What Trump really means when he says he wants an ‘honest’ election

Donald Trump is refusing to commit to accepting the results of the 2024 presidential election in Wisconsin, a state he still insists — wrongly — that he won in 2020.

“If everything’s honest, I’d gladly accept the results. If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country,” the presumptive GOP presidential nominee told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Wednesday. “But if everything’s honest, which we anticipate it will be — a lot of changes have been made over the last few years — but if everything’s honest, I will absolutely accept the results.”

He added that he would “let it be known” if he felt something was off with the results, and that saying otherwise would be a “disservice” to the country.

Trump has for years refused to accept election results that do not favor him. (He has made several attempts to overturn his 2020 loss in Wisconsin even after leaving the White House.) During his 2020 campaign, he repeatedly rejected the prospect of losing the election, and at a CNN town hall last year, he similarly said he would accept this year’s results only if it’s an “honest” election.

As he repeats unfounded claims about voting, Trump has cast “election integrity” as one of his central concerns heading into November. He and his allies have stacked the highest levels of GOP leadership with like-minded officials. His campaign and the Republican National Committee are steered by election deniers; last month, they jointly announced that they would recruit 100,000 of the “right people” — as Trump put it — as election workers.

The basis of Trump’s constant warnings about election integrity apparently is that there is no way he could lose an election fairly. He has set expectations for a big win in November while he repeats warnings of widespread election fraud — and, subsequently, violence — in case that win does not materialize. To Trump, the only kind of “honest” election is one in which he is the victor.