This was a fact. No one claimed that he lost the electoral vote and no one claimed that he didn’t win based on the rules.
> In fact last year, a whopping 72%[0] of Democrats thought Russians got Donald Trump elected
It is a fact that Russia interfered in the election and that they were responsible for hacking and leaking the Democrats private messages. It is also a fact that people close to Trump were convicted about lying about their communication with Russia. The opinion part comes in about whether it resulted in Trumps winning.
I’m also not clutching my pearls. I know that the US has a history of interfering with (small d) democratic elections across the US.
Well, there was a huge amount of fuss about how he won on a technicality and the rules are wrong. Which looks extremely similar, even if it can be motte and baileyed away years later.
At one time or another, it's been far more than half. Trump "losing the popular vote" was daily news on left-leaning sites. From Hillary Clinton:
> Trump "knows he’s an illegitimate president," Clinton said. "I believe he understands that the many varying tactics they used, from voter suppression and voter purging to hacking to the false stories — he knows that — there were just a bunch of different reasons why the election turned out like it did … I know he knows this wasn’t on the level."
And Russian interference comments, e.g. these from Jimmy Carter:
> In June 2019, Jimmy Carter, the former Democratic president, said, "There’s no doubt that the Russians did interfere in the election, and I think the interference, although not yet quantified, if fully investigated would show that Trump didn’t actually win the election in 2016. He lost the election, and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf."
In fact last year, a whopping 72%[0] of Democrats thought Russians got Donald Trump elected, which is about the same as the number of Republicans[1] who think that the Twitter files etc contributed to Joe Biden winning.
All in all, most of the US can be convinced that a fraud happened, split equally along party lines.
[0] https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/gen... [2] https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2022/70-percent-republ...