Trump activists gather in state capitals to protest Biden victory

PHOENIX — Activists and supporters of President Donald Trump insisted Saturday that the presidential election was not finished, displaying defiance after Joe Biden secured victory in the closely fought race.

From here in the Arizona desert to Philadelphia, Trump backers echoed the president's attacks on the integrity of the election, which continued Saturday with his statement that "this election is far from over." They made baseless allegations of voter fraud and pledged to keep fighting in court while claiming Biden did not legitimately win.

"We know the election is being stolen," said Michael Breitenbach, 47, a construction manager in Philadelphia who was holding a Trump flag on Saturday morning not long after news outlets called the race. "When the count is fair and legal, Donald Trump will have won by a landslide, and you can bank on that."

Trump’s supporters have considered him only a winner — in business, as a celebrity, and ultimately as president. The election results, revealed Saturday after days of waiting for straggling states to tally their returns, indicated otherwise this time: Biden has won at least 279 electoral votes, enough to claim the presidency. He also garnered 74.5 million individual votes — the most in the nation’s history and more than 4 million above Trump’s total.

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Instead of accepting those results, the president’s devotees spurned them. They gathered at so-called “Stop the Steal” rallies at state capitals nationwide to claim, without evidence, that ballot counts favorable to Biden stem from a sprawling, multistate conspiracy to hijack the vote through fraud. It is unclear how widespread such views are beyond these events and high-profile conservative figures, and some GOP figures have pushed back on claims of a rigged election.

More than 300 people gathered in Salem, Ore., outside the state capital to wave Trump flags and decry the outcome of the election. Among them were members of the far-right Proud Boys and numerous people affiliated with self-styled militia groups who were armed with assault-style rifles.

Don Thomas, 64, of McMinnville, Ore., said he believes that Democrats are ignoring the legal challenges Trump has mounted in pivotal states, and he wants to make sure "all those question marks are answered" before there is an official winner.

"A lot of places are voting by mail for the first time, and because of the newness of the system, we have to make sure it's being done right," Thomas said. "If we lose legally, I'll accept that. But there's so many ways this can be done wrong."

In Harrisburg, Pa., one of the events drew about 200 people, with large Trump 2020 flags and "Legal Votes Matter" signs waving as they milled near the state capitol. Some said they thought there should be a recount or even another vote entirely.

“I’m here for the integrity of the election, no matter whether you’re a Republican or Democrat,” said Nicole, a 39-year-old from Hegins, Pa., who declined to give her last name. “There are a lot of answers Pennsylvanians deserve.”

Postings shared on social media advertised "Stop the Steal" events that called for "peaceful protests" in key American cities, though it was not clear how many people would turn out for all of them.

The “Steal” calls have been amplified on social media by Donald Trump Jr. and promoted by conservative activists such as Amy Kremer, a former congressional candidate in Georgia and co-founder of the group Women for Trump.

Earlier in the week, Kremer used a Facebook page with more than 100,000 followers called Women for America First to channel traffic to a "Stop the Steal" group, which quickly collected more than 360,000 members before it was shut down Thursday for violating the site's rules.

In a statement Thursday, Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said the "Stop the Steal" group's page was removed because it "was organized around the delegitimization of the election process, and we saw worrying calls for violence from some members of the group."

At the "Stop the Steal" event in the Pennsylvania capital, Amy Lee, 55, who had been a poll watcher in Pittsburgh, said she was upset about not being allowed closer to the counting.

"I'm here to support Trump," she said. "I believe Biden stole the election."

When asked how, Lee said she thought it was “mathematically impossible” given the size of the pro-Trump events, trains and flotillas compared with Biden’s events, which often adhered to coronavirus-focused public health restrictions.

Trump 2020 flags also flew over the ornate steps of the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich., where several hundred Trump supporters denied the results and chanted, "We won." Speakers used a megaphone to denounce the vote as fraudulent; passing trucks honked their horns in apparent support.

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While they were demonstrating, members of Michigan’s legislature gathered inside for a special Saturday meeting as they began an inquiry into the election’s handling, which Michigan officials repeatedly have defended as legitimate, accurate and fair. Biden won Michigan by about 148,000 votes; in 2016 Trump won the state by a slim margin.

In Phoenix, demonstrators outside a Maricopa County, Ariz., vote-counting center insisted the race had not been called. A man wearing a “Q” cape — a reference to the QAnon conspiracy theory — told a gathering of dozens of people that they should not believe the media or “the liars” inside the elections facility, where workers were still counting ballots. As of Saturday night, Biden was leading in Arizona by just more than 20,000 votes, but the state had not yet been called for either side.

"It's not official yet," John Ryer, 53, a Scottsdale resident at the gathering, said of Biden's win.

As media outlet after media outlet called the election for Biden, Neianne Castro was disappointed but not surprised.

"People will vote for Biden because they hate Trump," she said while grabbing lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Phoenix after picking up family at the airport.

The 46-year-old office manager said in her view, the counting is still going and the race isn’t over, questioning the election workers counting ballots.

"I mean, how much do we really know about the people who are taking our votes in and how trustworthy they really are?" she said.

Pennsylvania, one of the pivotal states that decided the election’s outcome, has drawn intense scrutiny from Trump supporters and allies, who repeatedly have questioned the vote-counting process this week in public statements and demonstrations outside a vote-counting site in Philadelphia.

On Thursday night, Philadelphia police arrested two armed men near where votes were being tallied. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said police had been told the men were coming from Virginia for reasons potentially related to the vote count; authorities charged both men with weapons violations.

» READ MORE: Two men outside Philly vote count in Hummer with QAnon stickers face weapons charges, police say

People who know the two men defended their actions, saying they went to the city to view the scene. Both had been associated with a group called "Vets for Trump," and one worked in professional private security. The mother of one of the men said he "loved Trump very much" and "didn't want Trump to lose."

Just minutes after the election was called on Saturday, Rudy Giuliani, Trump's attorney and the former New York mayor, said the Trump campaign would file a lawsuit alleging voter fraud in Pennsylvania.

Before Giuliani spoke at a landscaping company, Trump supporters had gathered outside the company's gates to argue with Biden supporters. The Trump supporters learned that news outlets had projected Biden would win Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes from their phones and people in passing cars, one of whom shouted the outcome at them.

The confrontations were largely verbal, not physical — except when Jada Carter, 23, a recent Hofstra graduate, dropped to her hands and feet and twerked at a Trump supporter, laughing at him.

"If you don't like it, you can leave!" she yelled.

Berman and Miroff reported from Washington. The Washington Post’s Cleve R. Wootson, Jr., in Salem, Ore.; Kayla Ruble in Lansing, Mich.; Amy Worden in Harrisburg, Pa.; and Robert Klemko in Philadelphia contributed to this report.