In a new study, Media Matters reviewed YouTube content streamed or uploaded between May 1 and August 31 by 30 right-wing channels or channels that hosted notable right-wing figures. We found 286 videos — totaling at least 44 million views and including at least 93 monetized videos — that contained misinformation about the 2020, 2022, and/or 2024 elections. 

According to our study, former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was the most prolific election misinformer, accounting for 77 of the 286 videos, and right-wing streamer Benny Johnson had the most videos that we observed with preroll ads. 

We found that in the two months after WABC canceled Giuliani’s radio shows (May 10 through July 12), he relentlessly claimed on YouTube that the 2020 election was “stolen” and Democrats were “going to cheat” in the 2024 election. More details on these findings can be found here.

We also found Johnson pushed election misinformation in dozens of monetized YouTube videos from May through August. These videos — which each included preroll ads, paid promotions, and/or Super Chats — have earned millions of views. More details on these findings can be found here.

In the months leading up to the 2024 election, conservative media figures on YouTube have feverishly prepared their audiences to doubt any result other than a Trump victory. Among the 30 channels we examined, we found at least 22 channels that have echoed false claims about the 2024 election, totaling at least 115 videos. 

These claims included that the election process is “rigged” against Trump, that the legal cases against him constitute “election interference,” that Democrats want and are enabling noncitizens to vote in order to win the election, and that Kamala Harris was “illegally installed” as the Democratic nominee in a “coup” against Joe Biden.

Ahead of the 2024 election, right-wing figures on YouTube have repeatedly suggested that the election will be “compromised” and Democrats will “cheat” and “resort to electoral dirty tricks,” including the use of alleged “illegal ballots.” Some figures, like Rudy Giuliani, have even continued to parrot baseless or debunked claims that the 2020 election was “fixed” and full of “outright cheating,” suggesting that “the fraud in the 2020 election has to be addressed if you don't want it to repeat itself in 2024.”

Some examples Media Matters identified include:

• Claremont Institute Senior Fellow Jeremy Carl said he hoped Trump “takes no prisoners” because of “this system just being completely rigged against him in the context of the election and everything that’s going on.” On an episode of American Moment’s Moment of Truth podcast, Carl said, “We're going to have to do some incredibly forward things legally. We're going to need brave attorneys to say, ‘Yep, I’m good with that, that’s legal.’” [YouTube, 5/13/24] 
• Salem Media’s Eric Metaxas said it was “very clear to me [the left] stole the last election.” Metaxas continued, “We need to be clear about this, that this is a wicked thing, and that they don't need to poll well if they know how to cheat, if they know how to game the system.” [YouTube, 6/3/24]
• Conservative streamer Benny Johnson suggested Democrats are “paying for votes with packs of cigarettes and welfare cards.” Johnson continued, “This is why I love the ‘too big to rig, too big to rig’ nomenclature of the Trump campaign this time around.” [YouTube, 6/20/24]

• Johnson also complained in June that Democrats can win Illinois only because the “hellscape city” of Chicago is a “rigged system.” Johnson: “There's your rigged system right there. How many of those people are actually voting, right? … How many of those people knew that they voted?” [YouTube, 6/7/24]
• Fox News host Greg Gutfeld suggested Democrats would “resort to electoral dirty tricks” with “the votes, legal or illegal,” admitting that he had “very little evidence on that, but that hasn’t stopped me before.” Co-host Jesse Watters added, “We have to win so big you can't rig.” [YouTube, 5/13/24] 
• The Gateway Pundit’s Jordan Conradson interviewed a Trump rally attendee who implied “dead people voted for Biden” in 2020 and claimed Democrats “let all these migrants in to vote.” After Conradson suggested that “illegal immigrants flooding across the border” were “probably going to vote in this next election,” the interviewee responded, “They’re trying to get the Democratic vote, but it’s not going to work.” [YouTube, 5/23/24]
• Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton argued “the 2024 election has already been compromised” and announced plans by his organization to sue states in order to “overcome the election rigging.” In a speech delivered at the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference, Fitton — who has repeatedly attempted to undermine the legitimacy of the 2020 election with baseless allegations of voter fraud tied to Dominion and Smartmatic voting machines — decried “counting votes of ballots that arrive after election day” and said the practice was “illegal.” [YouTube, 6/26/24; Media Matters, 2/25/21]
• Donald Trump Jr.: “Democrats to me today could show up on the evening of November 5 with five billion ballots … and with a straight face, tell us it was a landslide in the freest and fairest election in the history of the world.” In an interview conducted at the Republican National Convention, Trump Jr. argued “there’s nothing they won’t do.” [YouTube, 7/18/24]
• Conservative attorney Harmeet Dhillon called on Republicans to “overwhelm the margin of chicanery, shenanigans, and even outright cheating that the Democrats did in 2020.” Dhillon, who leads Trump’s “election integrity” operation in Arizona, continued, “The Democrats are so confident of winning, they could put up any regime puppet and expect to win the election.” [YouTube, 7/23/24; Axios, 10/9/24]

• Fox host Mark Levin said Democrats “will do anything for votes — imprison Trump, steal elections.” Speaking on his radio show which is also uploaded on YouTube, Levin alleged that Democrats would “change the electoral process” to get more votes. [YouTube, 5/7/24] 
• Daily Wire host Michael Knowles accused “libs” of “doing everything they can to rig the election against Trump.” While discussing a new variant of COVID-19, Knowles asked, “Are the libs once again going to use COVID to shut down at least our country and then change all the election rules and rig the election for Joe Biden — again? Are they going to do that? They’re going to try.” [YouTube, 5/14/24]
• Knowles also claimed that “elections are rigged all the time” and argued “the people who oppose paper ballots want to rig the elections.” After the Baltimore City Council discovered a discrepancy “during a routine double check of results” which led to an overcount of 590 votes in a local race, Knowles stated: “The people who oppose paper ballots want to rig the elections. They want the elections to be riggable.” [YouTube, 5/22/24; The Baltimore Sun, 5/17/24]
• PBD Podcast co-host Vincent Oshana fearmongered that Biden would institute martial law in order to “shut down the election if they can.” Oshana: “I think this is one of their tactics if their cheating doesn't work. … I know they're going to try to do it because, obviously, we're seeing Trump as the frontrunner. Without a shadow of a doubt he's going to win unless something nefarious happens.” [YouTube, 7/9/24; Media Matters, 5/13/24] 
• On the PBD Podcast, podcaster Bret Weinstein said Democrats “cheat in every conceivable way” and called to “defeat them so decisively that we get past the cheat margin.” Weinstein also declared, “Frankly, I don’t trust them. They cheat in every conceivable way that we can see, right? … And the question is, how far does that go? Do we really believe the people who would cheat in every conceivable way that we can see won’t cheat in ways that we can’t see? I find that unlikely.” [YouTube, 8/23/24] 
• In an apparent attack on the owner of WABC, who canceled Rudy Giuliani’s radio show in May, Giuliani suggested it's “more likely” Democrats “cheat in 2024” if “we are submitted to the dictate of John Catsimatidis.” Giuliani also asked, “Isn't it much more likely they won't cheat if their prior cheating is laid out and they end this protection they're getting for what they did in 2020, which nobody else would get other than crooked Biden Democrats?” [YouTube, 5/13/24]
• Giuliani called on his audience to watch his show on YouTube to “send a message to WABC that you want news that comes out about the 2020 election because it might help prevent cheating in the 2024 election.” Giuliani also listed supposed examples of fraud, including “news like 375,000 ballots are missing in Georgia, news like 3,000 ballots were discovered double-counted.” Notably, these claims have been debunked by elections officials, as well as news outlets. [YouTube, 5/20/24; USA Today, 5/23/24; The Associated Press, 11/28/23]
• Giuliani argued that “if we get cowered into not talking about the 2020 election, they're going to feel much more empowered to cheat heavily in 2024.” Giuliani went on to declare that Democrats are “going to cheat in 2024” because “Democrats have probably cheated in every election since Boss Tweed.” He added, “It's a crooked party; crooked parties cheat.” [YouTube, 5/27/24]
• Giuliani baselessly claimed that “the capacity for cheating is well known” in Arizona. The comments came as Giuliani celebrated that Trump was leading then-candidate Biden in Arizona polls. [YouTube, 6/10/24]
• Giuliani argued that “the fraud in the 2020 election has to be addressed if you don’t want it to repeat itself in 2024.” Giuliani added, “We can’t be stopped from talking about it, as, you know, they try to do with me.” [YouTube, 6/12/24]
• Giuliani baselessly claimed Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro “helped to steal the 2020 election.” Giuliani argued, “It’s Democrat crooked Philadelphia and Pittsburgh where the election was fixed.” [YouTube, 7/22/24]
• Giuliani spokesperson Ted Goodman argued Democrats have “been cheating every election … going back to 1960.” Goodman continued, “Every election we’ve won, we beat the cheat.” [YouTube, 8/12/24] 
• Giuliani also said Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson had “already committed election fraud in the 2024 election … a continuation of what she did in 2020, in trying to fix the election of 2020.” Giuliani argued Benson had “already committed election fraud in the 2024 election with regard to taking Trump off the ballot,” even though Benson herself clearly articulated her opposition to such a measure in 2023. [YouTube, 8/29/24; The Washington Post, 9/13/23]
• Right-wing radio host Steve Deace said Democrats would be “dropping ballots” and “bussing people in … to keep the spigot going until they get what they want” on Election Day. Deace continued, “All they’re trying to do is make her credible enough so they can fortify this thing at the end here.” [YouTube, 7/24/24]
• Deace also alleged that the Democrats’ “game plan” is to get polls “within their narrative margin to justify cheating.” Deace explained, “Biden is not gone, OK, because they couldn't get the votes they wanted, but because no one was going to buy that he could get the votes that they got.” [YouTube, 8/28/24]
• Right-wing podcaster Steven Crowder: “The only way this election can be won from the left is if it's stolen.” He prefaced the claim by saying, “I don't care if we're not on YouTube anymore.” Crowder, who also streams on Rumble, was demonetized on YouTube in 2021, meaning he has seemingly been unable to earn ad revenue from his streams on the platform. [YouTube, 7/18/24; The Nation, 7/11/23; The Verge, 3/30/21]

• Crowder also announced plans to have “boots on the ground” on Election Day because “this already is election theft.” During the stream, Crowder called on viewers to “help out” if they are in any of several listed cities, stating that they would be “compensated.” [YouTube, 8/12/24]
• While promoting his Election Day plans, Crowder declared that “the steal is already taking place” and said he was “willing to bet that YouTube is going to suspend us.” Crowder also suggested that his “electoral integrity map” would mean “no more Arizonas, no more pipes bursting in the middle of the night with no substantiation and they change the story the next day.” [YouTube, 8/14/24]
• Lara Trump claimed that “as the co-chair” of the Republican National Committee, she was “well aware of all the ways that they are trying to sway the election and rig it in every single state.” Trump continued, “The problem is that the Democrats want to make it easier to cheat and harder to vote for people, and we’re trying to do the opposite.” [YouTube, 6/4/24] 
• In another apparent attack on Democrats, Lara Trump declared: “We don't cheat at the ballot box. We don't do crazy things with drop boxes all over the country. We don't allow illegals to vote.” [YouTube, 6/5/24]
• On Tucker Carlson’s show, The Blaze’s Jason Whitlock accused California of “manipulat[ing] voting,” and Carlson claimed Kamala Harris “didn’t win any elections” and was “chosen by the unions in California and installed.” Carlson also said, “There is no democracy in California. It’s fake.” Whitlock added that “they have a system in place to manipulate voting and all that.” [YouTube, 8/23/24]

Several right-wing pundits made efforts to repeatedly claim that the legal cases against Trump are really “lawfare” or “election interference” intended to tarnish his image and overwhelm his supporters. Mike Davis, a conservative lawyer and frequent guest on Steve Bannon’s War Room, was especially prolific in blaming these cases directly on the supposed political strategy of Biden and other Democrats. 

Trump has faced four criminal cases. In May, a jury found Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records after the presentation of extensive dockets of evidence detailing many of his violations of New York law. In the federal election subversion case, special counsel Jack Smith recently released documents revealing some of the evidence against Trump. In the other cases, the evidence related to the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago has been well documented, and the Georgia indictment against Trump relied at least partially on public accounts of Trump asking Gov. Brian Kemp to “find 11,780 votes.”

Some examples Media Matters identified include:

• Appearing on The Benny Show in May, Article III Project founder and Trump ally Mike Davis claimed that Trump’s criminal hush money trial was “obviously Democrat lawfare and election interference.” In another appearance, Davis promised “retribution” if Trump won in November, saying, “We are going to crush you after January 20, 2025, after what you've done. … There is absolutely going to be retribution.” [YouTube, 5/13/24, 5/31/24]
• During an interview uploaded to Article III Project’s YouTube page, Davis called for Trump to “ensure there are severe legal, financial, and political consequences to this Republic ending lawfare and election interference led by Joe Biden.” He later called for revenge for the legal cases against Trump and said “we need to give them retribution.” [YouTube, 5/22/24, 7/3/24]

• On YouTube, Davis repeatedly attacked the legal cases against Trump, many times asserting that they were “lawfare” and a form of “election interference.” On May 30, Davis complained: “This is lawfare, this is election interference, this is a criminal conspiracy to violate the … constitutional rights of Trump.” In another video, Davis also referenced the cases, criticizing “this Biden Democrat lawfare and election interference on many different fronts, the four criminal indictments” as a “house of cards.” [YouTube, 5/30/24, 7/3/24]
• Davis claimed prosecutions were “blatant lawfare and election interference.” He argued that the cases were “unconstitutional” and “part of the Democrats’ criminal conspiracy against President Trump.” In a later appearance, he said that Democrats had “crossed the Rubicon.” [YouTube, 5/20/24, 6/7/24]
• Davis criticized “unprecedented republic-ending lawfare and election interference by President Biden and his attorney general, Merrick Garland.” Davis again blamed Biden for having “brought our country to the brink with this republic-ending lawfare and election interference” in a later appearance. [YouTube, 7/15/24, 7/17/24]
• Davis also criticized Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing Trump’s hush money case, and directly accused him of election interference. “He set the sentencing hearing for like four days before the Republican National Convention starts,” Davis complained, calling it “obvious election interference by this judge — continued election interference by this judge.” In a later appearance, Davis called Merchan “the Forrest Gump of this Biden-Democrat lawfare against President Trump.” [YouTube, 6/4/24, 6/10/24]
• In one appearance, Davis called for Merchan, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and other “bad actors” to be arrested and charged with “criminal conspiracy,” calling the hush money case against Trump “blatant Biden-Democrat lawfare and election interference.” “Frankly, after January 20, 2025, the Trump 47 Justice Department should arrest and charge Judge Merchan and Alvin Bragg ... and all these bad actors, charge them with criminal conspiracy.” [YouTube, 6/14/24]

• Davis attacked DOJ officials and claimed they were supporting “republic-ending lawfare and election interference” and “political persecution.” He complained that “all of this unprecedented, republic-ending lawfare and election interference by President Biden and his attorney general, Merrick Garland, and their special counsel, Jack Smith, … this is political persecution.” Davis later said, “This is obviously election interference, continued Biden and Kamala lawfare,” claiming, “Jack Smith once again is ignoring the law.” [YouTube, 7/15/24, 8/28/24]
• On PBD Podcast, Tom Fitton declared that “the election already is compromised” because of Trump’s criminal trials. Fitton added, “If Trump loses, many people are rightly going to say, well, they had their thumb on the scale, so it's no surprise.” [YouTube, 6/7/24; Media Matters, 5/13/24] 
• Trump campaign fundraiser and political adviser Kimberly Guilfoyle claimed the cases against Trump are simply “efforts to undermine election integrity.” Guilfoyle added that “all these people are working together in concert to try to undermine American elections, to try to defeat Donald Trump because they don't want to face him at the ballot box, and bankrolling these efforts — this lawfare against him.” [YouTube, 5/9/24]
• On NTD News, former Trump national security adviser Kash Patel said the guilty verdicts in Trump’s hush money trial are part of a “system of rigged election-interfering justice.” “And that is a loss for the world, not just America,” Patel said. “So we’ve got to get behind Donald Trump's movement, and make sure that we can fix this system of rigged, election-interfering justice.” [YouTube, 5/30/24]
• Just the News, No Noise host Amanda Head declared that the prosecutions against Trump were “election interference.” [YouTube, 7/10/24]
• Rudy Giuliani argued that Trump’s New York hush money trial was “a political prosecution intended for the purpose of rigging the 2024 election.” He also claimed “these are the kinds of verdicts that occur in dictatorships and Third World and banana republic governments.” [YouTube, 5/30/24]
• Giuliani directly attacked the courts and prosecutors in Trump’s cases, claiming that “they're working on a massive election interference conspiracy, and they're one part of it.” [YouTube, 6/7/24]
• Gateway Pundit host Elijah Schaffer claimed that the criminal prosecutions against Trump are “lawfare cases” and “the goal is to try to get him removed off the ballot or to put him in a place where he can't run — like, kill him.” [YouTube, 6/6/24]

Several right-wing media figures and outlets on YouTube peddled baseless claims that the Democratic Party is actively courting noncitizens and allowing them into the country for the purpose of ensuring a “permanent Democrat majority.” Many of these claims, including that Democrats are “fine with the possibility of voter fraud” or that they “just don't want a fair and free election,” were made during discussions of the SAVE Act, which is Republican-championed legislation aimed at making it illegal for noncitizens to vote, even though noncitizen voting is already illegal and extremely rare. 

Some examples Media Matters identified include:

• In a June 17 video, The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro suggested that Democrats who oppose the SAVE Act are “fine with the possibility of voter fraud.” Shapiro said: “Why Democrats would oppose this is absolutely beyond me. Unless they are very, very much fine with the possibility of people not actually showing ID to vote. Which suggests they are fine with the possibility of voter fraud.” [YouTube, 6/17/24]
• In a video posted in August, Shapiro characterized Democrats’ voting rights initiatives as “full-scale national ballot harvesting.” He stated, “So all of the talk about how, ‘No, don't worry. Illegal immigration, that's never going to be a matter of voting or demography or anything like that.’ Well, then why are Democrats so hellfire bent on actually amnesty-ing 10 to 15 million people? They've already said they're going to do this, by the way. This is their comprehensive immigration reform plan, a pathway to citizenship, by which they mean everybody here illegally gets citizenship in the hopes that they will all vote Democrat.” [YouTube, 8/21/24]
• Benny Johnson claimed opponents of the SAVE Act “want illegal criminal aliens to vote in our election.” [YouTube, 7/11/24]
• Johnson also claimed in a monetized video that “alarming numbers of people” should not be on voter rolls, including “criminal aliens.” Johnson speculated that “the steal is on to actually get people to deliver ballots, early ballots, and they're not American citizens,” and he asked Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump how she would “stop that.” [YouTube, 8/19/24, 8/19/24]

• In another stream, Johnson claimed that Democrats have a “goal of bringing in 30 million criminal aliens” in order to ensure a Democrat victory. Johnson claimed, “Joe Biden only ‘won’ the election by 40,000-some-odd votes. So if you bring in 30 million new people, you're gonna be able to really scrape off the top the margins that you need forever to beat Republicans forever. Right? And we've already seen this with Kamala Harris, fake crowds, fake support, fake election, fake influencers, and a fake campaign.” [YouTube, 8/23/24]
• Johnson also questioned why Biden and Harris haven’t “closed the border,” saying “it’s obvious” and that “they want to horse trade amnesty through Congress” to ultimately get “30 million new Democrat voters and a permanent Democrat majority forever.” Johnson described a supposed plan to “rachet up the social pressure, rachet up the pain for the actual citizens of the country, until people just give in” to amnesty and ultimately give Democrats 30 million new voters. [YouTube, 8/30/24]
• In an interview streamed on YouTube, Project 2025 adviser and former Trump personal aide John McEntee claimed that Democrats “definitely want” noncitizens to vote. McEntee said: “Democrats will say, ‘Well, illegals can't vote.’ Like, for sure some do and even if they don't know they are, people are filling out the ballots.” [YouTube, 5/1/24; Media Matters, 2/16/24]
• In an appearance on Fox News’ Hannity posted to YouTube, former Trump adviser Stephen Miller claimed that the Biden administration is making “a conscious choice to let illegal aliens vote.” [YouTube, 7/11/24]
• Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich claimed during an appearance on Hannity that was posted to YouTube that Harris wants “to have millions of immigrants come in illegally, vote illegally.” [YouTube, 7/25/24]
• In a video uploaded to Judicial Watch’s account, president Tom Fitton stated that “of course, they're [noncitizens] gonna be voting in elections.” Fitton said that “we have the issue of noncitizens voting — or the potential of noncitizens voting.” He also said that the law prevents it, “but there’s no check. … Of course they’re gonna be voting in elections.” He also called the current voter registration system “fraud waiting to happen,” adding that “that's one danger to our democracy with the presence of tens of millions of foreign nationals here in the United States.” [YouTube, 5/15/24]
• In another video, Fitton claimed that Democrats “want to make it easier for noncitizens to illegally vote in elections, generally, and they want, generally, noncitizens in principle to vote in all elections.” Fitton also claimed that votes from noncitizens are “essentially negating the votes of citizens.” [YouTube, 7/17/24]
• Fitton also stated during an appearance on Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria, which was uploaded to YouTube, that “the Democrat-controlled administration is knowingly offering the opportunity to vote to these illegal migrants.” Fitton added that, “if you're registered to vote, even a voter ID isn't gonna stop you from voting because many aliens, both illegal and legal, have the necessary documents to show their ID in order to vote. So the more people you have here who are noncitizens, because we have virtually no effective checks in place, the increased likelihood of them voting. And a major study showed about 80% of aliens who vote tend to vote Democrat.” [YouTube, 7/29/24]
• John Solomon, editor-in-chief for Just the News, claimed that “the strategy and motive of the Democrats and liberals” was to “stack the decks in blue cities and blue states and, too, of course to open the door to noncitizen voting.” [YouTube, 5/15/24; Media Matters, 10/17/19]
• On Just the News, No Noise, conservative lawyer and former assistant secretary of state Robert Charles, claimed that the Biden administration was “pulling illegals into this country as fast as they can pull them in, dispatching them at night to places like Portland, Maine, and middle of Montana, and trying to turn red states purple and then blue with these illegal votes.” Charles added, “The bottom line is: This is not just a random ‘might be’; this is a real thing. It is happening.” [YouTube, 6/13/24]
• Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Heritage Foundation's Election Law Reform initiative and a Project 2025 contributor, claimed on Just the News, No Noise that “the evidence is clear” that noncitizens are voting. Von Spakovsky added, “It tells you something that, for example, on the alien voting issue, only five Democrats supported a bill to do something as simple as telling states: verify citizenship.” [YouTube, 7/11/24; The Guardian, 7/10/24]

• Right-wing provocateur Jack Posobiec called on Republicans to “start gumming up the works” with lawsuits because of potential “illegal ballots” from noncitizens in Pennsylvania. After Real America’s Voice host Brian Glenn fearmongered about “how many illegals are registered to vote in this election,” Posobiec said, “You need to start gumming up the works because there’s no question that if those illegal ballots are slipped in, once they come out of those envelopes, we know that it is going to be counted as a vote for Joe Biden or, excuse me, Kamala Harris.” [YouTube, 7/31/24]
• Article III Project founder Mike Davis, appearing on Just the News, No Noise, claimed that “the next thing they're going to do is they're going to try to rig and steal the election … by registering illegal immigrants and other noncitizens to vote and make it very hard to get those illegal immigrants and other noncitizens off the rolls before November 5.” [YouTube, 8/17/24; Media Matters, 2/29/24]
• The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles claimed that the Biden administration has “imported tens of millions of illegal aliens” in an attempt to “rig the elections.” Knowles claimed, “We've seen record numbers of them come into the country. They're rolling out the red carpet for them. They're releasing them into the country. They're flying them to the center of the country in some cases, into crucial areas. Why are they doing that? They're doing that to rig the elections.” He also suggested that, short of winning the election, Democrats are “doing that to increase the population in their own states because seats in the House of Representatives are apportioned not by the number of citizens but just by the number of people.” [YouTube, 7/11/24]
• On PBD Podcast, Christina Bobb, who is senior counsel to the Republican National Committee’s election integrity team, claimed that Democrats are making an “illegal alien push” to win the 2024 election. Bobb claimed, “We've got information that leads me to believe that they are trying to register a lot of these people coming across the border to vote in all 50 states.” She also suggested that this was being done to supplement the Democrats supposed election fraud practices from 2020, adding, “I don't think they're shying away from 2020 with the mail-in ballots and, you know, don't go to polls, mail everything in. They're trying to play the same game that they played in 2020, but it's not gonna be as effective, and it's not gonna have near the impact. So they're trying to supplement it.” [YouTube, 6/3/24; The Washington Post, 4/26/24; Media Matters, 5/13/24]
• In a June 4 video posted to YouTube, Giuliani baselessly suggested that there were “ineligible voters” on the rolls in Arizona in 2020 and 2022. Giuliani claimed that “people move and they stay registered there for 10, 12 years. Why? So the crooked Democratic Party can vote them, and they hook them up with a phony registration. And they did it enough to turn around the election of 2020 and get the electoral votes in Arizona.” [YouTube, 6/4/24]
• In a separate July 11 stream, Giuliani suggested that noncitizens would vote in the 2024 election and that some Democrats “believe that noncitizens should vote.” During a monetized stream, Giuliani said: “198 Democrats in the House of Representatives believe that noncitizens should vote in your elections, and you’re going to vote for them? What, do you belong to some other country? I would think, Republican or Democrat, we should all agree that in order to vote you got to have a stake in the country, which is citizen.” [YouTube, 7/11/24, accessed 7/24/24]
• During an episode of Louder with Crowder streamed on YouTube, Steven Crowder claimed that Biden “cannot deport these people because he depends on them for votes.” [YouTube, 5/7/24; Mashable, 5/19/23]
• Without evidence, Lara Trump suggested that Democrats “cheat at the ballot box,” “do crazy things with drop boxes,” and “allow illegals to vote.” [YouTube, 6/5/24]

• Lara Trump pushed a conspiracy theory that Biden “is obviously banking on illegals voting in this election to get him over the line.” Echoing the white nationalist “great replacement” theory, Trump said it’s “pretty clear” that Biden is allowing migrants to cross the border to vote for him for president, adding, “That’s the whole goal.” [YouTube, 5/1/24; Media Matters, 1/12/24]
• On Timcast IRL, former Trump adviser Kash Patel claimed that Democrats are planning to “inject another rig job into an election by allowing, what is it, 10-plus million people so far. Half of them are getting voter IDs.” [YouTube, 5/27/24]
• In a segment of his show Tucker Carlson Uncensored posted to YouTube, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed that “foreigners” were “a brand-new electorate” for Democrats. Carlson added, “It's illegal, you say, for illegal aliens to vote in a federal election. Well, actually, it's not illegal, it turns out.” [YouTube, 5/7/24]
• Tucker Carlson, while interviewing Ben Carson, who served as secretary of housing and urban development under Trump, asked if “letting in tens of millions of people illegally” will impact the election, to which Carson responded, “That's the whole purpose of it.” Carlson also remarked that, “I don’t think we’re allowed to talk about voter fraud on YouTube, which tells you that it’s real.” [YouTube, 7/25/24]

Right-wing media figures claimed that Harris is not the legitimate Democratic nominee for president, often using this allegation to suggest that Democrats will “cheat” in the general election. Multiple election law experts have debunked this point — as Biden was not yet the official nominee, his decision to withdraw from the race weeks before he was expected to be nominated at the DNC “does not present any legal or constitutional problems,” according to PolitiFact.

Some examples Media Matters identified include:

• Benny Johnson insisted that Democrats “cheated” by having Harris “illegally installed” as their presidential nominee, arguing: “They're hoping that the sugar high is enough to, like, get them within the margin of fraud, right? And then shenanigans.” [YouTube, 8/13/24]
• Johnson again claimed that “Democrats cheated” by nominating Harris, calling her “illegitimate.” “We have the candidate that actually has been elected, right?” Johnson said. “That's a real candidate. People actually voted for them. They didn't cheat — we didn't cheat with Trump. Democrats cheated. They knew they were going to lose, so they changed the player in spite of 15 million votes. It's illegitimate. Kamala Harris is illegitimate. Don’t care what you do, that’s the truth.” [YouTube, 8/15/24]
• Mark Levin claimed Democrats “stole the election from their own primary voters and they're going to install somebody who hasn't gotten a single delegate on her own.” [YouTube, 7/22/24]
• Louder with Crowder host Steven Crowder suggested Democrats had planned to “install somebody, coronate Kamala Harris even though she didn’t receive any votes,” and he insisted that Democrats would cheat in the election. Crowder said: “Biden's fine until the polls show Americans don't believe it. Cheat, install somebody, coronate Kamala Harris even though she didn't receive any votes. It's going to be the same thing right now. Lie, lie, lie, lie. ... And when it doesn't work, cheat. That's what they're going to do in the election.” [YouTube, 8/30/24]
• Tucker Carlson called Harris’ nomination a “coup” against Biden. Carlson said: “They just prosecuted a coup against a sitting supposedly elected president who got, like, several billion votes, they've told us for the past four years. And they just took him out because they didn't like his polling.” [YouTube, 7/30/24]