LITITZ, Pennsylvania — Former President Donald Trump raised concerns about election integrity in Pennsylvania two days before polls close, calling for statewide reforms before the next election.
During a rally in Lititz, Pennsylvania, a relatively low-energy Trump, who did host three events on Saturday, criticized extended voting hours in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a crucial county closer to Philadelphia that supported Trump in 2016 and President Joe Biden in 2020. Republicans sought the extension of hours this week.
Striking a note that did not project confidence, Trump complained that Democrats dismissed election skeptics as conspiracy theorists.
“If nothing comes out of this whole damn thing, it’s going to teach you you damn well better get a different system,” Trump told the crowd Sunday.
As election officials try to manage timeline expectations for Nov. 5, including in Arizona, where it could take 12 days to count the state’s votes, Trump scrutinized voter identification laws, voting machines, electronic ballots, and results being announced after 9 p.m.
“For future elections, I won’t be even a part of it, but you want to damn well go to paper ballots, you ought to go to voter ID, and you want to have the election over by 9 o’clock,” he said.
Trump also criticized the Des Moines Register poll that found on Saturday Harris is ahead of Tump in Iowa, 47% to 44%. Trump won the Hawkeye State over Biden in 2020 by 8 points.
“I’m not down in Iowa,” he said. “I got $28 billion for the farmers, $28 billion for the farmers. China, because China screwed our farmers.”
Describing Harris as an “empty vessel” and Democrats as “demonic,” Trump condemned news media as “bloodsuckers” before discussing the bulletproof glass that protected him, but for one side.
“To get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news,” he said. “I don’t mind that so much.”
Trump’s rally in Lititz, Lancaster County, a town of 10,000 people, is his first of the day, with long lines before the gates near Lancaster Airport opening at 8 a.m. on a chilly November morning and security more relaxed than many of his other post-assassination attempt events. Most of the attendees had already cast their ballots, with very few first-time voters in the crowd.
There, Trump repeated false claims about election officials finding 2,600 ballots in Lancaster “done in the same hand.”
Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick spoke before Trump, discussing his bid to replace Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) and provide a potential President Trump with a GOP Senate. His race is considered a toss-up by Cook Political Report.
“My race for the United States Senate is every bit as important because we have to have a Senate and a House that can help President Trump get that agenda through our Congress,” McCormick said.
Other speakers, including former Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who reregistered last month as a Republican, former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and former Trump administration senior adviser Stephen Miller.
Earlier in the program, Rep. Dan Meuser (R-PA), who represents counties in Northeastern Pennsylvania, quipped that what President Joe Biden and Harris calls “trash,” Trump calls “treasure.” Rep. John Joyce (R-PA), of Central Pennsylvania, made a similar joke, saying he saw farmers and factory workers in the crowd, not “garbage.”
Biden this week appeared to describe Trump supporters as “garbage,” though Biden contends he was responding to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s punchline from Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally last weekend that Puerto Rico is a “floating island of garbage”
Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-PA), who serves Lititz in Congress, underscored the importance of Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes to the presidential race.
“You’re going to continue to work. You’re going to ensure that we have the biggest turnout ever,” Smucker said. “He’s going to win your county bigger than ever, and that is going to put Pennsylvania over the top. He’s going to win Pennsylvania, and he will be the 47th president of the United States.”
Attendee Jennifer Coppello, 50, expressed confidence that Trump will win on Tuesday, citing indications of Republican motivation, including early voting data. GOP voters have traditionally cast their ballots on Election Day.
But the Morgantown resident, who works in insurance, acknowledged tight polling between Trump and Harris, conceding “it’s going to be close.”
“[I’m] so ready for it to be done,” Coppello told the Washington Examiner, referring to political ads and text messages. “So done fighting with people that don’t want to listen to your side of the story, but you have to constantly listen to theirs.”
Chris Thomas, 70, was more worried about Trump’s personal safety rather than the election results, predicting it will be “cleaner” but fearing “another attack or something.”
“They tried twice,” the Harrisburg model maker told the Washington Examiner, adding he had other issues regarding post-election violence, including riots.
“Harris-Biden have had four years to show what they could do or have done,” he said of Harris’s Republican outreach. “Trump’s been president before. We know what happens … She has no substance. She doesn’t say anything, I mean not super ideological, but there’s a clear definition between [her and Trump].”
In Pennsylvania, Trump has an average 0.4 percentage point lead over Harris, according to RealClearPolitics. It is similarly close in the other blue wall states of Michigan and Wisconsin. Trump has a wider average edge in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina, but he and Harris remain within the margin of error.
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Trump is scheduled to make a three-state swing Sunday, with his next rallies in Kinston, North Carolina at 2 p.m. and Macon, Georgia at 6:30 p.m. Meanwhile, Harris is spending the day in Michigan. The vice president will worship at a black church in Detroit at 11:55 a.m., stop at local businesses in Detroit’s Livernois district at 2 p.m. and Pontiac, Michigan at 3:10 p.m, and host a rally at Michigan State University in East Lansing at 6:30 p.m.
Harris made a surprise appearance on NBC‘s Saturday Night Live after campaigning earlier in the day in Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina. Aides of Trump, who ventured into Virginia, as well as North Carolina, have alleged that her skit with actress Maya Rudolph violates the Federal Communications Commission‘s equal time rule.
