At rally endorsing GOP candidates in South Carolina, Trump tells crowd he won 2020 election

At rally endorsing GOP candidates in South Carolina, Trump tells crowd he won 2020 election

Former President Trump is doubling down on claims the 2020 election was rigged in favor of President Joe Biden, telling a crowd in South Carolina he won the 2020 election.

Mr. Trump made the assertion after telling a crowd of supporters in Florence, S.C., about a new state investigation in Wisconsin that found improprieties in the way the 2020 election was carried out in nursing homes and other residential facilities. 

The same report, produced by the Wisconsin Office of the Special Counsel, also accused a group funded by Mark Zuckerberg of committing election bribery when it targeted $8.8 million in get-out-the-vote funds to five heavily Democratic jurisdictions.

“So I ran twice, I won twice, and I did much better the second time than we did the first, getting 12 million more votes,” Mr. Trump told the crowd. “And now we may have to run again.”

Georgia and other swing states, he said, carried out, “a massive illegal ballot harvesting scheme,” in 2020, which Mr. Trump said indicated the election was fraudulent and riddled with irregularities.

“In other words, it was rigged,” Mr. Trump said. 

Mr. Trump called for new election integrity laws, including universal voter ID, an end to ballot drop boxes and banning outside funding of election activity. 

Mr. Trump was in Florence to stump for Republicans Katie Arrington and Russell Fry, who are challenging House GOP incumbents Nancy Mace and Tom Rice who fell out of favor with the former president after the 2020 election. 

Democrats have criticized Mr. Trump for continuing to claim the 2020 election results are not legitimate, calling his assertion “the big lie,” while Republicans have largely rejected Mr. Trump‘s argument that Mr. Biden‘s win was not legitimate, even while acknowledging there were election irregularities.