Now you see it, now you don’t
Before the 2024 election itself disappears down the memory hole, take a moment to consider the disappearance of voter fraud as a campaign issue. Democrats would cheat. There would be massive corruption in the election. Migrants Democrats were importing through Joe Biden’s open southern borders would tip the scales for Kamala Harris. Nearly 9 in 10 Trump voters believed voter fraud would play a major role in 2024. Etc.
Then Donald Trump won. Voter fraud vanished like ground fog at sunrise. It was morning in MAGAstan.
Politico and Morning Consult ran a poll:
In polling just days before the election, Trump supporters expressed little confidence in the election outcome, with a whopping 87 percent substantially or somewhat agreeing with the statement that voter fraud was a “serious issue” that could determine the outcome of the election. Among Harris supporters, roughly half expressed similar worries.
That partisan divide disappeared after Election Day.
Shocked?
Views on the economy flipped as well, considered a “very important” issue ahead of Nov. 5:
A week before the election, just 8 percent of self-identified Trump voters described the economy as on the “right track,” the polling found. But after Trump’s victory, that number swung to 28 percent — still a minority, but a substantial swing in a span of just a few weeks when economic conditions did not change dramatically.
Poynter examined election fraud claims and found that after Trump won “Republicans’ claims of chicanery mostly dissipated.” A few left-leaners picked them up, but not leaders among Democrats.
Politifact fact-checked multiple fraud claims (above). They mostly focused on swing states.
One pundit observed that for four years Donald Trump complained he’d been cheated and would be cheated again in 2024. It only took about four hours of election returns for voter fraud to disappear as an issue both for him and his base.
But he’ll always have 2020.