Hours before polls closed in Philadelphia last Tuesday, now-President-elect Donald Trump posted on Truth Social claiming there were signs of cheating in the heavily Democratic city. When Pennsylvania was eventually called in his favor later that night, those claims suddenly dried up, never to be spoken of again.
The post, on Trump's own social media platform, echoed unfounded claims made around Election Day in 2020 that votes were being "found" for Democratic Party candidate and eventual winner Joe Biden.
"A lot of talk about massive CHEATING in Philadelphia. Law Enforcement coming!!!" Trump posted at 4:39 p.m. on Nov. 5.
He had been sowing distrust in the vote for days at that point.
"They have already started cheating in Lancaster," Trump said at an Oct. 29 rally in Allentown. "They have cheated. We caught them with 2,600 votes. We caught them cold, 2,600 votes. ... And every vote was written by the same person."
Meanwhile, Trump surrogate Elon Musk was floating his own unfounded conspiracies on X, the platform he owns, about widespread fraud in the Keystone State — posts that were reaching far more people than anything else the billionaire shared, NBC News found.
Pennsylvania became the most-mentioned state on Election Day when it came to claims of election cheating or voter fraud, with around 15,000 posts compared to the second-most discussed state of North Carolina, at 2,555, according to PeakMetrics.
Some of the posts reflected real concerns around isolated issues voters had placing their ballots at some sites across the state, but officials had dealt with these throughout the day. In one instance, a software update was needed for voting machines, but paper ballots were used in the meantime.
Officials in Philadelphia, led by District Attorney Larry Krasner, were quick to denounce Trump and Musk's claims.
"The only talk about massive cheating has come from one of the candidates, Donald J. Trump," Krasner said on Election Day. "There is no factual basis whatsoever within law enforcement to support this wild allegation.
"We have invited complaints and allegations of improprieties all day. If Donald J. Trump has any facts to support his wild allegations, we want them now. Right now. We are not holding our breath."
When asked by Newsweek if anyone came forward with those facts in the week since the election, Krasner's office said they had not.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump-Vance transition team for comment via email Wednesday afternoon.
When the results started rolling in on Tuesday and it became clearer as the night wore on that Trump was on a path to victory, the claims of cheating suddenly vanished, which PBS Senior Correspondent Judy Woodruff said was "interesting".
"So now does this suggest that he may be winning, he's feeling better, feeling more confident?" Woodruff asked on air.
"Now, he doesn't need to put those allegations out there, which by the way, most or all of which were unfounded."
House Speaker Mike Johnson later announced there had been no signs of voter fraud during the election.
Trump went on to narrowly win Pennsylvania, with 50.5 percent of the vote. He received 3.5 million voted to Vice President Kamala Harris' 3.3 million, with vote counting continuing into this week.
The narrow win also sparked conspiracy theories from the left, with claims that millions of Democratic Party votes had been "lost", including in the crucial swing state. Another piece of viral misinformation was that Musk had personally hacked the election using his Starlink satellite constellation.
But importantly, these conspiracies were not floated by any major Democratic operatives or leaders let alone the party's candidate.
"Pennsylvania counties, including Philadelphia, ran a safe and secure election," a spokesperson for Pennsylvania's Department of State told Newsweek Wednesday, while the state's Attorney General's office said it had no further comment to make.
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