In The Steal, veteran journalists Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague
offer a week-by-week, state-by-state account of the effort to overturn
the 2020 presidential election.
In the 64 days between November 3 and January 6, President Donald Trump
and his allies fought to reverse the outcome of the vote. Focusing on
six states - Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and
Wisconsin - Trump's supporters claimed widespread voter fraud.
It was not a well-orchestrated matter. There was no guiding genius
pulling the strings in key states for the defeated Donald Trump. In the
weeks after the election, in counties and precincts all over the
country, many local Republican officials and even Trump's own campaign
workers washed their hands of his increasingly unhinged allegations of
fraud. But there was no shortage of people willing to take up the fight.
Urged on by Trump and his coterie of advocates, lawyers, and media
propagandists, true believers turned on their colleagues, friends, and
neighbors - even those in their own party - to accuse them of rigging
the election.
The real story of the insurrection began months before Trump's mob
attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. That riot was the desperate
final act, emblematic of the clumsy, failed movement Trump had been
building for years. It began in cities and small towns all over America
on election day, November 3, 2020.
Working with a team of researchers and reporters, Bowden and Teague
uncover never-before-told accounts from the election officials fighting
to do their jobs amid outlandish claims and threats to themselves, their
colleagues, and their families. The Steal is an engaging, in-depth
report on what happened during those crucial nine weeks and a portrait
of the heroic individuals who did their duty and stood firm against the
unprecedented, sustained attack on our election system to ensure that
every legal vote was counted and the will of the people prevailed.
