Kathrine Frich
He then pointed the finger at ballot-counting technology and early ballots.
In high-stakes politics, promises made under the bright lights of the evening can vanish by morning.
Once the dust settles and the real numbers roll in, defeated leaders often look for someone or something to blame.
Now, a familiar complaint has returned to the center of American politics.
Blaming the machines
Days after telling the New York Times on election night that he would accept the congressional vote results, President Donald Trump has reversed course.
According to the Polish Press Agency, he is now making unproven claims that rigged voting equipment handed the Democratic Party its sweeping victory.
Taking to his Truth Social platform, the president questioned the outcome directly. “Does anyone really believe this ‘Election’ was fair? How could the polls be so wrong???” Trump wrote, as reported by the Polish Press Agency.
He then pointed the finger at ballot-counting technology and early ballots. In his post, Trump claimed some batches of early votes were so massive that “it was impossible to win, no matter how many people voted.” He ended his message with a blunt accusation: “This is about machines that are far more important than voters .”
To back up his frustration, the president singled out the Senate race in Texas, according to the Polish Press Agency. He complained that Democrat James Talarico banked so many early ballots that he would have won even if every single Tuesday voter had backed his rival.
However, the agency noted that most people in Texas and many other states routinely vote early by mail or in person, a group that has leaned Democratic for roughly ten years.
A historic blowout
Despite the president’s shock over the polling, pre-election surveys had already predicted a clear Democratic win, the Polish Press Agency reported. Even so, several opposition candidates performed even better than expected.
Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress, picking up at least 252 seats in the House of Representatives and beating Republicans by 13 percent in the overall House vote, the biggest margin for either party since 1976.
This marks the first time since the vote that Trump has openly alleged ballot fraud, according to the Polish Press Agency.
Over the weekend, he shared charts from anonymous accounts claiming to show voting anomalies, and he previously accused Alaska Democrats of recruiting two spoiler candidates to confuse voters and take support away from Senator Dan Sullivan.
These latest complaints echo the unproven fraud theories Trump and his allies pushed after his 2020 loss, which also targeted companies that make voting equipment.
As the Polish Press Agency pointed out, airing those earlier claims proved costly in 2023 when Fox News agreed to pay $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems, while former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani also settled over the allegations.
