On November 3, 2020, President Donald J. Trump lost the US Presidential Election to Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Leading up to election day, Trump and his supporters, including some Republican legislators, anticipated this loss and began spreading narratives about voter fraud, using slogans like “stop the steal” to insinuate that election interference was occurring. While votes were being counted on November 3, Trump preemptively declared victory and tried to stop further vote counts. While the election was officially called for Biden on November 7, Trump refused to concede and filed dozens of lawsuits to try to overturn the election results. Multiple recounts took place after the election, each confirming the election results. In December 2020, Trump announced a rally in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021, to coincide with the official Congressional vote count, which would certify the election results.

Simultaneously, far-right Trump supporters began organizing immediately after the election to keep Trump in office or otherwise prevent a peaceful transition of power. The Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group, began discussing the possibility of a civil war among themselves and staged a violent pro-Trump protest in New York with the Proud Boys, a militant neo-fascist organization, in December 2020.