MILWAUKEE — In the weeks after the 2020 election, Edward X. Young of New Jersey said he leaped into action to help his hero, Donald Trump.
He searched for evidence to prove that votes had “mysteriously” appeared for Joe Biden and traveled to Philadelphia where he joined dozens of other Trump supporters who sought to stop the counting of votes. In the end, they couldn’t.
Since then, Young said he has viewed Biden as illegitimate, and his suspicions of the nation’s election systems have only deepened.
But now, he is confident that Trump is on the cusp of a political victory. And if Trump wins, Young — like many jubilant Republicans who gathered here at their party’s convention — said he will accept the electoral outcome.
“I’m a Republican — if my side wins, I’ll be very happy with it,” said Young, 64, wearing a Trump-themed Hawaiian shirt hours before the former president accepted the GOP’s nomination.
“But if the Democrat side wins and it appears to me that questionable things have happened …” he trailed off. He confirmed that losing would change his thinking, and he would jump back into action.
Despite the brimming confidence of Trump supporters, the campaign is preparing them to question the results if things don’t go their way. Trump has preemptively questioned the outcome of the election, sowing doubt in the results long before votes have been cast. In his convention speech on Thursday, he falsely said Democrats “used covid to cheat” in the 2020 presidential election.
“We’re never going to let it happen again,” he said.
Trump has refused to promise to accept the results no matter the winner, which the Biden campaign said in May is a “danger to the Constitution.” In a May interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Trump said that he would “let it be known” if he thought there were problems with the election outcome in Wisconsin.
“If everything’s honest, I’d gladly accept the results,” Trump said. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”
Many states have changed their voting rules since 2020, with some tightening them and others expanding early voting and access to the ballot. Some of Trump’s supporters have advocated for eliminating or greatly reducing early voting and for counting paper ballots by hand instead of using tabulation machines, which many falsely blame for his 2020 loss. The power of their influence within the party and with the former president himself is seen in the platform adopted by the Republican National Committee that calls for same-day voting and paper ballots.
Even so, Trump in a video played every night at the convention urged Republicans to vote by whatever means they wanted and told them to keep their eyes on other voters.
“Republicans must win and we must use every appropriate tool available to beat the Democrats,” he said in the video. “They are destroying our country. Whether you vote early, absentee, by mail or in person, we are going to protect the vote. That is the most important thing we have to do, is protect the vote. Keep your eyes opens because these people want to cheat.”
In his speech Thursday, Trump did not dwell on the 2020 election as much as he has in some campaign rallies, but he did accuse Democrats of cheating. Recounts, independent election reviews and court rulings found no evidence of widespread fraud. Unbowed, Trump said Democrats were fierce “when it comes to cheating on elections and a couple of other things.”
Of the 52 politicians, both elected officials and candidates, who spoke at the convention, 44 have at one time espoused election denial views on social media or in public remarks, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. From the stage, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) contended that Democrats “wanted votes from illegals more than they wanted to protect our children.” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) hit the same theme, warning immigrants in the country illegally could “disrupt our elections.”
Joann Fisher, a delegate from Maryland, said she will be watching this election closely. Like many of the Trump faithful who descended on the convention this week, she is convinced the last one was stolen. She’ll have no problem accepting the 2024 results, she said, should the GOP ticket be victorious.
“Because we won — no question,” she said. “Because we won.” If Democrats lose, she said she expects Democrats to “accuse us of stealing it” and “raise pure hell, picket in the streets, have protest signs and act a fool.”
Rhonda Rebman-Lopez, a delegate from Florida who wore a red, white and blue dress and a Make America Great Again cowboy hat, said she had concerns about how the 2020 election was conducted. “It was unsettling to me because it took so long to count them,” she said of the ballots in 2020. “And the longer to count, I think, the more of a chance for there to be issues.”
But, she said, she believes she can trust the results this fall, in part because the country is no longer gripped by the covid-19 pandemic that resulted in a raft of changes to voting rules. An increase in poll watchers also boosts her confidence, she said.
“I think there’s been so much focus on fair and clean elections,” she said. “I think there’ll be a microscope on every precinct that might have a history of having a little issue.”
Republicans for the last four years have built up teams of poll workers and poll observers and are challenging election laws and rules ahead of the November election. The intensified level of scrutiny, combined with heightened involvement among grass-roots Republicans and groups that train people how to spot problems, have instilled some confidence in GOP voters.
All of that attention on the process this year brings comfort to Dairlyn Brown, a supply planner and alternate delegate from Georgia.
“I think because everybody is paying attention to it, that there is going to be so much integrity with it,” she said as she headed into the Fiserv Forum for the last night of the convention. “And personally, some of the poll workers that I know, they will not allow any shenanigans or foolish-ry or anything like that.”
Michael McMullen, a delegate from Pennsylvania who wore a suit resembling the border wall Trump pledged to build, said he believed there were “shenanigans” in 2020 in “big Democrat blue cities.” But he’s not worried this time.
“It’s going to be a landslide” on Election Day, he said. “They’re not going to be counting ballots because it’s going to be over really early.”
Anthony Nunziato, the chairman of the local Republican organization in Queens, said he was “super confident” about the upcoming election. When asked if he would accept the certified results of the 2024 elections, he replied, “Always. So long as it’s legitimate, I’ll always accept it, whatever the results are.”
When asked about reluctance among some of his colleagues to accept the certified 2020 results, Nunziato said, “In elections they always say it’s not who votes, it’s who counts the votes. So we do have to be guarded about who is collecting the ballots. … As long as it’s fair, I’ll accept everything.”
Colby Itkowitz, Dan Keating and Ence Morse in Washington contributed to this report.
