Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, told his supporters on Saturday to "go into" Philadelphia and two other Democratic-run cities to "guard the vote" in 2024, repeating his unfounded claims of widespread election fraud in 2020 as justification for the call to action.

Speaking at a campaign event in Iowa, Trump said it was important to scrutinize the vote in the battleground states likely to determine the general election. He singled out the biggest cities in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia.

“So the most important part of what’s coming up is to guard the vote. And you should go into Detroit and you should go into Philadelphia and you should go into some of these places, Atlanta,” Trump said in Ankeny, a suburb of Des Moines.

Trump’s comments foreshadow what is likely to be a contentious election in November 2024. Despite the failure of dozens of lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies challenging the outcome in 2020, Trump continues to claim, without evidence, that he lost to U.S. President Joe Biden due to fraud.

  • @Bridger
    147•7 months ago

    Trump is going to get a bunch of his followers killed.

    • @[email protected]
      106•7 months ago

      One can only hope…

      Edit: I feel compelled to make it clear that I don’t want anyone to die due to political violence. However, if someone has to die I would prefer it be those who seem hell-bent on undermining the democratic process.

      • @[email protected]
        2•7 months ago

        It’s sad that I knew what you meant before reading your edit. Like we all know that this next election will result in violence. We can all only hope that it’s against the right people…

    • Neato
      72•7 months ago

      Probably. But for every Trump fascist getting arrested or making a video “patrolling” a ballot box drop-off, for every fascist getting killed, those are huge news stories that will make voters reconsider if it’s even safe to vote. It’ll have a massive chilling effect on voters who aren’t obvious Trump supporters. Which is the point: fear.

      • Neato
        28•7 months ago

        Yes, they should be. But it depends on the state. That’s specifically for mail-in ballots.

        In California, it’s an issue of fairness to count ballots cast by people who then die before election day, Secretary of State Alex Padilla said. He said it’s just as conceivable that someone who votes early in person also dies before election day, and there is no way to identify and reject that ballot.