‘Prepare, prepare, prepare’: How Trump and Harris legal teams are wargaming for historic legal fights

(CNN) — With the 2024 presidential contest expected to be the most litigated in American history, both campaigns have spent years laying the groundwork for a post-election courtroom battle by recruiting lawyers in every state, wargaming possible scenarios and drafting potential pleadings.

Courts across the country have been flooded with lawsuits far earlier than in the 2020 election, mostly from Republican-aligned groups challenging everything from ballot rules to voter qualifications. And the legal challenges could continue for weeks or months to come.

Even issues that appear to have been resolved by state or federal courts could be revived after Election Day as so-called zombie lawsuits, if either party believes those court fights could deliver the votes needed to win what is now considered a dead heat.

In anticipation, both campaigns have assembled teams of lawyers in battleground states and beyond.

On Donald Trump’s side, veteran election lawyer Gineen Bresso is heading up the GOP’s so-called election integrity efforts, while David Warrington is serving as the campaign’s general counsel. Warrington is a Washington, DC-based lawyer who represented the former president during the House select committee’s investigation into the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack.

After courts tossed all but one GOP lawsuit after the 2020 election, and several lawyers lost their licenses or faced criminal charges over efforts to undermine that election, sources close to the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee say they have been focused on recruiting legal talent this time around.

“The first priority was hiring top lawyers,” a source familiar with the party strategy told CNN. “We want to make sure we did not have a repeat of past events.”

Former White House counsel Dana Remus, who led the Joe Biden legal team in the last election, will again lead the legal fight for Vice President Kamala Harris. Sources familiar with the Democratic strategy say they have recruited hundreds of lawyers across key states with the expertise needed to fight a variety of challenges they could face.

“Prepare, prepare, prepare,” Remus, senior counsel to the campaign, told CNN in an interview. “They have started earlier, and we have started earlier too. We never stopped preparing since 2020.”

Just 30% of registered voters think Trump will accept the results of the election and concede if he loses, according to CNN poll results released Monday.

Deep Democratic bench

With the specter of 2020, during which Trump fought the legitimate election results, looming large, Democrats have spent the past four years building a team to handle whatever legal challenges arise this cycle.

Remus, who provides the overall strategic direction, played a pivotal role in fending off Trump challenges to the 2020 election results and a key role in Biden’s decision to not assert executive privilege over documents that Trump tried to keep out of the hands of the January 6 committee. She has deep Democratic ties, having previously served in former President Barack Obama’s administration. (Obama even officiated her wedding in 2018.)

Marc Elias, a well-known election attorney who has been a senior lawyer for the past five Democratic presidential candidates, and his namesake law firm are leading the campaign’s strategy on recounts – just as they did in 2020.

The legal team also relies on a team of advisers, including longtime Biden lawyer Bob Bauer, who advises on litigation strategy and voter protection, and former US Solicitors General Don Verrilli and Seth Waxman.

The Harris team has already worked through hypothetical legal scenarios, and sources have described drafting thousands of pages of filings they could quickly tailor in an array of court challenges.

So far, Republicans have targeted overseas voting and mail-in ballots that have traditionally favored Democrats, while backing efforts to purge suspected noncitizens from the rolls.

In addition, the Harris legal team is supported by a “field counsel” program that coordinates with local firms in each state that can provide specialized knowledge about election law and procedures in each jurisdiction.

And they have set up “voter protection” teams to serve on the ground in each state. These groups have recruited tens of thousands of volunteers to stand outside the polls and coordinate “chase a cure” programs that help voters fix mistakes that would otherwise disqualify their ballots.

GOP and ‘election integrity’

The RNC and Trump campaign have also built an extensive legal operation over the past two years that includes a network of local lawyers to help them assess state-level challenges. So far, Republicans have been involved in more than 130 lawsuits in the lead-up to November 5.

In April, the RNC announced the formation of an “election integrity” program, which it said was to ensure transparency and fairness in the 2024 elections. Bresso leads this operation. She previously served on the US Election Assistance Commission and as an elections counsel on Capitol Hill.

“We have built the most robust election integrity operation the country has ever seen,” Bresso said in a statement. “Our legal efforts are fighting to fix the problems in the system, hold election officials accountable, protect election safeguards, and defend the law.”

Mike Davis, president of the conservative group Article III Project and a key adviser to Trump on judicial selection, said the former president’s legal team “is so much better prepared this time than in 2020.” He noted Trump’s wins at the Supreme Court granting him presidential immunity for official acts and turning back efforts to disqualify him based on the “insurrectionist clause” in the 14th Amendment.

Sources close to the Trump legal team say they have not only focused on recruiting legal firepower but on identifying viable legal challenges. They’ve also engaged in wargaming exercises, including planning for natural disasters. After hurricanes devastated southern states in recent months, the RNC opposed efforts to extend voter registration deadlines.

“We saw what happened in North Carolina and Georgia and Florida,” the source familiar with the RNC’s strategy said, “and we said: ‘We’ve practiced this.’”

“We’ve been strategic about the lawsuits that we’ve decided to file,” the source added. “We did not go off and just file a bunch of lawsuits for the sake of filing a bunch of lawsuits. We’ll want to make sure the rules are followed, whatever those rules are.”

After the 2020 election, 61 of 62 lawsuits challenging the presidential election failed before Democratic-appointed and Republican-appointed judges.

Democrats say the GOP’s litigious approach this election cycle reflects Trump’s attempts on the campaign trail to once again preemptively cast doubt about the election and foreshadows more court battles if Harris wins.

“I cannot articulate why a drop box poses some greater threat to election integrity than a mailbox,” a Harris aide said, referring to GOP concerns over ballot drop boxes even as Trump sometimes encourages supporters to vote by mail.

Both camps insist they are trying to protect voters – and ensure the rules are clear for election officials.

“Trump understands that you have to invest money in the lawsuits and injunctions before the election because if you wait until after the election, judges are not going to side with you unless there is overwhelming evidence of fraud to overturn the entire state’s election,” said Davis, the Trump adviser.

“What we have to do is protect every voter and every vote, which is what we’re doing,” said Remus, of the Harris legal team. “Our institutions have held for every election, and I think we can trust in our institutions here as well.”

CNN’s Casey Gannon contributed to this report.

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