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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — November 10, 2022

By November 10, 2022No Comments

Driving the Day: 

Must Read Stories

Election Deniers Defeated In Key Races Across The Country 

  • Associated Press: Conspiracists Seeking Key State Election Posts Falling Short: Republicans who backed Donald Trump’s failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election lost key races to oversee elections in some competitive states, even as others remained positioned to take those offices in more conservative parts of the country. Doug Mastriano, the GOP nominee for governor in Pennsylvania who was seen outside the U.S. Capitol on the day of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and regularly communicated with Trump as the then-president tried to reverse his loss to Joe Biden, lost to Democrat Josh Shapiro on election night. The state’s governor appoints the secretary of state, who is the top voting official. In Minnesota, Republican Kim Crockett, who echoed some of Trump’s lies about voting, lost her bid for secretary of state, which in most states is the position that oversees state elections. In Michigan, Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson declared victory over Kristina Karamo, a community college instructor who became one of the most prominent election conspiracists in the country. The Associated Press has not yet called the race. And in New Mexico, Republican Audrey Trujillo, who cheered on Trump’s effort to reverse the voters’ will in 2020, lost to Democratic Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver.
  • New York Times: Voters Reject Trump-Backed Election Deniers In Several Key States:  Voters in a series of critical battleground states rejected Republican candidates for governor, attorney general and secretary of state who have spread doubts about the 2020 election, blocking an effort to install allies of former President Donald J. Trump in positions with sweeping authority over voting. In Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, Democrats prevailed on Tuesday against Republican opponents who, to varying degrees, had campaigned on overhauling elections in ways that would benefit their party and called into question their commitment to democratic outcomes.
  • Washington Post: Key Election Deniers Concede Defeat After Disputing Trump’s 2020 Loss: Voters in several battleground states have rebuked state-level candidates who echoed former president Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 presidential race was rigged, keeping election deniers in those places from positions with power over the certification of future presidential election results. In a number of cases, the losing candidates conceded their races Wednesday, opting not to follow a precedent that Trump had set and that scholars had feared could become a troubling new norm of American democracy. But even as those candidates bowed to reality, dozens of others who denied or questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 vote were celebrating projected wins in congressional races.

Trump And The GOP In Disarray After Poor Showing In The Midterms 

  • New York Times: Trump Under Fire From Within G.O.P. After Midterms: Donald J. Trump faced unusual public attacks from across the Republican Party on Wednesday after a string of midterm losses by candidates he had handpicked and supported, a display of weakness as he prepared to announce a third presidential campaign as soon as next week. As the sheer number of missed Republican opportunities sank in, the rush to openly blame Mr. Trump was as immediate as it was surprising. Conservative allies criticized Mr. Trump on social media and cable news, questioning whether he should continue as the party’s leader and pointing to his toxic political brand as the common thread woven through three consecutive lackluster election cycles. Mr. Trump was seen as largely to blame for the Republicans’ underwhelming finish in Tuesday’s elections, as a number of the candidates he had endorsed in competitive races were defeated — including nominees for governor and Senate in Pennsylvania and for governor of Michigan, New York and Wisconsin.
  • Washington Post: Trump Team Pushes To Delay 2024 Launch As DeSantis Star Rises In GOP: Former president Donald Trump’s standing as the dominant figure in the Republican Party was challenged Tuesday night by a string of election results that even some of his advisers viewed as wounding to his political future. Trump is taking blame from Republicans for disappointing performances by many of the candidates he backed, at the same time that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis won a landslide reelection, instantly elevating his profile as a serious 2024 presidential contender. In a sign of Trump’s diminished and newly uncertain footing, some longtime allies are now encouraging Trump to delay a presidential announcement he had planned for next week as a victory lap for a red wave that didn’t materialize. One person familiar with the discussions, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private conversations, said Trump was polling advisers for their opinions but had not made up his mind. But in a Fox News interview Wednesday evening, he cast doubt on a delay, saying, “We had tremendous success. Why would anything change?

Trump’s Legal Troubles Could Soon Get Worse 

  • Politico: 6 Reasons Why Trump’s Already Bad Legal Troubles Are About To Get Worse: Mounting legal threats to Donald Trump may have appeared ominous before the 2022 congressional elections. They’re nothing compared to what comes next. Some of the political protections that the former president was enjoying are effectively gone. And the firewall of Republican insulation he expected from the House and Senate appears likely to have some holes in it after an unexpectedly strong showing by Democrats in the midterms. With the midterm elections in the rearview, federal prosecutors are no longer abiding by an unwritten code to avoid politically sensitive investigative steps before voters go to the polls. An Atlanta-area prosecutor probing Trump’s effort to subvert the 2020 election had also paused most of her potentially explosive steps while Georgia voters were casting ballots. And the inability of Republicans to deliver massive margins of victory threatens to deprive Trump of the overwhelmingly Republican Congress that he had hoped would wield committee gavels and subpoena power to protect him and torment rivals. All this could be further complicated should Trump, as expected, announce his third run for the presidency in the coming week. With that declaration nearing, Trump finds himself in a new, more precarious reality — one in which federal and local investigators are closing in on his top allies in at least three criminal probes. The newly reelected New York attorney general is working to dismantle his business empire and the House’s Jan. 6 select committee is about to unload a massive trove of evidence that may advance the criminal cases against him.

In The States 

ARIZONA: Cochise County Continues With Hand Count Despite Judge’s Order As Campaigns Gear Up For Legal Battle Over Ballots 

  • Arizona Republic: Despite Judge’s Order, Cochise County Officials Proceed With Plans For A Full Hand Count Of Ballots: Cochise County officials are proceeding with a hand count of every ballot cast in Tuesday’s election, despite a court ruling that bars them from doing so. Meanwhile, the Board of Supervisors on Wednesday authorized its attorney to appeal that ruling to the Arizona Supreme Court, complicating the timeline for when — or if — the controversial count would actually happen. Recorder David Stevens acknowledged the order that blocks the county from hand counting all ballots. But, Stevens said, he was moving ahead on the advice of his attorney, Bryan Blehm.
  • Time: In Arizona, Kari Lake and Katie Hobbs Prepare for Potential Legal Battle Over Ballots: day after the polls closed, the Arizona governor’s race remained neck-and-neck, with both Democrat Katie Hobbs and Republican Kari Lake waiting for hundreds of thousands of ballots to be counted. But as the final batches of votes are tallied, there remains a possible legal fight looming in the days and weeks ahead. The Lake campaign has made clear it is prepared to pursue legal action over the election, potentially over the counting of ballots and the observation of that process, according to sources familiar with the matter. A member of Lake’s legal team who requested anonymity tells TIME that “a subject matter of a lawsuit” could be “the counting of the ballots and the monitoring of the counting.” They wouldn’t say whether any specific suits were planned as of yet. Such an action could ultimately focus on the final batch of ballots—roughly 275,000 mail ballots that were delivered in person on Election Day—that will be counted on Thursday and published later that evening.

NEVADA:  Counting Could Continue For Several More Days In Key Nevada Races 

  • New York Times: Counting All Of The Votes In Nevada Could Take Days, Election Officials Say: Overwhelmed election officials in Nevada say that they have been flooded by thousands of mail-in ballots, and that it may take several days to count the votes and upload results. Last year, the state began requiring that mail-in ballots be sent to every registered voter. While ballots must be postmarked by Election Day, they can be counted if they arrive as late as Saturday. Elections officials have emphasized the need for patience and have not offered predictions on how quickly they will be able to offer tallies.

What Experts Are Saying

Heather Cox Richardson, American historian at Boston College: “[Tuesday] was a good day for democracy. Americans turned out to defend our principles from those who denied our right to choose our own leaders. There was little violence, the election appears to have gone smoothly, and there are few claims of ‘fraud.’” Letters from an American 

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, professor at New York University: “Of course, we cannot gloss over the major threats to democracy that remain. We can expect the GOP to double down on its lawlessness and recourse to autocratic methods given the collapse of its imagined red wave.” Lucid 

Norm Eisen, senior fellow in governance studies at Brooking Institute: “The Election Denier movement in some states was thwarted by well-informed voters who believe in the power of free, fair & secure elections. But our democracy remains in danger. Stay vigilant. I explain why with @statesunited & @Eagleton_RU.” Tweet | Podcast Audio 

Suzanne Almeida, director of state operations for Common Cause: “‘Sometimes, with tactics like this [such as partisan election workers], the story is the intimidation,’ Suzanne Almeida, director of state operations for the watchdog group Common Cause. ‘It’s about making a movement seem bigger than it is … making a fringe idea feel very mainstream, and like it’s everywhere.’” Washington Post 

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections

Associated Press: US vote counting unaffected by cyberattacks, officials say

Fox News: Trump touts ‘tremendous’ wins for endorsed candidates, says ‘why would anything change?’ on 2024 announcement

Politico: How Trump’s bogus Election Day claims broke through Facebook and Twitter bans

Vox: The midterms showed American democracy won’t go down without a fight

Washington Post: Trump called a protest. No one showed. Why GOP efforts to cry foul fizzled this time.

January 6 And The 2020 Election

CNN: Newt Gingrich ordered to testify before Georgia grand jury investigating 2020 election aftermath

New York Times: In New Book, Pence Reflects on Trump and Jan. 6

New York Times: Informant Likely to Testify as Defense Witness in Oath Keepers Sedition Trial

Opinion

Wall Street Journal (Mike Pence): My Last Days With Donald Trump

Political Violence

Bloomberg: Pelosi Attack Suspect David DePape Indicted by US Grand Jury

In The States 

CNN: A Glitch In Maricopa, A Gift To Election Deniers 

Pluribus: Ammon Bundy posts surprise showing in Idaho