Driving the Day:
The stakes in the midterm elections could not be higher: Election deniers will be on the ballot from coast to coast — and we must stop them.https://t.co/gJjP46xKdD
— Defend Democracy Project (@DemocracyNowUS) May 19, 2022
Must Read Stories
Election Deniers Will Be On Many Ballots This Fall
- New York Times: Midterm Stakes Grow Clearer: Election Deniers Will Be on Many Ballots: Republican voters in this week’s primary races demonstrated a willingness to nominate candidates who parrot Donald J. Trump’s election lies and who appear intent on exerting extraordinary political control over voting systems. The results make clear that the November midterms may well affect the fate of free and fair elections in the country. In Pennsylvania, Republican voters united behind a nominee for governor, Doug Mastriano, who helped lead the brazen effort to overturn the state’s 2020 election and chartered buses to the rally before the Capitol riot, and who has since promoted a constitutionally impossible effort to decertify President Biden’s victory in his state. In North Carolina, voters chose a G.O.P. Senate nominee, Representative Ted Budd, who voted in Congress against certifying the 2020 results and who continues to refuse to say that Mr. Biden was legitimately elected. And in Idaho, which Mr. Trump won overwhelmingly in 2020, 57 percent of voters backed two Republican candidates for secretary of state who pushed election falsehoods, though they lost a three-way race to a rival who accepts Mr. Biden as president.
- The Bulwark: The Time to Prevent the Next Coup Attempt Is Now: Across the country, candidates who deny the legitimacy of the 2020 election are seeking office in order to prepare the ground for the next election contest. Pardoned Trump ally Steve Bannon is encouraging MAGAites to run for local posts with authority to count votes. Bannon uses his popular podcast to tout “taking over the Republican party through the precinct committee strategy.. . . It’s about winning elections with the right people—MAGA people. We will have our people in at every level.” At least 23 candidates who deny the outcome of the 2020 election are running for secretary of state in 19 states. Among those are battleground states that Biden won narrowly: Michigan, Nevada, Georgia, and Arizona. Trump has endorsed candidates in Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan, the only time in history that a former president has bestirred himself over races so far down the ballot. “We’re seeing a dangerous trend of election deniers lining up to fill election administration positions across the country,” Joanna Lydgate, chief executive of States United Action, told the Guardian. Lydgate’s group also tallies 53 election deniers seeking governorships in 25 states, and 13 election deniers running for attorney general in 13 states.
Rise Of Ultra-MAGA Right Could Play Into Democrats’ Hands
- Axios: Rise of Ultra-MAGA Right Could Play Into Dems’ Hands: The rise of far-right Republican candidates has some Republicans considering voting Democratic this fall — and some Democrats trying to engineer the rise of ultra-MAGA candidates they feel will be easier to defeat in a general election. Embracing unorthodox voting strategies illustrates the concern both parties have about ultra-conservative candidates competing in high-stakes campaigns for governor and U.S. Senate. While Donald Trump has a tight grip on the GOP and has endorsed over 100 candidates so far this cycle, some of his handpicked candidates are viewed as too extreme even for his own colleagues.
- New York Times: Republican Panic Grows After Mastriano Wins: The aftershocks of Tuesday’s big primaries are still rumbling across Pennsylvania, but one impact is already clear: Republican voters’ choice of Doug Mastriano in the governor’s race is giving the G.O.P. fits. Conversations with Republican strategists, donors and lobbyists in and outside of Pennsylvania in recent days reveal a party seething with anxiety, dissension and score-settling over Mastriano’s nomination. In the run-up to Tuesday night, Republicans openly used words and phrases like “suicide mission,” “disaster” and “voyage of the Titanic” to convey just what a catastrophe they believed his candidacy will be for their party.
In A 2020 Rerun Trump Encourages Dr. Oz To “Declare Victory” In Pennsylvania While Votes Are Still Being Counted
- CNN: Trump Encourages Oz To Declare Victory In Too-Close-To-Call Pennsylvania Senate Race: Former President Donald Trump, in a series of posts on his Truth Social platform Wednesday morning, encouraged Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz to “declare victory” in the Republican primary despite being deadlocked in a two-way contest with former hedge fund manager David McCormick. “Dr. Oz should declare victory,” the former President wrote of his endorsed candidate, instructing him to take a page from Trump’s own playbook in 2020, when he declared “Frankly, we did win this election” while votes were still being counted. In his post Wednesday, Trump went on to make baseless claims about cheating without providing any evidence to support his contention.
Group Pushes For Disbarment Of Ted Cruz Over 2020 Election Plot
- New York Times: Group Seeks Disbarment of Ted Cruz Over Efforts to Overturn 2020 Election: A group formed in the hopes of disbarring lawyers who worked on cases in which former President Donald J. Trump tried to subvert the results of the 2020 election filed a complaint with the Texas bar association on Wednesday against Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, for his efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power. The complaint against Mr. Cruz, filed by a group called the 65 Project, focuses on baseless assertions by Mr. Cruz about widespread voting fraud in the weeks between Election Day in 2020 and Jan. 6, 2021, as well as his participation in lawsuits protesting the results in Pennsylvania.
In The States
Las Vegas Sun Blasts Election Denier Republicans Who “Aren’t Fit For Elective Office”
- Las Vegas Sun (Editorial): In Search Of Republican Candidates Willing To Stand Up For Democracy: The Editorial Board, and Nevadans as a whole, are facing an agonizing problem. We have endorsed Republicans in the past and might do so again in the future. Yet as we survey the field of Republican candidates across the state, we are struggling to identify those who are not an active threat to American democracy or the institutions of government that have sustained our republic for 250 years. […] As it stands right now, voters are faced with a slate of GOP candidates — nearly across the board — who aren’t fit for elective office because they buy into the Big Lie and its attempt to derail democracy. We hate finding people in the public sphere who want to destroy the very elections they now seek to win. We hate efforts to disenfranchise voters and rig future elections. We yearn for a dignified, honest and pro-democracy Republican leadership. We yearn for the Republicans of years past. Patriots, not insurrectionists.
Colorado Republicans Promote Bizarre Plans To Undermine Elections
- KUSA: GOP Candidate For Colorado Governor Says Eliminate One-Person, One-Vote System: Coloradans have elected just one Republican governor in the last 50 years. A current GOP candidate for governor has an idea that could change that: stop counting each vote equally. Former Parker Mayor Greg Lopez, who holds the top line on the 2022 Republican primary ballot, says Colorado should create an electoral college system for electing candidates to statewide office. The plan, which would be the first of its kind on the state level, would give far more voting power to Coloradans in rural, conservative counties and dilute the voting power of Coloradans in more populous urban and suburban areas. Even as turnout numbers vary over time, the sheer number of rural conservative counties would create a built-in advantage for Republicans.
- Politico: One Colorado Race Will Be About Voters’ Faith in Elections. It’s Not Looking Good: After secretaries of state nationwide stood up to defend the election results, death threats against them and county clerks who directly administer elections multiplied. Colorado, transitioning from a purple to a blue state and widely considered a model for its universal mail ballot system, quickly became a target for election deniers. […] Now, [Secretary of State Jena Griswold] is running for reelection, and in what has become one of Colorado’s strangest political fights, she’s found herself in a kind of war with a county clerk who is facing criminal charges for allegedly compromising voting equipment and election security. Griswold went to court and successfully barred Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters from overseeing both the 2021 election and this year’s midterms. Peters, whose campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment, is now running to unseat her. The race is poised to answer questions about the future of the office of secretary of state in Colorado and the U.S. What does it mean for the country when many Americans think the person overseeing elections in their state is guided more by their partisan affiliation than by the nonpartisan requirements of the job? And when that happens, can the damage be reversed?
What Experts Are Saying
Neal Katyal, Former Solicitor General of the United States (Video): “There’s going to be this food fight for a while, but ultimately all this information is going to be shared with the Justice Department so it’s a when question, not an if question” MSNBC’s Deadline White House with Nicolle Wallace
Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: “As in the 1930s, democracy is in retreat around the world and fascists have moved to make war on their neighbors. If Russia wins in Ukraine, it won’t be just the destruction of a democracy by force, though that is bad enough. It will be a demoralization for democracies everywhere. Even before the war, Russia’s friends — Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orban, Tucker Carlson — were the enemies of democracy. Fascist battlefield victories would confirm that might makes right, that reason is for the losers, that democracies must fail.” The New York Times
Headlines
The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections
Bloomberg: Trump-Allied Election Deniers Are Winning GOP Primaries
The Guardian: Trump promises to depress readers with big lie book: ‘I don’t think you’ll enjoy it’
Politico: Inside the last-minute Trump endorsement that enraged Pa. Republicans
Washington Post: Doug Mastriano’s Pa. victory could give 2020 denier oversight of 2024
January 6
Fox News: Stefanik, Mullin introduce House resolution to expunge second Trump impeachment
NBC: Jan. 6 rioter whose Bumble match notified FBI is sentenced to home detention
Opinion
New York Times (Ross Douthat): America’s Doug Mastriano Problem
Washington Post (Greg Sargent): Say it clearly: Republicans just nominated a pro-Trump insurrectionist
In The States
Fox News: Fox News Poll: Georgia’s GOP primary race for governor sees Kemp holding wide lead over Perdue
NPR: A mail-in voting law is under attack by Pennsylvania GOP lawmakers who passed it
New York Times: A Michigan election denier who was parodied by ‘S.N.L.’ is disqualified as a candidate.
Talking Points Memo: Teddy Daniels, Mastriano’s Embattled Lieutenant Governor Pick, Loses Primary
Talking Points Memo: MyPillow Guy Gets Indicted MAGA Clerk In Even More Trouble
