Trump Loses Election, Immediately Claims Fraud

The Election Is Called

On November 7, 2020, four days after Election Day, the Associated Press and major television networks called the presidential race for Joe Biden after he secured Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes, putting him over the 270-vote threshold. Biden ultimately won 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232 — the same margin Trump had called a “massive landslide” when he won it in 2016. Biden also won the popular vote by more than seven million votes. Yet even before the race was called, Trump had begun laying the groundwork to contest the result.

The Big Lie Begins

Trump had been priming his supporters for weeks before the election to distrust the results, particularly mail-in ballots, which were used in record numbers due to the pandemic. On election night, with millions of mail-in votes still uncounted, Trump appeared in the White House briefing room and declared, “Frankly, we did win this election.” It was a staggering claim, made before the counting was complete, and it set the tone for the weeks that followed. After the race was called for Biden, Trump tweeted in capital letters, “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!” — a statement without any factual basis.

The Legal Campaign

Trump’s campaign and allies filed more than 60 lawsuits in state and federal courts challenging the results in battleground states including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada. The legal team, led by Rudy Giuliani, alleged various forms of fraud, irregularities, and constitutional violations. Nearly every case was dismissed by judges — including judges appointed by Trump — for lack of evidence. Courts found no credible evidence of fraud on a scale that could have affected the outcome. The Supreme Court declined to hear two cases that sought to overturn results, dealing fatal blows to the legal strategy.

Refusal to Concede

Trump became the first president since 1933 to refuse to concede an election he had lost. He blocked the normal transition process for weeks, with the General Services Administration delaying the formal ascertainment that would allow Biden’s team to access federal resources and briefings. Current and former national security officials warned that the delayed transition posed a risk to national security, particularly as the country was in the midst of the worst public health crisis in a century. The refusal to accept the election results set the stage for a two-month campaign to overturn the will of the voters that would culminate in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.