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

At rally after rally, he urges his supporters to pull off a “too big to handle” victory, telling them the only way he can lose is if Democrats cheat. He has repeatedly refused to say whether he will accept the results regardless. And he has claimed that cheating is already underway, citing false claims or outrageous theories with no basis in reality.

“The only thing that can stop us is deception. It’s the only thing that can stop us,” he said at an event in Arizona late Thursday night.

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

Democrats fear they could do the same this year before the race is called. He did not respond to a question Friday in Dearborn, Mich., about those Democratic concerns, but to attack Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump has placed election lies at the heart of his 2024 campaign, issuing fevered warnings about fraud while promising to get revenge against the people he sees standing in his way.

This year, he is backed by a sophisticated “election integrity” operation built by his campaign and the Republican National Committee, which has already filed more than 130 lawsuits and enlisted more than 230,000 volunteers who are being trained to act as observers and election workers 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 REVENGE: Trump he claimed, without evidencethat the Democrats allowed millions of immigrants to enter the country illegally so they could be registered to vote. IN A interview with Newsmax in SeptemberTrump has claimed that such efforts are already underway.

“They are working overtime trying to sign people up, illegally, to vote in elections,” he claimed. “They are working overtime to sign people in and register people — many of the same people you just see crossing the border. What is probably their initial thought, because why else would they want to destroy our country?”

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 student at the University of Michigan in China arrested for allegedly voting illegally—does not reflect a larger conspiracy.

Research has shown that non-citizens are registering and voting illegally it is extremely rare and usually done by mistake.

THE CLAIM: Trump pointed to Democratic efforts to secure the votes of Americans living abroad as another opportunity for fraud. He claimed they were “preparing to cheat!” and “want to “dilute the TRUE vote of our beautiful military and their families”.

THE FACTS: The former president campaigned for the votes of Americans overseas himself, promising to end so-called “double taxation” for people who often pay taxes in their country of residence as well as for the US government.

THE CLAIM: Trump began to suggest that Harris might have access to some sort of secret inside information about the outcome of a race that has yet to be decided.

As the vice president took a day off from the trail to sit in on interviews with Telemundo and NBC, he repeatedly suggested, “Maybe she knows something we don’t.”

In Michigan last weekend, he suggested Harris wouldn’t be campaigning with Beyoncé — one of the biggest stars in the world — if the race really was as close as polls suggest.

“Number one, they cheat like hell. So maybe they know something we don’t, right?” he said. “They might know something we don’t, I don’t know. Why the hell celebrate when you’re down? Maybe – I never thought about it – maybe she knows something we don’t. But we won’t let it happen.”

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

Johnson, before becoming speaker, took the lead in writing a widely scrutinized brief that seeks to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss and echoed some of the wilder 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 shouldn’t be shared — and I’m not going to share this one.” (He later told an audience that he was referring to “one of our get-out-the-vote tactics,” according to The Hill. Trump’s campaign issued a statement noting that he had “done countless televised rallies” to help to strengthen the Republican Congress.)

THE CLAIM: In recent days, Trump has turned his anger on Pennsylvania, a state that both campaigns see as critical and where they say cheating is already underway.

Earlier this weekhe claimed York County, Pennsylvania, “received THOUSANDS of potentially FRAUDULENT Voter Registration Forms and Mail-in Ballot Requests from a third-party group.” He also mentioned Lancaster County, which he claimed was “caught with 2,600 fake ballots.” and Forms, all written by the same person ‘very bad’ stuff’.

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

THE FACTS: In Lancaster, County Attorney Heather Adams, a Republican-elect, said poll workers raised concerns about two sets of voter registration applications because of what she described as numerous similarities. Officials are now reviewing a total of about 2,500 forms.

To be clear, Lancaster is looking at voter registration applications, not “votes.” Lancaster officials said some forms contained false 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 is reviewing the suspicious forms. County Commissioner Julie Wheeler issued a statement saying voter registration forms and vote-by-mail applications were among “a large shipment containing thousands of election materials” the county elections office received from a third-party organization .

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

BREAKING: Trump has threatened dire consequences for those involved in what he considers “unscrupulous behavior.”

In a social media post falsely citing “Deceptive cheating and cheating by Democrats in the 2020 presidential election,” he warned that “WHEN I WIN, those people who cheated will be prosecuted in the greatest measure. The law, which will include long prison sentences”.

The posts go on to threaten “those engaged in unscrupulous behavior,” including election officials, lawyers and donors, who he says “will be sought out, caught and prosecuted at levels unfortunately never seen before in our country.” .

THE FACTS: Judges, election officials, and even Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, have it all he stated that there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

If re-elected, Trump has vowed to go after rivals he considers “enemies within,” including saying he will appoint a special prosecutor to target Biden. This is more than a theoretical threat, given that when he was president, Trump repeatedly pushed for investigations into perceived political opponents.

While the Justice Department has controls designed to prevent political influence, Trump could appoint leaders who would facilitate the opening of files at his request.

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