Stuart Stevens, once a leading GOP strategist, told MSNBC’s Cris Jansing on Tuesday Americans should not be surprised if Donald Trump supporters resort to violence to ensure his victory.
Their likely targets: Black voters, said Stevens, Mitt Romney’s chief advisor during the Utah senator’s 2012 run for the presidency.
“You know, they can’t stop Blacks from voting anymore the way they did in the ’60s with the same kind of success, though with these voter challenges they’re going to try, and I think what is really to fear here is put yourself in the mindset that if the Trump campaign really doesn’t think it can win, either the popular vote or Electoral College,” said Stevens, author of the 2020 confessional “It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump.”
Trump’s strategy of appealing only to his base “makes no sense,” the veteran Republican strategist said.
‘He’s not trying to add voters,” Stevens continued. “And if they can go in, and they can violently disrupt these counting centers, how will states be able to certify elections? You burn down a county center in Arizona, how does the governor certify those elections? What world are we in then?”
It’s a bleak outlook, but one that can’t be dismissed, considering Trump’s actions after losing to President Joe Biden in 2020. Special counsel Jack Smith has accused the former president of manufacturing evidence as part of a plot to insert fake electors in the certification process.
Trump faces multiple charges for allegedly trying overturn the 2020 election results, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction.
President Biden is among those concerned over whether a peaceful transfer of power will occur if Trump loses.
“He means what he says, we don’t take him seriously, he means it — all the stuff about if we lose, there’ll be a bloodbath, it will have to be a stolen election,” Biden said in a recent interview with CBS News.
Trump’s concerns over alleged election fraud are rooted entirely on race, Stevens said.
“It has been from the beginning,” he said. “Where are all these suspect votes? Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta. What do they have in common? High percentage of African-American voters. Those that voted not to certify those elections were basically trying to disenfranchise millions and millions of Black voters. It’s that simple.”
Confronted by skeptics on X calling him “unhinged,” Stevens reminded them of a 2020 incident in Maricopa County, Arizona, where armed Trump supporters forced a county elections office to close. Under his tweet, one user shared, “This is very close to my home and is really disturbing.”
https://t.co/il7FWPabT8 pic.twitter.com/ulLtMkjvo3
— Stuart Stevens (@stuartpstevens) October 16, 2024
In Michigan, Republicans nearly started a riot outside Detroit’s TCF Center, where 2020 election workers counted more than 170,000 mail ballots in America’s largest majority-Black city.
Prompted by Trump’s claim that he had won the election, Trump supporters stormed the facility.
“When officials declared that the room was over capacity and stopped letting Republican and Democratic poll observers in, Trump’s backers felt their fears were validated: They started arguing with police and election officials, banging on windows and chanting ‘stop the count,’ ” NBC reported.
Earlier this year, Trump said he would accept the election results only if “everything’s honest.” He has also repeated 2020 claims that Democrats can’t win unless they commit voter fraud. And many of his supporters remain convinced Trump won in 2020 and are likely to be less willing to accept defeat again.
“Anyone think they won’t try again when Trump loses?” Stevens asked.
