Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump dances during his campaign rally at Santander Arena in Reading, Pennsylvania, on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024 (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

As the United States heads toward another drawn-out and potentially disputed election result, one question hangs over offices in Washington, news outlets in New York, and social networks in Silicon Valley: What happens if Donald Trump once again prematurely declares himself the winner? ?

The results or clear direction of the race could be known by Tuesday night, and polls show Trump has roughly an even chance of prevailing in his battle with Kamala Harris.

However, while the country was prepared for the possibility that the final calculation could take days, speculations, concerns and plans that Trump would unilaterally herald him as the next president increased even more. The biggest fear is a repeat of 2020, when the then-president falsely claimed he won the election and called states still counting votes fraudulent.

Those words set the tone for the following weeks, when dozens of unsuccessful legal challenges launched by Trump’s allies and supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.

Voting ends Tuesday, and some states will announce the bulk of their results that night, while others are preparing to wait a few more days, especially as they grapple with early voting.

Trump told ABC News on Sunday that he expected the winner to be determined on election night; This is something that can only come to fruition if there is a significant error in the poll. He later suggested at a rally in Pennsylvania that results “could take weeks” and without evidence that Democrats would use the coming period to steal the election.

Some results may come faster than in 2020; States, including key battleground Michigan, are taking steps to speed up the counting process. The final election lasted until Saturday when Pennsylvania was called to declare Biden the winner.

But Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are among six U.S. states that do not allow officials to process and count mail-in ballots until Election Day. This virtually guarantees there will be votes left to count after election night, making it impossible to quickly call the race if it’s close.

“Can you imagine, they’re spending all this money on machines and they’re going to say, ‘It might take us an extra 12 days to decide,'” Trump said. “So what do you think will happen during those 12 days?”

Preparations

Harris’ campaign warned that they expected Trump to declare himself the winner, taking into account the initial tallies and delays, and portray the difficult process as a fraud.

Such a statement could come before official race predictions from broadcast networks and the Associated Press, but it would spread quickly on social media and fuel the alternative reality Trump has sown.

“I think shortly after midnight Donald Trump will say, ‘Hey, I won,'” Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, told reporters. “We are ready for this.”

Harris’ campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon released a video urging her supporters not to worry if Trump declares victory.

“Don’t be fooled, don’t worry,” he says. “The nonpartisan decision makers who monitor these races and have called them throughout the last few elections will not be swayed by what Donald Trump says.”

However, Trump’s unfounded claims and disinformation now seem to spread more widely.

social media

Facebook has scaled back its efforts to combat disinformation. Elon Musk’s acquisition of X has not only diluted those efforts, but Musk himself has become a major source of lies.

A spokesman for Meta Platforms Inc., Facebook’s parent company, said the company is “ready to respond” if a candidate objects to election results or declares early victory. But the company also said users felt there was overuse of labels directing people to accurate election information in 2020, when Trump and his allies exposed a series of lies about the results. In this cycle, Meta will monitor posts and distribute tags only in a targeted way, the spokesperson confirmed.

Perhaps the biggest change is coming to X, formerly known as Twitter, which Musk has turned into a messaging tool for Republicans. Although the platform uses community notes to verify claims, it’s unclear whether the service will tag any election lies, and Musk himself helped plant the seeds of the illusion that Trump was hurtling toward a landslide victory.

Meanwhile, federal law enforcement agencies began issuing sweeping announcements as they observed disinformation fueled by foreign actors. But even when clearly artificial videos and photos were posted online, agencies were reluctant to amplify false facts by privately disclosing them; This emphasizes that they are unlikely to interfere with the Republican candidate.

Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment, but Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump’s campaign, told reporters: “Once we’re confident we’re going to get past the 270 threshold, then we’ll declare victory.” Miller declined to say what measure the campaign will use to count electoral votes.

Speaking to the ABC, the former president admitted he could lose but said he believed he was ahead by a large margin, which is not reflected in the polls.

‘I shouldn’t have gone’

“I think I have a pretty significant lead, but you can also say, yes, yes you can lose. Bad things can happen,” he said.

In Pennsylvania, Trump said he regretted leaving the White House after his 2020 loss; It was an action allies routinely pointed to when Democrats claimed Trump was trying to obstruct the process.

“To be honest, I shouldn’t have left,” Trump said. “We did very well.”

Dana Remus, who leads Harris’ legal team, said she ultimately believes Trump’s allegations won’t withstand legal scrutiny.

“Donald Trump made all of these claims in 2020 and lost when he had to defend them in court,” Remus said.

“I would especially ask people who haven’t voted yet not to fall for his tactics,” Harris said in a statement Sunday. “This is a distraction from the fact that we have and support free and fair elections in our country.”

media print

A delayed outcome and Trump’s public agitations will increase pressure on media companies, which will need to weigh how to report and contextualize his claims. The anxiety dance is particularly difficult for networks and organizations that reflect key situations.

No call in 2020 was more explosive than Fox News’ early prediction that Biden won Arizona; This prediction outperformed its competitors and ultimately proved correct. Members of Trump’s campaign team and some of the network’s conservative commentators immediately began lobbying the decision desk to reverse the call.

“I would say the over/under is Saturday,” Fox’s decision desk chief Arnon Mishkin told Politico last month, again for a result.

Republicans often sidestepped the question of how Trump would frame the results and whether he would concede defeat.

“I’m confident he’ll win, no questions asked,” Sen. Tim Scott told CNN on Sunday. “I believe we will have a fair election”

The Associated Press, an authoritative source on projected winners, will rely on a team of 4,000 reporters working across the country. Editor-in-Chief Julie Pace said the organization tries to build trust by being transparent about its process and calls for elections only when it is clear that a trailing candidate cannot close the gap.

“We’re really confident that we can provide that accuracy and also be able to transparently explain to the public what we’re doing on Tuesday and beyond,” Pace said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. Radio’s “Balance of Power.”

With assistance from Kurt Wagner, Alicia Diaz and Akayla Gardner.