‘We are locked and loaded’: Trump fans in North Carolina ready for a ‘stolen election’

“As Republicans, we are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

The startling comment came from a mother of five and grandmother of two, Vikki Westbrook, as she lined up on Sunday outside an aircraft hangar in rural North Carolina. She had come to hear Donald Trump make one of his last pitches of the 2024 presidential election.

Westbrook, 55, wasn’t entirely joking with her “locked and loaded” remark. Nor was she being entirely frivolous.

She does own guns, she said, though she wouldn’t specify how many.

Personally, she intended to avoid any trouble that might erupt in the wake of Tuesday’s election, she said. “I have kids, I can’t afford to go to prison. And I don’t like orange.”

It’s her fellow Make America Great Again (Maga) supporters whom she fears might be tempted to take action should the former president lose the election. “At this point, a lot of Republicans aren’t going to take it any longer. They won’t let the election be stolen from us twice.”

Vikki Westbrook, 55, attends a Trump rally in Kinston, North Carolina, on Sunday. Photograph: Ed Pilkington/The Guardian

Westbrook remains convinced that the 2020 presidential election was snatched from Trump. Now she is equally certain that should Kamala Harris win on Tuesday, it will be for one reason only.

“Only if they cheat. I’m absolutely positive of that.”

Trump has been studiously nurturing such passions for years, his rhetoric rising in intensity in recent days. He has repeatedly refused to confirm that he will accept the results of the vote count, and earlier on Sunday he told supporters in Pennsylvania that he “shouldn’t have left” the White House four years ago.

A recent survey by the Public Religion Research Institute recorded that one in four Republican Trump supporters believe that were Trump to lose the election, he should declare the results invalid and do “whatever it takes” to retake the White House. That’s a sobering finding, but a grossly understated one, judging from the mood at Trump’s Kinston rally.

“People will riot if Trump doesn’t win,” said Cedric Perness, 38, an African American Trump supporter. He said it would be too dangerous for him to participate in any post-election unrest – “I’d get killed right there.”

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Instead he does what he can, he said, to help Trump by selling merchandise on his campaign’s behalf. He has a stall of hats and T-shirts, some saying: “You missed bitches. Two times!”

In the final stages of the 2024 race, Trump has been whipping up the passions of his millions of devoted followers to a fever pitch. In the last three days of campaigning alone he has made four stops in North Carolina, a battleground state which the Democrats have won only twice since Jimmy Carter in 1976 (the other time being Barack Obama in 2008).

Trump must hold North Carolina to have a clear shot at returning to the White House.

In these frantic last hours, he has pursued a two-pronged strategy to fire up his followers. On the one hand, he has been raising their expectations by claiming that he is well ahead in the polls.

“We’re going to have on Tuesday a landslide that’s too big to rig,” a tired and hoarse-sounding Trump told the Kinston crowd. “We have a big lead. We have a big lead. The fake news, they don’t tell you this. We have a big, beautiful lead.”

In fact, poll trackers suggest that he and Harris remain neck-and-neck in North Carolina and the other six critical swing states.

Trump merch for sale at the rally in Kinston, North Carolina. Photograph: Ed Pilkington/The Guardian

On the other hand, Trump has also been laying the foundations of a renewed conspiracy, should he need it, to subvert the election results by alleging widespread fraud. He touted the false accusation at the Kinston rally that Democrats are enabling non-citizens to vote in vast numbers, accusing the Biden administration of pursuing an open-border policy on the southern border with Mexico “maybe [because they] want to put them on the voting rolls. That’s probably the reason.”

Supporters at the rally faithfully parroted the lie on Sunday.

“That’s why they opened the border, to allow all the illegals in so they could vote for Democrats,” said a woman in the line who declined to give her name. “There’s always been corruption in this country, but I had no idea it was this bad. America has been run into the ground – anyone with half a brain can see that.”

Almost as pervasive as the supporters’ belief in the demonic intentions of Democrats was their frustration at what they could do about it. Last time around, such toxic emotions culminated in the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

The Kinston rally goers, following Trump’s lead, universally dismissed January 6 as a “set up” in which peaceful and patriotic Americans were lured into a dastardly deep-state trap. Westbrook, the “locked and loaded” grandmother, admitted to having been present at the Capitol that day.

Hundreds of Trump supporters, driven to distraction by the then president’s “stop the steal” rhetoric, stormed the heart of American democracy on that day. In the violent clashes that ensued, approximately 140 police officers were assaulted.

That’s not how Westbrook sees it. “It wasn’t what they said happened. The only people causing trouble were antifa, they were put into us to cause problems.”

This is a lot for any American voter to be carrying. The 2020 election was stolen from her candidate of choice, she firmly believes, and now she’s worried that Tuesday could see a repeat performance.

“Four years ago I felt angry, very angry. This time I will be even more angry.”

Should her worst fears come to pass, and Trump lose, where will all that powerful emotion go?

“If he loses, I’m scared,” the grandmother said.