X owner joined, he promoted a podcast interview he did with Joe Rogan and offered to take questions. An operator then attempted to take questions from four listeners who apparently had been on hold, but the line went silent when he called on them.
The operator asked Musk if he believes “we will win” on Tuesday — presumably referring to Trump, whom Musk has supported to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
“Well, I think if people vote tomorrow, we’re definitely going to win,” he said.
Musk then called off the event, saying: “let’s cancel this, since we seem to be having some technical issues.” Musk promised to start a regular livestream spaces event on X. The X Spaces event Musk started immediately following the town hall, lasted one minute and appeared to have no audio.
Minutes later, Musk said he would not restart his Q&A and encouraged followers to listen to his Rogan interview instead, during which the podcaster endorsed Trump.
The Monday town hall is just the latest election-related event that Musk attempted to host on X that was plagued by technical difficulties.
An August interview between Musk and Trump that was streamed on X was delayed by more than 40 minutes because of glitches. Musk blamed the issue on a cyberattack, but some experts speculated it was simply caused by too many users trying to listen. A similar event last year to kick off Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign was also delayed by 25 minutes and marred by technical difficulties.
Why these 7 battleground states could determine who wins the election
From CNN’s Zachary B. Wolf
People cast their early ballots at a polling station in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on November 2. Carlos Osorio/Reuters
There are thought to be seven states that could conceivably be won by either candidate. As a result, the campaigns have focused their energy in these areas. They can be broken up into two general categories:
3 Midwestern battlegrounds, aka “the blue wall” – These are the manufacturing and union-heavy states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. They used to be more reliably Democratic but have shifted in recent years as their populations have changed and as former President Donald Trump has appealed to White voters without a college degree.
When Trump won the White House in 2016, he won all three. When President Joe Biden won in 2020, he won all three. If Vice President Kamala Harris wins all three this year, she will likely have the electoral votes to be president. But polls suggest close races in all three. Turnout will be key, which for Harris means appealing to suburban women and Black voters. All three states have urban centers.
The blue wall states usually vote the same way. The last time they did not all go to the same candidate was in 1988 – notably also a year when California was red and West Virginia was blue. In those eight elections since 1988, the only time the blue wall states went to a Republican was in 2016, when they were won by Trump.
4 Sun Belt battlegrounds – These states with growing populations include Arizona and Nevada in the West and North Carolina and Georgia in the East. Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina used to be more reliably Republican. Trump won North Carolina twice, but the margins were close in 2020. The last Democrat to win there was Barack Obama in 2008. Biden was the first Democrat to win Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992 and Arizona since Clinton in 1996.
Here are more key things to know about the US election works.
Ahead of election night, meet the 2024 Democratic and Republican candidates
From CNN’s Ethan Cohen, Molly English and Matt Holt
Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Getty Images
Ahead of election night, read up on the 2024 candidates on the Democratic and Republican tickets vying to win the White House.
Vice President Kamala Harris is the Democratic candidate for president. The daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, Harris grew up in Oakland and spent much of her political career in California’s Bay Area.
She was first elected as the San Francisco district attorney in 2004, before later serving as the attorney general of California. After that, Harris was elected to the Senate before being picked to be President Joe Biden’s running mate in the 2020 election.
She announced her own candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president after Biden withdrew from the ticket and endorsed her on July 21. Harris is the first Black woman and first Asian American to lead the ticket of a major political party.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is Harris’ running mate. Before being elected to Congress to represent the state’s 1st Congressional District in 2007, Walz was a high school geography teacher and an assistant football coach. He also served in the Army National Guard. Walz has been serving as Minnesota governor since 2019.
Former President Donald Trump is the Republican candidate for president, aiming to become only the second commander in chief to win two nonconsecutive terms.
Trump, who was born in New York, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in economics. Before launching his successful 2016 presidential bid, Trump was a real estate developer, businessman and a reality television star as host of “The Apprentice.”
Ohio Sen. JD Vance is Trump’s running mate. Born in Middletown, Ohio, Vance wrote a memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, about his upbringing and white, working-class Americans. He also attended Yale Law School, worked as a venture capitalist and served in the US Marine Corps.
Vance was elected to the Senate in 2023, outlasting a stronger-than-expected challenge from Democrat Tim Ryan and keeping the seat under GOP control.
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