Donald Trump gets Republican nomination and claims election being rigged

CHARLOTTE: President Donald Trump opened his bid for a second term after securing the Republican nomination Monday in typically combative fashion by claiming Democrats want to “steal” the election that polls currently show him losing.

Minutes after the party completed the nomination vote confirming Trump as the candidate on November 3, he appeared at the convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, to deliver a rambling, often dark speech lasting close to an hour.

From the opening words, he told Republicans to be on alert for what he claimed was a Democratic plan to rig the contest through increased use of mail-in voting — a measure Democrats say is needed to protect people from catching COVID-19 in crowded polling stations.

“They are trying to steal the election,” he told party delegates. “The only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election.”

Opponents say Trump s increasingly extreme resistance to expanded mail-in voting — a method already used widely in the United States — is an attempt to suppress voter turnout, while setting up an excuse to challenge the result if he is defeated.

Polls show Trump losing to Democratic candidate Joe Biden, who had his Democratic convention last week, as Americans turn on his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent economic chaos.