President-elect Donald Trump and his Republican allies spent months seeding doubt in the integrity of American voting systems and priming supporters to expect a 2024 election riddled with massive and inevitable fraud. The former president continued laying that groundwork even during a mostly smooth day of voting Tuesday, making unsubstantiated claims related to Philadelphia and Detroit and highlighting concerns about election operations in Milwaukee. Yet those grim warnings abruptly ended in the later hours of the evening as early returns began tipping in Trump’s favor. The messaging pivot is part of a Trump playbook that many in his party have adopted: To preemptively defy a loss with claims of widespread cheating but be ready to disregard them in the event of a win.
