President Donald Trump declared in a recent speech that he actually received 85 million votes in the 2024 election — as opposed to the official tally of about 78 million. But this isn’t just another instance of Trump never being satisfied with his accomplishments and feeling the need to inflate them. Trump appears to be slowly setting the stage to reject the midterm election results should he lose. Trump said, “They [Democrats] are professional cheaters. Republicans don’t get theirs and they’re calling frantically to get their ballot. A Democrat will get three, four, five, six, and even seven ballots. And then we’re supposed to win? That’s what they’re good at — cheating.” Trump: "I got probably 85 million votes. They say 78 million, 79 million. They cheated in this election too. It was just too big to rig. They cheated like hell … a Democrats will get 3, 4, 5, 6, and even 7 ballots, and then we're supposed to win. They're professional cheaters." pic.twitter.com/ENyo4mmjGW— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 23, 2026 According to Democracy Docket, there has been no evidence to substantiate Trump’s latest claim of election fraud. And despite Trump doing all he can, including using national intelligence, to find evidence that proves his suspicions, nothing has surfaced. It is also worth outlining the methods used to protect the integrity of elections, so that Trump’s word is not the only thing people have to rely on. As far as the ballot allegation is concerned, in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., one voter can cast only one ballot. There are voter rolls and unique identifiers used to flag duplicates and subsequently reject them. On this point, Trump’s claims are easily debunked. Mail-in voting safeguards have become the latest target of the administration. While some states rely heavily on mail-in voting — especially California and Colorado, where Trump has famously performed poorly and may harbor some resentment — verification systems still apply. Each ballot’s ID or barcode is unique to a specific voter. Any attempt to vote twice can lead to imprisonment. Furthermore, there are courts that Trump allies could pursue if they truly believed the election was stolen. Not only have they never succeeded in doing so, but media networks that echoed these claims were successfully sued for amplifying them. Trump’s renewed allegations appear far more connected to internal GOP warnings that the upcoming midterms may not go well for the party. Critics of the administration are now arguing that this is not merely isolated venting, but a deliberate escalation of the same playbook that led to the events of January 6, 2021. After all, not a single person at the highest levels faced consequences for that day unless they chose to. There is good reason to believe no lesson was learned that day. In 2020, Trump began claiming the election would be rigged long before votes were cast — a claim that even members of his own administration, including then–Attorney General Bill Barr, attempted to push back against. When the results came in, the argument was no longer about how he lost, but about how to take the country back. Now, the same seeds are being planted. The burden of proof is never on Trump’s shoulders because, for his base, his word carries more weight than any court of law in the country. When patterns begin to repeat themselves, the outcome becomes more troubling — because it feels uncomfortably familiar.