President Donald Trump has not yet conceded in the 2020 election, despite suffering a clear defeat to President-elect Joe Biden – but his sights may already be set on 2024.
In a campaign email sent to the president’s supporters this week, a poll asked whether “President Trump should run for President of the United States in 2024” while continuing to promote false claims surrounding the national vote.
The email, which circulated across social media on Wednesday, falsely accused the Democratic Party of somehow stealing the election from the president despite his own Justice Department finding no evidence of mass voter fraud.
“Let’s make something clear,” the email begins. “The Radical Left STOLE this Election from President Trump.”
Mr Trump’s Department of Homeland Security described the 2020 election as the “most secure” in US history. But the president and his campaign have continued to claim, without evidence, that millions of votes were somehow manipulated.
The email was notable in that it appeared to acknowledge Mr Trump’s defeat to Mr Biden, just days after the Electoral College met on Monday to confirm his successor’s victory.
Mr Biden has been steadily planning everything from his first 100 days – which will include a call for all Americans to wear face masks to curb the spread of Covid-19 – to his mostly virtual inauguration ceremony next month.
But the president has continued to fundraise across the country while promoting his outright falsities about the vote, drawing in more than $200 million from his supporters since Election Day.
His campaign has meanwhile engaged in a nationwide legal battle that featured scores of frivolous lawsuits tossed out by state and federal judges. That fight appeared to culminate this week when the Supreme Court rejected a Texas lawsuit seeking to nullify millions of votes.
