In an interview Tuesday evening on right-wing cable news network Newsmax, former President Donald Trump said without any evidence that the California recall election targeting Governor Gavin Newsom is “probably rigged.”
In a live phone-in interview on Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt Tonight, Trump told Rob Schmitt that “the ballots are mail-out, mail-in ballots...I guess you can have a case where you can make your own ballot. When that happens, nobody’s going to win except these Democrats...the one thing they’re good at is rigging elections, so I predict it’s a rigged election, let’s see how it turns out.”
Trump’s remarks come as a series of recent polls by SurveyUSA, the Public Policy Institute of California, and Republican polling firm Trafalgar Group all show Newsom leading.
The suggestion that Newsom would prevail in the recall—but only because of election fraud—was also repeated Tuesday on Fox News Channel, first by Fox Nation host Tomi Lahren, who said on Outnumbered that “the only thing that will save” Newsom will be election fraud.
“Yes, Gavin Newsom has raised a whole lot of money from teachers’ unions and special interests and tech, but that money is not going to save him,” Lahren said. “The only thing that will save Gavin Newsom is voter fraud. So as they say, stay woke, pay attention to the voter fraud going on in California, because it’s going to have big consequences for that state but for upcoming elections.”
In another example of unsubstantiated predictions of voter fraud in California, Republican Larry Elder—one of the candidates running to replace Newsom in the event he is recalled—appeared on Fox News Channel’s Fox News Primetime on Monday evening. Host Rachel Campos-Duffy said “a lot of people think you have the wind at your back, but you seem to be concerned about some shenanigans that could be happening at the ballot box—or maybe in the mail.”
