MILWAUKEE — A top Trump campaign official said Thursday that the 2024 presidential race will not be over until Inauguration Day, rather than after Election Day on Nov. 5 — when voters across the nation go to the polls to cast their ballots and a result normally is projected.

The assertion from Chris LaCivita at a Politico event is notable given former President Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to President Joe Biden, and the ensuing violent attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.

It is also significant given that the U.S. Department of Justice alleges after Election Day in 2020, Trump co-conspired with lawyers and election officials in seven states to produce false slates of electors. According to the indictment, those slates were intended to be delivered to Vice President Mike Pence during the routine certification in a joint session of Congress in early January following presidential elections.

“It’s not over until he puts his hand on the Bible and takes the oath. It’s not over until then. It’s not over on Election Day, it’s over on Inauguration Day, cause I wouldn’t put anything past anybody,” LaCivita, Trump’s co-campaign manager, told Politico’s Jonathan Martin during a lengthy interview open to press and attendees, and livestreamed, at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

J.D. Vance pitches for swing-state votes in accepting Trump VP nomination

Trump did not attend Biden’s inauguration, and he and many Republican lawmakers continue to repeat false claims that he won.

LaCivita interrupted with his comment when Martin was in the middle of asking about the prospects for Democrats on Election Day.

“It’s also possible that Donald Trump can lose,” Martin followed up. LaCivita said the campaign will remain focused on the issues.

A few moments later Martin asked LaCivita if he thinks it’s politically wise for Trump to continue campaigning on pardoning the Jan. 6 rioters.

“I always find it amazing that you guys are the ones that bring it up,” LaCivita said, referring to the press.

“That’s not true,” Martin replied.

“I’ve been in a lot of interviews where it’s the first question you guys ask,” LaCivita said. “What we’re talking about right now are the issues that matter, Social Security, protecting Social Security and Medicare, closing the border. I mean we have so much to talk about and that’s where our focus is.”

“In a perfect Chris LaCivita world (Trump) would never say the words ‘Jan. 6 hostages’ again,” Martin followed up.

LaCivita immediately responded and repeated: “Social Security, Medicaid, closing the border, deportation — yeah I said it — all of those things.”

In March, Trump told reporters he was open to cutting Social Security and other entitlement programs as a way to address the national debt.

Election fraud falsely claimed

Trump repeated false claims of election fraud in the months following the 2020 election and lost numerous court challenges in states that he insisted he won.

The fight erupted in political violence on Jan. 6, when a mob of Trump supporters overran the U.S. Capitol Police with improvised weapons and the goal of stopping Congress from certifying the election results.

The historic criminal indictment of a former sitting U.S. president — handed up from a federal grand jury in August 2023 — charges Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstructing an official proceeding, among other felony counts.

Trump has successfully delayed the federal election subversion case as he appealed his motion to dismiss based on president criminal immunity all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The justices on July 1 ruled in a 6-3 decision that former presidents enjoy broad immunity for official acts, and sparked major questions over what type of evidence can be used in any such prosecution.

‘How do you utilize’ an assassination attempt?

Reaction to the attempted assassination against Trump on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, has evolved over the RNC’s first three days. It’s gone from initial concerns about political violence to rallying around the event as a symbol of how “Trump Strong” can reshape America, as Donald Trump Jr. said Wednesday night.

Trump supporters wore fake bandages on their ears at the RNC as a political symbol, much like the red “Make America Great Again” hat.

If a presidential nominee drops out, what happens to states’ ballots?

“The energy or the emotion that you feel when something like that happens, how do you utilize it? How do you utilize it to get to where you need to be?” LaCivita said.

“How do you utilize it to win an election or how do you utilize it to bring the country together?” Martin followed up.

“I think it’s both,” LaCivita said.

The co-campaign manager sidestepped a question about whether Trump will make an effort during his RNC speech to tell supporters not to believe conspiracy theories circulating online that the shooting was a Democratic plot. Martin asked if LaCivita agreed that Trump tamping down accusations against his opposing political party would be “good for the country.”

LaCivita said the campaign is planning Trump’s speech to be “forward focused.”

“I mean look, there are not enough facts, and it’s not just up to us to talk about the facts resulting around what happened,” LaCivita said as he added to the chorus of criticism of the U.S. Secret Service and calling on its head to resign.

Hours after the shooting Saturday, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio — announced Monday at the RNC as Trump’s vice presidential pick — wrote on social media that “today is not just some isolated incident.”

“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s assassination attempt,” he wrote.

Project 2025 a ‘pain in the ass’ for Trump

Of the themes permeating the RNC, the major conservative Project 2025 has dogged Trump’s campaign in a way that LaCivita described as “a pain in the ass.”

The 922-page document spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation roadmaps a presidential transition and plan to overhaul government administrations, to lobby Congress for national abortion restrictions and restoration of “the American family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.”

The organization held an all-day policy fest five blocks from the RNC convention hall Monday.

Trump denies any connection to the project, despite former Trump administration officials identifying their previous positions in the project materials. A CNN analysis found that 140 who previously worked for Trump helped on Project 2025.

LaCivita said any claim that Trump is connected to the project is “utter bulls—t.”

“They do not speak for the campaign.”

Significant rains and flooding are keeping the eastern parts of the state well saturated, but that’s not the case for much of West River.

According to the most recent U.S. Drought Monitor report, over a quarter of the state is seeing abnormally dry conditions. Over 10% are experiencing a moderate drought.

The Black Hills and upper northwest corner of the state are seeing the worst of the dryness.

These dry conditions can cause an increased risk for wildfires, as dry grasses serve as an easy fuel and lighting from rolling summer thunderstorms can create a quick spark.

Great Plains Fire Information reports two lightning caused fires this week alone in the Black Hills. Both fires have been controlled.

MILWAUKEE — J.D. Vance — the freshman Ohio senator who used to rebuke Donald Trump’s character and policies before becoming one of his most ardent supporters in Congress — formally accepted the nomination as Trump’s running mate Wednesday at the Republican National Convention.

Vance spoke directly to the swing-state voters who will determine the outcome of the presidential election as well as control of the Congress during his 38-minute prime time speech on the third night of the convention.

“This moment is not about me. It’s about all of us. It’s about who we’re fighting for,” Vance said, as Trump looked on from a special seating section inside Fiserv Forum.

“It’s about the autoworker in Michigan, wondering why out-of-touch politicians are destroying their jobs,” Vance said. “It’s about the factory worker in Wisconsin, who makes things with their hands and is proud of American craftsmanship.”

“It’s about the energy worker in Pennsylvania and Ohio, who doesn’t understand why Joe Biden is willing to buy energy from tinpot dictators across the world when he could buy it from his own citizens right here in our own country,” he added.

Biden-Harris 2024 communications director Michael Tyler released a statement after Vance’s acceptance speech concluded, arguing that working and middle class Americans would be harmed if Trump and Vance are elected later this year.

“J.D. Vance is unprepared, unqualified, and willing to do anything Donald Trump demands,” Tyler wrote.

Raised by grandmother

Vance spoke at length about his upbringing and his family during his speech, including his mother, who is close to reaching 10 years clean and sober, as well as his grandmother, who raised him while his mother was struggling with addiction.

He said that his mother should reach that benchmark in January 2025 and that they should celebrate in the White House.

Vance rolled in a story about his grandmother to emphasize the GOP’s support for gun rights, receiving loud cheers from the crowd.

On the trail of J.D. Vance’s Kentucky mountain roots

He noted that in 2005, just before he deployed to Iraq as part of the Marine Corps, she died and while going through her home, he and his family found 19 loaded handguns.

“They were stashed all over her house; under her bed, in a closet and in the silverware drawer,” Vance said.

“We wondered what was going on. And it occurred to us that towards the end of her life (she) couldn’t get around so well,” Vance said. “And so this frail old woman made sure that no matter where she was, she was within arm’s length of whatever she needed to protect her family. That’s who we fight for. That’s the American spirit.”

Vance said that his version of the American dream wasn’t becoming a senator or starting a business, but having the type of family he wasn’t able to grow up in.

“My most important American dream was becoming a good husband and a good dad,” Vance said. “I wanted to give my kids the things that I didn’t have when I was growing up. And that’s the accomplishment that I’m proudest of.”

Vance emerges as favorite despite inexperience

Trump announced Monday that he had selected Vance to be his running mate after narrowing down a shortlist that included several other GOP senators with more experience in Congress.

The relationships that a vice president has with both Republicans and Democrats in the upper chamber are especially important given that bills must gain the support of at least 60 senators to advance toward final passage. It’s also the chamber responsible for approving judicial and executive branch nominees.

Additionally, the vice president is responsible for casting tie-breaking votes in the Senate, a job that could take up much of the vice president’s time if the election yields another two years with a 50-50 split.

Vance has been a member of Congress for less than two years and is best known as the author of Hillbilly Elegy, a controversial book about rural poverty in Appalachia, that was later turned into a movie.

The delegates at the convention moved to formally nominate Vance as their vice presidential nominee the same day Trump announced him as his running mate. Vance’s speech on Wednesday night served as his official acceptance.

Foreign affairs 

Vance doesn’t have a lengthy record on domestic or foreign policy issues given his especially brief tenure as a lawmaker, but he has repeatedly opposed funding for Ukraine.

Speaking on the floor of the convention to an enthusiastic crowd, Vance said that “we will make sure our allies share in the burden of securing world peace.”

“No more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer,” Vance said, seemingly referring to NATO countries that have yet to reach the benchmark of spending at least 2% of their GDP on defense.

NATO allied countries agreed to move toward that goal in 2014 after Russia invaded Crimea in Eastern Ukraine. Twenty-three of the 32 countries in the alliance are expected to meet that target this year.

Vance said if reelected, Trump “will send our kids to war only when we must.”

Vance also spoke about China and the Chinese Communist Party throughout his speech.

“We will protect the wages of American workers and stop the Chinese Communist Party from building their middle class on the backs of American citizens,” he said.

‘A meat and potatoes kind of guy’

Vance’s acceptance speech, which largely served as an introduction to GOP voters, followed a lengthy night of more speeches, including by his wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, and Donald J. Trump, Jr., who pressed for his father to choose Vance as his running mate.

Chilukuri Vance said she wanted “to explain from the heart why I love and admire J.D. and stand here beside him today, and why he will make a great vice president of the United States.”

Scenes from the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Telling the story of how they met at Yale Law School, Usha said Vance approached their differences with “curiosity” and that she learned he had “overcome childhood traumas that I could barely fathom.”

“My background is very different from J.D.’s. I grew up in San Diego, in a middle-class community with two loving parents, both immigrants from India and a wonderful sister,” Chilukuri Vance said. “That J.D. and I could meet at all, let alone fall in love and marry, is a testament to this great country.”

Chilukuri Vance spoke for just under five minutes and told the crowd that although her husband is a “meat and potatoes kind of guy,” he learned to cook Indian vegetarian food for her mother. She said he’s the same person now that she met when they were younger, “except the beard.”

“It’s safe to say that neither J.D. nor I expected to find ourselves in this position. But it’s hard to imagine a more powerful example of the American dream,” Chilukuri Vance said. “A boy from Middletown, Ohio, raised by his grandmother through tough times, chosen to help lead our country through some of its greatest challenges. I am grateful to all of you for the trust you placed in him and in our family.”

Ties between Vance and Donald Trump Jr.

Though he largely spoke about his father, Trump Jr. used his platform to spotlight the friendship between him and Vance. He used the differences in their upbringings as an invitation for voters to support his father in November.

“For everyone watching at home, no matter who you are, you can be a part of this movement to make America great again. Look at me and my friend J.D. Vance. A kid from Appalachia and a kid from Trump Tower in Manhattan. We grew up worlds apart,” Trump Jr. said. “Yet now we’re both fighting side by side to save the country we love. And by the way, J.D. Vance is going to make one hell of a vice president.”

Trump Jr. spoke for nearly 20 minutes prior to Vance taking the stage, focusing most of his speech on defending his father and taking sharp jabs at Biden.

He said he had “never been prouder” of his father than he was Saturday after the former president survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

He compared his father standing up and raising his fist after the shooting to how the “America we all grew up with” will return again.

“We’re like that man who stood on that platform and felt the bullet pierce his flesh just days ago in Pennsylvania. He may have moved to the ground, but he stood back up. And when he did, my father raised his fist into the air, he looked out at the crowd, and what did he say?”

“Fight, fight, fight,” the crowd at the RNC shouted back.

“And we will fight. We will fight with our voices. We will fight with our ideas. And then November 5, we will fight with our vote,” Trump Jr. said.

Prior to speaking, Trump Jr. called his oldest daughter Kai Madison Trump — the former president’s eldest granddaughter — to the stage briefly.

She accused the left of attacking her grandfather and told stories of him calling her to ask about her golf game and telling his friends that she made the high honor roll.

“The media makes my grandpa seem like a different person, but I know him for who he is. He’s very caring and loving,” Kai Madison said. “He truly wants the best for this country and he will fight every single day to make America great again.”

Bashing Biden

Dozens of other politicians spoke on the third night of the Republican National Convention, with the vast majority praising Trump while criticizing Biden.

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., said voters need to elect Trump to the White House in November to prevent Biden and Democrats from implementing their preferred policies.

“We have to remember that the greatest threat to American safety is not Biden’s brain,” Gingrich said. “The greatest threat is Biden’s policies, and the people he appoints.”

Gingrich added that Americans could “vote for weakness and war with Biden,” or they could “vote for strength and peace with President Trump.”

Biden tests positive for COVID, will return home to Delaware

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who was on Trump’s shortlist for a running mate but wasn’t selected, said during a brief speech that Trump would be better for fossil fuel production than Biden.

“When President Trump unleashes American energy, we unleash American prosperity and we ensure our national security,” Burgum said.

The crowd inside Fiserv Forum chanted “drill baby drill” during part of his speech.

Kellyanne Conway, senior counselor to Trump during his first administration, told attendees at the RNC that the GOP ticket is the best path forward for the country.

“The answer to weakness is strength. The antidote to division is unity. And the alternative to failure and incompetence, to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, is to send them packing and send Donald Trump and J.D. Vance to the White House,” Conway said.

U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida told the GOP delegates and guests that Trump — who never served in the military and made up an injury to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War — “respects our military and understands the true cost of war.”

“President Trump knows what it means to put your life on the line,” Luna said. “Our service members and their families make immense sacrifices, and they deserve a president who respects that sacrifice and who will lay down his own life in defense of this great nation.”

Lia Chien contributed to this report.