What did Donald Trump do today?

He invented an election conspiracy theory so ridiculous he didn't notice that his candidates are doing fine.

 

Early this morning, Trump made baseless claims that Democrats in California were somehow "trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES." More ominously, he claimed that the US Attorney in Los Angeles was looking into it, although that office refused to confirm any investigation into what has been a busy but orderly election.

Trump was impeached, and indicted in both federal and state courts, for his part in the criminal conspiracy to illegally keep him in power despite the results of the 2020 presidential election. He did not provide any evidence.

Even by Trump standards, these are bizarre lies. Republican candidates will absolutely advance in both of these nonpartisan primaries, where the top two candidates advance to the general election. As of tonight, Republican Steve Hilton has the most votes of any single candidate in the gubernatorial race, and Republican Spencer Pratt is comfortably in second place in the LA mayoral primary. In fact, if Democrats were trying to "steal" races in the California primaries, they'd be doing a terrible job of it. Republicans and Democrats will each have a candidate in every statewide race, with the possible exception of Insurance Commissioner.

It's unlikely even Trump believes what he's saying about the California elections. It's true that he's famously emotionally ill-equipped to handle losing: after the results of the election became clear in December 2020, he threw a plate of food against the wall of the White House when his Attorney General refused to take further part in his efforts to cling to power. 

But he's also made clear on many occasions that he doesn't really regard elections as binding, at least not on him, which may explain why he's so willing to tell obvious lies. To this day, Trump still explains away his loss in the November 2020 election by claiming that the January 6th riots were a dirty trick played by the "Biden FBI." Astute readers may note that Trump was president that whole time, and the FBI was led by his appointees (who President Biden retained).

Trump's general strategy, even going back to before he was first elected, has been to undermine the basic concept of elections. He's declared them "rigged" even when he or his party eventually won, spread conspiracy theories about voting by mail even as he does it himself, and invented preposterous stories about literal millions of never-detected "illegal" votes supposedly cast by undocumented immigrants to explain why he lost the popular vote in 2016 to Hillary Clinton. 

Trump didn't mention it in his rant, but there are congressional districts where the runoff will have two Democratic candidates. That's because the districts were drawn up by the California State Assembly to be virtually guaranteed to elect a Democrat. That partisan gerrymandering was done in direct response to Trump's demand that every Republican-led state do the same, and only after several of those states had. 

All told, Republicans are likely to net about 6 seats as a result. That's generally expected to be far too little to prevent an anti-Trump wave in the midterm elections. By way of comparison, Democrats picked up 41 seats in the House of Representatives in 2018, when Trump's net approval rating was -10% at this point in the cycle. As of the latest 2026 polls, it's -25% and dropping fast.

 

Why does this matter?

• States don't need Donald Trump's permission to hold elections. 

• There's only one reason a historically unpopular politician would try to undermine public confidence in democracy. 

• You don't tell lies this obvious unless you think the people listening to you are very, very stupid.