What Happened to Trump's Claims of Election Fraud?

Before election results came in, Trump was preemptively making claims of “cheating” in order to lay the groundwork for his election challenges had he lost to Vice President Kamala Harris. But miraculously, Donald Trump’s accusations of voter fraud stopped when he was declared the winner.

In two posts on his Truth Social platform, Trump claimed there was fraud in both Philadelphia and Detroit—two heavily Democratic cities in critical swing states.  “A lot of talk about massive CHEATING in Philadelphia. Law Enforcement coming!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social just before 5 PM ET on Election Day, before the state’s polls had closed.  He followed up with another post, writing, “Philadelphia and Detroit! Heavy Law Enforcement is there!!!”

But now that he won, Trump is silent about voter fraud-- yet more proof that his voter-fraud claims in 2020 were deliberate lies. His claims of fraud were merely a ruse he needed to use in his sore-loser quest to explain away his loss and try to overturn it.

But his lies have had negative consequences.  Aside from helping incite an insurrection that left hundreds of law enforcement officers injured, it also helped make Republican voters distrustful of any results they don’t like.  A Civiqs poll from October found that an overwhelming majority of people who watch Fox News—a right-wing propaganda network that amplifies Trump’s lies—said they were concerned about fraud in the 2024 election.  The poll found that 95% of people who watch Fox News said they were either “somewhat” or “very” concerned about fraud.

But now, just like Trump, those Fox News viewers also appear to be miraculously unconcerned about fraud after Trump was declared the winner. It goes without saying that voter fraud shouldn’t “exist” only when your candidate loses.