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Election 2024

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Toni L. Sandys

It’s worth beginning with the observation that it was all so obvious. President Donald Trump’s effort to secure a second term in office regardless of the will of the electorate was so ham-handed and clumsy that it was like watching a little kid do a magic trick: You knew what was coming and how it would work and you just had to let it play out.

Although of course, this particular magic trick ends with the kid’s friend furiously trying to burn your house down.

As we continue to learn details of how Trump scrambled to block Joe Biden’s victory in the weeks after the 2020 election — like <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/31/politics/trump-executive-orders-seize-voting-machines/index.html" target="_blank">the report Monday</a> evening that Trump considered various options for seizing voting machines — it is useful to fit what we know into an overarching framework. No part of the scheming by Trump and his allies is disconnected from the rest; each intertwines into an ad hoc, three-pronged ploy.

He tried to prove fraud. He tried to get elections officials to act as if there had been fraud. And then he just tried to steal the election.

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As you review Trump’s efforts, patterns become apparent. While the overall effort to seize a second term in office was lengthy and complicated, none of the individual efforts to advance it went very far. This was almost never a function of Trump’s simply realizing that he was overreaching or his coming to understand that he was inappropriately crossing a boundary. It was, instead, because those against whom he was applying pressure resisted. At times, this was virtuous, as with Vice President Mike Pence’s refusal to execute the last-ditch effort to block electoral-vote counting. At other times, it seems likely that the actions were self-serving, as when Trump’s attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/31/us/politics/donald-trump-election-results-fraud-voting-machines.html" target="_blank">objected</a> to the seizure of voting machines as advocated by his rival, the attorney Sidney Powell. But it was others, including state-level institutions and even local actors, who applied the brakes to the plot. It was almost never Trump.

Here’s what we know about how it played out, in rough chronological order. Each item is identified as being either part of the effort to prove fraud or to get officials to act on the idea that fraud had occurred. Except for the last item on the list, which stands alone.

Trying to prove fraud: Elevating dubious and outright nonsensical claims about fraud. Months before the 2020 election, Trump began claiming that the expansion of mail-in voting would open the door to rampant fraud. This was a shift in his rhetoric; he’d previously insisted that voters showed up multiple times at the polls to vote, something that almost never happens. But rules changes centered on the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">coronavirus</a> pandemic gave him a new way to claim that something dubious was afoot.

Even before the election, many Republicans were convinced that the results would be suspect, useful tilling of the soil for what ensued. After Election Day, Trump focused not on carefully vetting fraud claims and exploring the most likely for further investigation. Instead, he sought to whip up a dust storm of implications that something had occurred. He’d retweet or otherwise amplify obviously ridiculous claims, often even after they had been debunked. The obvious goal was not to have everyone believe each claim but, instead, to overwhelm observers with assertions to create an impression of sketchiness. He was a smoke machine who claimed to see a forest fire.

His allies helped. In one particularly remarkable news conference held at the Republican Party’s D.C. headquarters on Nov. 19, 2020, Giuliani and Powell offered conflicting narratives about how the election was stolen: Giuliani’s focusing on unfounded claims about absentee-ballot fraud and Powell’s on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/19/heres-how-seriously-you-should-take-trump-legal-teams-conspiracy-theories/" target=_blank>truly deranged</a> claims about voting machines — claims that led to massive lawsuits from firms targeted by her rhetoric. That event is important a bit later in this narrative, but there’s something worth pointing out here: Trump’s effort here was aided explicitly by the GOP establishment.

As the weeks and months passed, it became obvious that there was a huge market for fraud claims, from Trump and his base alike. Individuals sitting at various points on the hustler-to-delusional spectrum offered claims about fraud and duplicity that the president and his supporters eagerly embraced.

Why it didn’t work: It did. Most Republicans <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/28/three-10-republicans-think-maybe-trump-will-be-president-again-before-2024/" target=_blank>continue to believe</a> that rampant fraud occurred.

Getting officials to act: Filing lawsuits in an effort to change state-level results. The most predictable — perhaps even normal — part of Trump’s effort to change the direction of the election results was filing multiple lawsuits aimed at stopping or reshaping vote counting in states. Such lawsuits are common after elections, although in this case, they included third-party efforts by people such as Powell. The lawsuits didn’t change anything, although at times they came close. In Wisconsin, Trump <a href="https://apnews.com/article/wisonsin-supreme-court-trump-lawsuit-e6b3aa222b4141c0844d541c4b041964" target=_blank>lost only narrowly</a> in a case before the state Supreme Court after securing the support of three of the bench’s four conservative jurists.

Why it didn’t work: Courts almost always rejected the pro-Trump arguments.

Trying to prove fraud: Pressuring vote-counters. In the days after the election, Trump and his allies actively promoted efforts to send supporters to venues where votes were being counted. This had multiple uses, including providing many eyes and ears that could later attest to activity they <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/11/we-reached-stacks-paper-phase-trumps-bid-retain-power/" target="_blank">misconstrued as suspicious</a>.

Why it didn’t work: The votes were counted without significant interruption, and no credible evidence of improprieties was uncovered by “observers.”

Trying to prove fraud: Calling for audits and recounts. At the same time, Trump and his allies pressed states and local officials for audits or recounts of cast ballots. This served two purposes. First, just making the demand implied that there was something that needed to be reconsidered, again contributing to the blanket of smoke Trump was generating. Second, it offered the outside chance that something would emerge allowing Trump to further undermine confidence in the results. There was some optimism in Trump’s camp that official state recounts would change results just by virtue of reviewing the totals, but even people like <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/524464-scott-walker-suggests-bidens-wisconsin-lead-too-big-for-recount" target="_blank">former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker</a> knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Why it didn’t work: The recounts and audits didn’t show any significant change to the results, much less evidence of fraud.

Getting officials to act: Trying to stop certification of election results. The formalization of Biden’s victory followed a number of preordained steps. States certified their results. Electors met formally to cast their electoral votes. Those votes were transmitted to Washington. Congress counted the votes and finalized the results. Biden was then inaugurated.

At each step, Trump and his allies tried to intervene, including that first one. Trump infamously <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2020/12/02/arizona-gov-doug-ducey-confirms-trump-called-during-vote-certification/3802735001/" target="_blank">called</a> Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) as Ducey was in the middle of certifying his state’s results. (Ducey sent him to voice mail.) In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) weathered weeks of attacks from Trump before certifying the results there. The president also summoned <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/20/politics/michigan-house-speaker-will-meet-trump/index.html" target="_blank">Michigan legislators</a> to the White House in an effort to get them to intervene — an early example of an eventual focus on legislatures.

Trump’s team also cajoled county-level officials to throw up roadblocks. At one point, he praised two supportive members of the Wayne County, Mich., certifying body who, in an initial vote, had blocked the county’s vote total. (This was a particularly ridiculous place to dig in one’s heels, given that Biden obviously won heavily Democratic Detroit as well as clearly winning Michigan by a wide margin.) In short order, those officials backtracked under robust public pressure. Michigan’s statewide vote was certified after a Republican member of the Board of State Canvassers upheld the results. Republicans later <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/01/18/gop-does-not-reappoint-vanlangevelde-board-canvassers/4207223001/" target=_blank>booted him</a> from his position.

Why it didn’t work: State and county officials had no reason not to certify the election, with no real questions about the results having emerged.

Getting officials to act: Disrupting the electoral college. Dec. 14 is the date stipulated by law on which electors cast their ballots for president in each state. So it was in 2020 — but here, too, Trump and his allies tried to intervene. In this case, it was primarily by having the individuals who would have cast ballots for Trump had he won cast them anyway. The intent was obvious: There is a process for Congress to adjudicate competing slates of electors when it counts the submitted votes, and the hope was that there would be an opening for the Trump electors to be recognized over the Biden ones. These are the “fake electors” that have been a recent subject of fascination.

Why it didn’t work: The electoral votes sent to Congress need to be accompanied by certifying documents signed by an appropriate state official. The alternative slates of electors lacked those documents, and no state seriously entertained reversing its results.

Trying to prove fraud: The plan to seize voting machines. After that news conference at the Republican National Committee, Powell was disgraced. Fox News’s Tucker Carlson called her out for having no evidence to back up her wild assertions, and courts (which we’ll get to in a bit) were making clear that they were similarly unconvinced. But after the electors had cast their votes, Trump was clearly feeling pressure.

So, on Dec. 18, 2020, Trump hosted a remarkable meeting at the White House. It was a central moment at which Trump’s world of conspiracy theories nearly gained access to the power of the presidency. The conversation included some discussion of invoking martial law but, more concretely, the idea that the government might seize electronic voting machines and that perhaps Powell should be given federal investigative power. In each case, the idea was the same: Dig up something, anything, that might be useful in suggesting that fraud had occurred — this time, though, with the authority of the U.S. government and not just some random Twitter user.

It is useful to note that the predicate for the seizure articulated in one document released publicly was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/21/donald-trumps-rationale-seizing-voting-machines-was-worse-than-you-might-have-assumed/" target="_blank">a long-debunked claim</a> about fraud in one county in Michigan. It wasn’t just that Trump wanted to seize voting machines; it was that he wanted to do so on an utterly ridiculous pretext, thanks to the advocacy of a completely discredited conspiracy theorist. It was a very good example of Trump’s pressing forward with a ridiculous plan, ignoring the obvious red flags to which others might have paid heed.

Why it didn’t work: In this case, it appears that internal dissent played an important role. Giuliani, no doubt in part irritated at the idea that Powell might be Trump’s salvation — “At least she’s giving me a chance,” Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/11/15/another-lawyer-another-memo-offering-advice-stealing-presidency/" target="_blank">reportedly</a> said — objected to the plan, as did others present. When Trump approached the Department of Homeland Security about seizing the machines, its acting head, the deeply conservative former Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli, rejected the idea.

Getting officials to act: Overhauling the Justice Department. On Dec. 1, 2020, Attorney General William P. Barr broke dramatically with the president to whom he’d been so loyal. Speaking to an Associated Press reporter, Barr was blunt: There was <a href="https://apnews.com/article/barr-no-widespread-election-fraud-b1f1488796c9a98c4b1a9061a6c7f49d" target="_blank">no evidence</a> of rampant fraud. Trump was understandably furious. Barr left the administration weeks later.

The Justice Department was then under the control of Jeffrey Rosen, previously Barr’s deputy. But another official in the department had Trump’s heart: Jeffrey Clark, a senior official who advocated using the authority of the Justice Department to lean on states over their certified election results. Clark <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/04/newly-released-letter-tells-us-more-about-trumps-last-ditch-push-steal-election/" target=_blank>drafted a letter</a> in which the state of Georgia was encouraged to convene its legislature to reconsider its election certification, claiming that the department had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election,” concerns that appear to have had no basis in fact.

Trump entertained the idea that he might oust Rosen (who, like Barr, saw no evidence of rampant fraud) and replace him with Clark, leading to a meeting at the White House in early January where it was made clear that such a switch would lead to a broad revolt within the department.

Why it didn’t work: Installing Clark would have meant a lot of high-profile resignations. Trump opted against it.

Trying to prove fraud: Pressuring Georgia officials to identify alleged fraud. Perhaps the most notorious moment of Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the election came when he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-transcript-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/2768e0cc-4ddd-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html" target="_blank">called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger</a> on Jan. 2, 2021. In the call, Trump was blunt: He wanted Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes,” one more than his losing margin in the state. Raffensperger and his team had already been vocally insistent that the results of the election in the state were sound, results bolstered by an audit and a recount.

Why it didn’t work: There were no votes to find — and Raffensperger had already looked.

Getting officials to act: Encouraging state legislatures to unwind results. Clark’s letter sat on top of weeks of efforts by Republicans at the state level to bolster Trump’s claims of fraud. Remember that there was a huge market for such assertions, and Republicans in a number of states entered into the market with alacrity, hosting hearings in which Giuliani and others were given platforms to make unfounded allegations about fraud.

Trump and his allies, including the attorney John Eastman, actively encouraged legislatures to reconsider their election results. In broad strokes, the theory was that state legislatures had authority over how elections were run and, therefore, had authority to recast the election results if desired. On Jan. 3, Trump and Eastman <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/exclusive-trump-urges-state-legislators-to-reject-electoral-votes-you-are-the-real-power" target=_blank>hosted a teleconference</a> with legislators, encouraging them to convene and revoke submitted electoral votes.

Why it didn’t work: Even sympathetic legislators lacked the power to do so.

Stealing the election: Having Pence reject electoral votes. By Jan. 6, Trump was nearly out of options. Congress convened to count the electoral votes, with Pence presiding. In a pair of memos, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/11/01/what-did-john-eastman-really-want-have-happen/" target=_blank>Eastman proposed</a> that Pence simply not do so, rejecting submitted electoral votes and either then declaring Trump the winner, demanding that states reconsider their submissions or tossing the decision to a vote in the House. Shortly before Congress convened, Pence announced that he wouldn’t oppose the submitted votes. The last door had closed.

In a statement this week, Trump admitted that he thought Pence should have “overturned the Election,” an explicit statement of his obvious desired goal.

Why it didn’t work: Pence, after consulting with legal experts and even former vice president Dan Quayle, recognized that Eastman’s suggestion was toothless.

Stealing the election: Having legislators reject cast electoral votes. Well before the day the votes were to be counted, Republican members of the House and Senate began lining up to reap the rewards of entertaining Trump’s election-seizure strategy. Numerous members of both chambers declared their intent to object to the electoral votes submitted by a number of states, theoretically providing another route for state legislatures (controlled by Republicans) to adjudicate the results. Trump allies holed up at D.C.’s Willard hotel worked to cajole members of Congress to this end.

Why it didn’t work: There weren’t enough votes in either chamber actually to reject cast votes. Oh, and then there was a riot.

Stealing the election: Encouraging the Jan. 6 protests and tacitly encouraging the riot. After Pence announced that he would not execute Eastman’s plan, Trump, speaking outside the White House, encouraged his supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol (after, of course, spending weeks encouraging them to be in D.C. in the first place). Thousands of people surrounded the Capitol and, eventually, hundreds forced their way inside. The counting of electoral votes was blocked by force. Trump, watching from the White House, repeatedly declined to make any statement discouraging them.

As the riot was underway, Trump allies, including Giuliani, kept calling legislators to encourage them to block the electoral vote count. The idea, as Giuliani <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/oh-rudy-giuliani-leaves-voice-mail-for-wrong-senator-begs-for-delay-to-biden-certification/" target="_blank">put it</a> in a voice mail he thought he was leaving for Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), was to “try to just slow it down so we can get these legislators to get more information to you.” Just slow it down, don’t let the inevitable happen.

Eventually, though, after the Capitol was cleared, it happened — despite the objections of several Republican senators and most Republican representatives.

Why it didn’t work: The National Guard crushed the insurgency.

Trump’s intent always was no more complicated than that the election results should be ignored and that he should retain his position. Over the months, the objective was blanketed with rationales and dubious claims and legal thrusts and feints. He tried everything in his power and everything in everyone else’s power to hold onto the presidency. But none of the machinations and rationalizations of his allies should obscure the obvious truth: Trump aimed to hold power however he could. And if that meant having his allies construct a ridiculous shaky veneer of authority to do so, so be it.

The question now is how the likelihood of success in potential future efforts is lowered, how it stops somewhere before “armed members of the military intervene on behalf of democracy.”

The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America

Ohio State University

Philip Bump is a Post columnist based in New York. He writes the newsletter <a href="https://wapo.st/3m3QTiy">How To Read This Chart</a> and is the author of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/696653/the-aftermath-by-philip-bump/">The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America</a>.