Then-President Donald Trump engaged in an exchange with California’s Governor Gavin Newsom upon disembarking Air Force One at Los Angeles International Airport, marking an important occasion in late January 2025. Trump, known for his unpredictable remarks, has continued to fuel controversial notions about the validity of not just the 2020 election, which he did not secure, but also the 2024 election, which he managed to succeed. In a televised interview with Fox News, conflict erupted when the subject of votes garnered by Vice President Kamala Harris was raised. The former President sarcastically responded to her receiving 75 million votes by saying, “Well, if you believe the whole thing … the whole thing is ridiculous.”
Trump’s skepticism with the election process is a staple of his political persona. The figures indicating he was victorious in 2024 with more than 77 million votes, and Harris’ count of 75 million votes are concrete numerical fact; but for Trump, everything is a matter of faith, almost dismissible theory. On a following Tuesday, Trump stirred the waters of controversy with a claim on social media postulating that ‘California just stopped counting their votes on the 2024 Presidential Election’. His accusation was bluntly false.
The practice of vote counting in California does unfold at a slower pace than other areas, due to certain peculiar state-specific reasons, but that is not an equivalent to stopping vote count. Shirley Weber, California’s Secretary of State, had officially certified the state’s 2024 presidential results back on December 13, rendering Trump’s allegation as merely another baseless claim. County-specific presidential results within California were also verified and approved on December 3, even further disproving Trump’s assertions.
The mounting evidence against Trump’s allegations was crowned by the Electoral College’s decision to ratify Trump’s triumph over Kamala Harris on December 17. This decision was subsequently endorsed by Congress, who counted the electoral votes on January 6, followed by Trump’s inauguration on January 20. Harris had, however, outvoted Trump in California by a substantive margin of around 20 percentage points, which translates to over three million votes.
For years, Donald Trump has been steadfast in his treatment of elections in the Democrat-heavy California as rigged, despite no substantial evidence supporting these claims. In fact, during the pitch of the 2024 election campaign, he audaciously disseminated the false notion that the only reason behind his failure in winning elections in California was corrupt vote-counting. To validate this, he has struggled to provide anything more than his well-known, controversial rhetoric.
Trump has been a controversial figure since his very first election run, his fais of truth often blurring the lines of reality. Each sentence by him often features claims of conspiracy, swaying public opinion using false narratives. In this context, his comments on the 2024 election and Vice President Kamala Harris’s votes were no different.
The former president’s insistence that the elections were somehow rigged or miscounted has become a common theme in his political narrative. His reaction to Harris’s 75 million votes was captured in his characteristic dismissive tone, undermining the record’s validity. Moreover, his claims surrounding the election management in California, a democratic stronghold, only shed light on his established habit of discrediting election processes.
One of Trump’s most controversial remarks was the claim he circulated on social media that California had halted their vote counting for the 2024 Presidential Election. This statement, however, was unequivocally an exaggeration of the state’s admittedly slow vote counting process, and was proven to be a false declaration.
All claims made to the contrary, the state of California did confirm its 2024 Presidential election results. With state secretary Shirley Weber endorsing the results on December 13, and individual counties confirming their results on December 3, there was little room for speculation. Trump’s social media posts, rather than revealing an unraveling saga of election conspiracy, merely portrayed an effort to substitute reality with bias and deceit.
The Electoral College ratified Trump’s win over Harris on December 17, and this result was confirmed by Congress who counted the electoral votes on January 6. Trump’s inauguration on January 20 completed the election circuit. Yet, in the same circuit, Harris beat Trump in the state of California by around 20 percentage points, amounting to more than three million votes.
Donald Trump, despite his success in becoming president, cannot shake away the cloud of controversies. For him, California’s election process is rigged if it does not benefit him, a narrative he categorically supports despite ongoing evidence to the contrary. His baseless claim during the 2024 election campaign coupled his defeat in California with dishonest vote counting, a tactic that once again highlighted Trump’s endearing knack for controversy.
One can infer from Trump’s allegations that his ultimate belief casts doubt on established facts – both from his time as president and his post-presidential engagements. These unverified allegations of dishonesty in the California vote-counting system during the 2024 Elections are reminiscent of his previous vociferous attacks on other election outcomes.
In the landscape of public opinion, Trump’s consistent portrayal of the Democratic Party and its sectors as fraudulent or rigged only caters to his narrative of playing the victim of unfair processes. Kamala Harris’s commendable achievement of securing 75 million votes in the 2024 election only fuelled Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations of dishonest processes.
Trump’s consistent pattern of casting doubt on election results, prevalent since his political entry, resurfaced during the 2024 elections. His claims about the halting of vote counting in California was promptly refuted, but had already garnered traction in public opinion. This unmistakable tactic of fuelling controversy through misleading information is a recurrent motif in Trump’s political narrative.
The validation of the 2024 election results by the respective authorities of California and the subsequent ratification of Trump’s victory by the Electoral College eventually diffused the potential crisis arising from his baseless allegations. However, Trump’s enduring belief in the ‘rigged’ nature of California’s voting system continues to raise eyebrows.
In the grand scheme of things, Trump’s fixation on alternate election realities unveils more about his political posture than the election processes. His refusal to acknowledge Harris’ substantial achievement in securing votes or the due process followed in California’s vote counting resonates with his legacy of courting controversy. His political narrative, steered significantly by unsubstantiated claims, does very little to inspire confidence in his leadership.