Trump Has Privately Discussed Declaring Victory Prematurely on Election Night: Report

President Trump will declare victory on election night if it appears that he is “ahead” in early results, even if not enough ballots have been counted for observers to formally declare a winner, Axiosreported on Monday.

Trump has privately discussed the possibility of announcing victory prematurely, three people familiar with the conversations told Axios. The strategy would hinge on Trump gaining leads in states such as Florida, Ohio, Arizona, Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, or Iowa.

After declaring victory, Trump would then claim that any mail-in vote received after November 3 would be invalid. This would delegitimize some votes received in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania, whose supreme court has ruled that mail-in ballots may be received up to November 6 as long as they are postmarked by election day.

With mail-in voters favoring Joe Biden, Trump’s team is planning to declare that the Pennsylvania election is “stolen” if ballots received after election day help the Democratic nominee win the race.