The Washington Post reports today that Republican voters are eager to nominate candidates for office who repeat Donald Trump's big lie about the 2020 election being stolen:
District by district, state by state, voters in places that cast ballots through the end of May have chosen at least 108 candidates for statewide office or Congress who have repeated Trump’s lies. The number jumps to at least 149 winning candidates — out of more than 170 races — when it includes those who have campaigned on a platform of tightening voting rules or more stringently enforcing those already on the books, despite the lack of evidence of widespread fraud.
Here's the chart:
This is obviously a terrible trend. Make no mistake.
But. It's also worth noting that virtually every one of these candidates comes from either a deep red state or a red district within a purplish state. In other words, they come from places where Republicans are likely to win anyway and no elections will even need to be overturned. Congressional races are a little different, but even there very few of these districts would ever nominate someone who wasn't willing to go along with a vote to install Trump as president if the vote ever ended up in the House.
In practical terms, then, these nominations won't change much of anything. It's disheartening that so many Republicans have gone over this cliff edge, but the truth is that they went over it many years ago. This is just the latest manifestation of Gingrichism, Foxism, Tea Partyism, and now, Trumpism.
There's a way to help salvage the Republican party: vote in its primaries. In my state (Colorado) there was a clear choice on the ballot between election deniers and more sane candidates (sanity being defined as agreeing Biden won, ignoring other issues of course). I'm don't think of myself as Republican but I still did what I could to keep the election deniers out.
That's a lot of "isms" when "fascism" would have worked as well or better. And just because they haven't retaken the entire Federal government just yet isn't a reason to just shrug it off as "well, at least it's just Red States where the fascists are in control of the government from here on out".
but even there very few of these districts would ever nominate someone who wasn't willing to go along with a vote to install Trump as president if the vote ever ended up in the House.
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln...?
To me this is the real takeway: very plainly we now live in a country where, if the GOP can get away with ignoring the will of the electorate in a presidential election (AKA elections nullification), they'll do so. In January of 2021 I distinctly recall thinking: zero chance the Republican Party allows a rightfully elected Democratic presidential nominee to secure an Electoral College victory the next time they control Congress. I still think that's a safe bet.
Democrats have finally gotten their wish to see the "reformed." Just not in the way they had envisaged.
Right, jasper, and let's not forget that Big Lie supporters are running for and will win many state/local election monitoring positions. I suppose we should be grateful that Trump didn't succeed in dooming Raffensperger in GA.
Kevin Drum: It's also worth noting that virtually every one of these candidates comes from either a deep red state or a red district within a purplish state.
But the exceptions are important. In Nevada, the Republican candidate for Secretary of State said he would not have certified Biden's victory there if he had been Secretary of State in 2020. Nevada is a swing state where the Secretary of State election could go either way. I just sent a campaign contribution to Cisco Aguilar, the Democratic candidate for Nevada Secretary of State.
Arizona has it's primary on August 2, and Republicans there are likely to select someone who opposes democracy as their nominee for Secretary of State. If that happens, that will be another close election where democracy is on the ballot.
I think we could do a better job of communicating the lie-ness. The quoted story says "lack of evidence of widespread fraud", leaving plenty of room for thinking there IS widespread fraud, we just don't have evidence.
In fact, we have evidence of lack of widespread fraud. If we're talking about impersonation, that leaves a trail - a person on the List of Who Voted who didn't actually vote.
We should also be telling people that election administration is multipartisan everywhere - no matter how "Democrat-run" a place is, registered Republicans (and Democrats) are observing and signing off on everything. Candidates' and parties' lawyers are watching for the slightest slip-up.
I know the Republican noise machine can ignore any inconvenient facts, but there are a lot of people out there who aren't political junkies and don't know the party line, for whom the truth might matter.