How Trump is relying on a racist conspiracy theory to question election results

When former President Donald Trump told millions of Americans during Tuesday’s presidential debate that “our elections are bad, and a lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they're trying to get them to vote,” he was not just repeating a baseless claim intended to undermine the results of the upcoming 2024 election.

He was also echoing the latest iteration of a once-fringe racist conspiracy theory that has now become mainstream in the Republican Party. The conspiracy – known as the "great replacement" – claims there is a plan to bring nonwhite immigrants into the United States and other Western countries to replace white voters to achieve a political agenda.

Throughout this presidential campaign season, Trump and his allies have repeatedly claimed that Democrats allowed migrants to enter the country so they would vote in the 2024 election – despite the fact that no evidence has surfaced of a mass scheme to register undocumented immigrants. Noncitizen voting in federal elections is illegal and rare, and there are checks in place to deter and prevent it. (A small number of localities permit noncitizens to vote in municipal elections for positions such as school board using separate ballots from those used for state and national elections. The number of noncitizens who ultimately cast ballots is very small.)

“They can't even speak English. They don't even know what country they're in, practically. And these people are trying to get them to vote, and that's why they're allowing them into our country,” Trump said during Tuesday’s debate.

Social media influencers and groups allied with Trump have sought to keep the issue alive, frequently hyping thinly sourced stories claiming noncitizens are being encouraged to vote that