White House's 3-word quote signals it's 'gearing up' for bid to overturn midterms: critics

The White House’s rapid response account rejected the idea that it’s normal for midterm results to take time, or for a trailing candidate to pull ahead overnight. Critics warned that the administration is already laying the groundwork to contest Tuesday’s results.

PBS News had shared a PolitiFact explainer: “If you go to bed on election night and don’t know who won a midterm congressional race, that’s normal. And if you wake up the next morning and find that a candidate who was behind hours earlier has since pulled ahead, that’s normal, too.”

“No, it isn’t,” the official White House Rapid Response 47 account replied Saturday. The post drew more than 2.5 million views.

Election experts have long explained that results can shift overnight. Different kinds of ballots, such as mail, early and Election Day votes, are counted at different times, and some states can’t begin processing mail ballots until Election Day.

“Pretty cool how they’re just openly gearing up to do Stop the Steal again,” wrote Andrew Egger, a writer for The Bulwark.

Ben Yelin, a University of Maryland law professor, wrote: “You know it’s bad for them when they pre-register the conspiracies.”

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and others piled on. Mark Raymond, a former White House senior adviser for technology under George W. Bush, wrote: “Getting ready to declare every election outcome you don’t like ‘rigged’ I see.”

The post comes as the Trump administration has pushed a string of last-minute legal fights over the election. Those include a lawsuit seeking to set aside more than 20,000 California ballots and a bid to block certification of Alaska’s Senate race if voter “confusion” affects the result. Federal courts have rejected several of those efforts in recent days.

President Donald Trump has also continued to insist the 2020 election was “Rigged and Stolen.” He lost that election to Joe Biden.