By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Contributor

With less than 100 days left until Election Day, President Donald Trump has increased his references to uncertainty around the election results.

Trump responded, “I have to see” after journalist Chris Wallace asked him if he would respect the results of the 2020 election. Trump has disparaged mail-in voting at a time when it looks as if in person voting may not be possible because of COVID-19.

“If Trump does try to hang on to a presidency he’s lost. However, he can’t actually do very much all by himself. Running the executive branch requires help. Thankfully, there are laws that stop others from using the authorities of the executive branch on behalf of anyone other than the legitimate president,” read an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

“He’s gonna run a racially-tinged campaign unlike anything we have seen before, like George Wallace,” said Stuart Stevens of The Lincoln Project on July 26 during a television appearance.

“He’s always over promised and under-delivered. That’s what he’s done his entire life,” Stevens added on July 26.

Trump’s poll numbers indicate he will have an uphill battle defeating Joe Biden. In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost the electoral college but won the popular vote over Trump by 2.8 million votes. Trump’s poll numbers in vital battleground states are in freefall and he continues to ratchet up conflict in the U.S. in what appears to be an attempt to drive bring out Republican base voters.

A Fox News poll from July 23 showed Biden was ahead of Trump in Michigan 49% – 40%, in Pennsylvania 50% to 39% and in Minnesota 51% to 38%. On July 26, with 100 days until the election, President Trump was behind in CNN’s polls conducted in Arizona, Florida and Michigan.

In a tumultuous year dominated by a deadly pandemic that has taken the lives of over 150,000 people and created massive job loss and economic uncertainty, Trump is slowly creating an environment of hostility and suspicion around the coming election.  States are now grappling with the question of in-person voting vs. mail in ballots. Recent primary day controversies in Georgia and Kentucky have alarmed voting rights advocates.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent journalist for NNPA and the host of the podcast BURKEFILE. She is also a political strategist as Principal of Win Digital Media LLC. She may be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke

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