The Demographics of 2020: Are All Candidates Efficient or Defensive? Why Do Some GOP Candidates Think Biden and Hobbs Win?
When it came to views of the 2020 election among GOP candidates, one of the big questions was whether or not they would reflect the party’s base. A majority of Republicans wrongly believe that President Joe Biden did not win the election.
A lot of Republicans running for office believe the same thing. But could any of of those candidates end up running states where elections tend to be close? For the most part, the answer is no. Most election deniers running for governor are from states where Donald Trump easily won a presidential election.
That very much includes Kari Lake, the party’s nominee for governor. Lake has become a favorite of the Trumpist wing of the party thanks to her smooth camera presence (she was a local TV anchor for years). She is even touted as the female version of the former president (although I would argue Lake is more strategic and more on message than Trump has ever been).
Three polls out this past week, which were all well within the margin of error, illustrate the point well. A CBS News/YouGov poll had Lake and Hobbs tied at 49%. Fox’s poll put Hobbs at 44% to Lake’s 43%. Marist College had Lake at 46% and Hobbs at 45%.
That Lake is doing better in her race than Blake Masters, another Trump-endorsed MAGA candidate, in his US Senate race is sometimes attributed to her superior political skills. Mark Kelly is running against Masters, a Senator who is well known in the state for his skillful campaigns aimed directly at Arizona’s independents and disaffected Republicans. Yet Masters is within shouting distance of Kelly in the polls.
In fact, 2020 election denial has been a hallmark of losing gubernatorial campaigns in swing or blue states. The outgoing governors of Maryland and Massachusetts have been soundly defeated in the polls, even though they are both Republicans.
Voters in the Grand Canyon State believe the 2020 election was fraudulent, so you might think that Lake has a chance. That does not appear to be the case. According to a August Fox poll, almost half of voters do not think that votes in the 2020 election will be counted fairly.
In Arizona, 12 of the 13 Republican nominees for federal and state office this year have questioned the results of the 2020 election according to The Washington Post.
What Is The Secret of Lake’s Secret? A View from a Mid-Antenna Viewpoint of AZ Senator Mark Finchem
So what is Lake’s secret? Her past as a television anchor may be paying off. She seems to be getting the attention of voters in the middle of the electorate.
The defeat of Masters in Arizona came after Democrats swooped into the state in the last days of the election to warn that the future of the nation’s democracy was at stake. Voters in the Grand Canyon State also spurned the bid of GOP state Rep. Mark Finchem, a strident election denier backed by Trump, to become Arizona’s top elections official. CNN projected Friday that Adrian Fontes would be the next secretary of state in Arizona.
It’s also the case that Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson voted against certifying the 2020 election and is a slight favorite to win another term against Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes. Likewise, Nevada’s Adam Laxalt has raised questions about the 2020 election and played a leading role in post-election legal efforts to reverse Biden’s victory in the state. He’s in a tight race with Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.
If the Trump ticket wins, Greenberg said, “It means that the state of Arizona has lost its mind. And this is no longer a safe place to live. If Mark Finchem wins and says, ‘Well, I don’t care what the people voted. I am going to do this, but what is the point? We have lost our democracy.
The Case for Arizona’s Interstate Compact: CNN’s Michelle Lake, Edwards Lake, and Kenneth Khachigian: Implications for the Future of Democracy and Abortion
They were interviewed on “Face the Nation” on CBS on Sunday about immigration and abortion, with a focus on immigration and abortion, in what could be the closest debate they come to.
The host, Major Garrett, pressed Ms. Lake on her proposal to create an interstate compact in which Arizona and other states would make immigration arrests independent of the federal government, and Ms. Lake defended it in incendiary fashion, saying the Biden administration had abdicated its duty to protect states from invasion.
She cited an article in the Constitution that states that states cannot enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or engage in war unless they are invaded or faced with grave danger.
Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of a radio show and a columnist for The Daily Beast. Follow him @DeanObeidallah. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.
“We’re already detecting some stealing going on,” she declared. A few hours before polls closed, she repeated the bogus claim of election fraud. After emerging victorious, Lake slightly modified her story, telling reporters: “We out-voted the fraud.”
And in a precursor of what we might expect on election night, Lake claimed in the run-up to her August primary election that the vote was being rigged — again presenting no evidence.
A New York Times/Siena College poll released this week showed her in a dead heat race with Lake. The race is rated a toss-up by Inside Elections.
The voters of Arizona have a clear choice between Hobbs, who fights for election integrity, and Lake, who will bludgeon democracy if given half a chance.
Politics and public policy is written by Robert Robb. He was an editorial columnist for The Arizona Republic for 23 years. You can reach him at robtrobb@gmail.com on any social media platform. His own views are expressed here. Read more opinion at CNN.
For example, Kenneth Khachigian, chief speechwriter for former President Ronald Reagan, wrote a panegyric about her for The Wall Street Journal, which went so far as to compare her to the Gipper. As Reagan implored, Khachigian gushed, Lake is “raising a banner of bold colors, no pale pastels.”
Arizona GOP Governor Doug Ducey: Why the Boomlet isn’t a Rising Star, but the Implications for the Presidential Universe
Arizona is still a Republican-leaning state. Republicans outnumber Democrats by about four percentage points in registration. In an off-presidential election, the GOP advantage in turnout should be even greater.
This is a Republican-leaning election. Economic conditions and a general sense that President Joe Biden and his administration aren’t up to the job are this election season’s backdrop.
How the current Republican governor, Doug Ducey, performed in his election for an open seat is a useful point of reference. In the election to the governor’s race in 2014), Ducey was re-elected by a wide margin. Running for reelection in 2018, Ducey increased his spread — 56% to 42%.
The comparison of the current status of the races reveals far more about the difference in candidate and campaign quality between Hobbs and Kelly than it does about that between Lake and Masters.
A rising star hype and hyperbole would have some substance if that were to happen. It seems, at best, grossly premature, and not based on anything she has achieved politically.
There is, however, one rich irony to the premature boomlet. The more she is touted as a rising star, the more her standing with Trump is likely to fade.
In his viewpoint of the political universe, there is only one star: Trump. He turns on those in the MAGA movement who develop a political stature independent of him.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/31/opinions/kari-lake-arizona-governor-trump-hype-robb/index.html
The DeSantis Effect: The Case Against Donald Trump, the Governor, the Attorney General, and the Head of the Arizona State Against the Boomlet
If the Lake boomlet continues, and particularly if it acquires some justification in what she actually achieves, she may be in for the DeSantis treatment.
The voters who attended the Phoenix high school to listen to former President Barack Obama were trying to send a message of defiance.
They said they are determined to defeat former President Donald Trump’s hand-picked slate of election deniers – including gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, Senate nominee Blake Masters and Secretary of State nominee Mark Finchem – and will not allow their state’s voters to be intimidated by activists who turned up to monitor ballot drop boxes late last month – some of them armed, masked and wearing camouflage.
“If you do need one more reason to vote, consider the fact that our democracy is on the ballot. And nowhere is that clearer than here in Arizona,” Obama told the crowd Wednesday, later adding that “democracy as we know it may not survive in Arizona” if election deniers fill all the top state offices.
Some Republicans including Masters, are suggesting that the count in Arizona is unreliable due to the handling of certain ballots. Both Masters and GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake have suggested that the count has been moving too slowly.
Joann Rodriguez, a registered Democrat from Maricopa County, said it was scary that “radical Republicans” in her state were able to elevate candidates like Lake and Masters, who won their primaries in part by echoing Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 election.
What do they have to say other than Trump’s talking point that the election was stolen? Rodriguez said. A group of Trumpers still drive their trucks with the flags around her neighborhood. “And they’re walking around with guns on their hips, showing up at the ballot boxes or showing up at the election sites – for what reason? Is it possible that their intimidation tactics are going to work?
Hobbs, a former social worker who worked with victims of domestic violence before becoming a state lawmaker, ran a far more low-key and understated campaign, limiting her access to reporters and holding small, intimate events with supporters. She made abortion rights and democracy her main topics, portraying Lake as an extreme and dangerous figure who could endanger the sanctity of the upcoming presidential election if he refused to certify the results.
The situation in Arizona was tense as Obama arrived to campaign for Democrats, including Mark Kelly who is in a close race with Masters. The fact that those top statewide contests may be decided on a razor’s edge is what brought Obama to the Grand Canyon State as he seeks to fire up the Democratic base and make sure that young voters and Latino voters – who will be critical to victory in Arizona – turn out in a midterm election year.
Biden, who has not been invited to campaign in some of the top swing states, had to explain to the opposite side of the country why democracy is at stake.
The political climate and concerns about the sanctity of the election results are what brought Keith Greenberg, a registered Republican from Maricopa County, to Obama’s rally. In an interview he said he wasn’t voting for the Democrats in this election and that he was against the Trump ticket.
Greenberg described the 2020 election to be fair and honest despite his being a part of the Republican Party. I can’t put up with that lie and it’s more like the American Nazi Party.
Against Fraud and Intimidation in Arizona: Right-wing protests, voter intimidation, and the 2020 midterm election
Two lawsuits have been filed in federal court on behalf of voters who felt intimidated by the patrols at ballot drop boxes late last month, when Arizona was in a election controversy.
Because of the ruling, the group’s members are also now barred from speaking to or yelling at voters who drop off their ballots, and they may not photograph or film voters at the drop boxes. The case was brought by the League of Women Voters and the Justice Department weighed in. The DOJ does not formally take sides, but in a legal brief, prosecutors said the right wing group’s ballot security efforts were likely illegal and “raise serious concerns of voter intimidation.”
That dynamic is even more pronounced in a state like Arizona where Trump acolytes control the Republican Party and have censured figures like outgoing Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake for what they said was insufficient loyalty to the former president.
In light of all the noise surrounding the election, people come to see Obama so they could feel hopeful, according to a registered Democrat.
“With everything, all the rhetoric going on, I think it’s important to really hear from someone – that we trust and we believe in – that we can be hopeful about this election,” she said. “You can see all these people out here. Thousands of people waiting. I want to believe that people want to believe in something better, that they have morals and values that we should have as humans, and that we shouldn’telect people like that.
The biggest thing she shares in common with Trump is that election denialism sits at the core of her messaging. She called the 2020 election a fraud and said that she would not have certified the result if she’d been governor.
Arizona is then, as Obama said, something of a pure litmus test: Is election denialism something that voters are, at minimum, willing to accept in their candidates? Or is it something that appeals these candidates to voters?
And if the likes of Lake and Finchem are in control of the election machinery come 2024, is there any hope of a fair and transparent result in one of the likely swing states of the next election?
Voters in a number of states this midterm cycle are being presented with a stark choice: Do they want someone who denies the legitimacy of the 2020 election to oversee voting in their state?
In a different political universe, that might seem outlandish, considering hand-count audits of paper ballots and court challenges found the 2020 election to have been one of the most accurate and accessible in American history.
“The fate of democracy really hinges on whether or not losers accept defeat and whether they recognize losses as losses,” said Amel Ahmed, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. There is a challenge to the viability of democracy if you have a vision where the other side is cheating.
But the presence of election deniers on general election ballots in key battlegrounds has set off alarms for voting rights advocates because of the pivotal role these offices will play in affirming the outcome of future elections, including a potential 2024 rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
In some places, the clerks are still worried that election deniers may try to disrupt the process.
“We’re very much in the midst of a national effort to discredit our elections,” Benson said at a press briefing Thursday. There will be people who decide to be politicians first and election administrators second.
She is facing a professor from a community college who was in the last presidential race and who became famous by saying she saw election fraud.
In a state that went for Joe Biden in 2020, Michigan Republicans decided to go after their base voters by appointing candidates for secretary of state and attorney general.
Both Karamo, who has already filed a lawsuit this year based on conspiracy theories about mail voting, and Matthew DePerno, the GOP’s attorney general nominee, were endorsed by former President Donald Trump.
Both DePerno and Karamo have come under scrutiny for their past comments, with DePerno under investigation for an alleged plan to seize and change voting machines and Karamo under suspicion for her ties to the Qanon movement.
Candidate candidates and the culture war: The case against DePerno, Nessel, Benson, Finchem, and the Oath Keepers
While both candidates garnered the majority support of party loyalists at a spring nominating convention, even then more mainstream Republicans worried about the candidates’ viability in a general election in a purple state.
A Republican politician ran against Karamo in the Secretary of State race and said that every ad from now until November will say he is crazy.
DePerno is facing current Attorney General Dana Nessel, who was first elected in 2018, and who has made headlines for refusing to enforce Michigan’s anti-abortion law. Nessel is the first openly lesbian person to be elected to statewide office in Michigan, and Republicans including DePerno have sought to attack her using culture war stereotypes. She made a joke during the summer press conference that there should be a drag queen at every school.
Benson was also first elected in 2018, after losing her initial bid for the office in 2010. She is a former dean of the Wayne State University law school and the author of a book about secretaries of state.
“SharpieGate” was one of the more famous vote-counting conspiracy theories that sprouted up after the election.
Obama warned that democracy might not survive if Republicans sweep the offices in the state, as he spoke on behalf of the Democrats.
Adrian Fontes is a former elections administrator who is running against Mark Finchem, a self-proclaimed member of the far-right Oath Keepers and who was at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, when riots broke out.
In an interview with NPR earlier this year, Finchem said he did not go inside the Capitol that day but also continued to claim that the 2020 election was stolen.
On the Case for a Return to Election Hand-Counts, a Campaign by the Silver State gubernatorial Candidate Brad Raffensperger
The suit was filed in Arizona Superior Court by the unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate.
The Silver State may be the most under-the-radar state when it comes to election denial, but a movement in rural counties toward ballot hand-counts shows that voting misinformation is taking hold here as well.
Polls also show the race for chief voting official to be neck and neck, despite a substantial fundraising lead for the non-election denying candidate, Democrat Cisco Aguilar.
He is a former member of the state’s Athletic Commission, and he would lobby the legislature in Nevada to make it a felony to intimidate or harass election workers.
“We have something in common: President Trump and I lost an election in 2020 because of a rigged election,” Marchant said. “I’ve been working since Nov. 4, 2020, to expose what happened, and what I found out is horrifying.”
Marchant has been a leader in the local movement to return to hand-counting ballots despite the fact that it’s more expensive and takes more time.
Secretary of state contests — typically low-profile races that determine who helps administer elections in a state – have drawn national attention and millions of dollars in political spending this year as several Republican nominees who doubt the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election pursue the jobs.
One of the most well-known election chiefs in the country is Republican Brad Raffensperger, who refused to help Donald Trump overturn his loss in Georgia. (That campaign by Trump and his allies is the subject of a special grand jury investigation in Fulton County, Georgia.)
After the victory in Arizona, the most serious attacks on elections didn’t emerge until weeks and months after the 2020 election when lawyers for Mr. Trump repeatedly sought to reverse the outcome. Mr.Danjuma said that they were prepared for more lawsuits.
Indeed, Kelli Ward, chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party, vowed to pursue such actions. “We have been preparing for this for over a year,” she said in a tweet on Thursday. “We have a huge team of lawyers ready to take action if needed.”
Over the past two years, a movement of conspiracy-theory-minded activists has loudly questioned and undermined the country’s electoral system. Their efforts have found backing from conservative organizations, deep-pocketed supporters and right-wing media influencers and created concerns about the potential for violence, intimidation and vigilantism on Election Day.
“We can choose to curl up on the ledge and succumb, or we can dust ourselves off and restart the arduous climb up the steep slopes” of election integrity, wrote Patrice Johnson, the organizer of Michigan Fair Elections in a blog post. The group’s next online meeting was scheduled for Thursday.
One of Michigan Fair Elections’ preferred candidates, Kristina Karamo, running for secretary of state, has not conceded despite losing by 14 percentage points and on Thursday afternoon sent out a list of supposed electoral “violations,” saying there was more to come.
But the Republican candidates for Michigan governor and attorney general both acknowledged defeat on Wednesday, as did Tim Michels, the Republican candidate for governor in Wisconsin, who campaigned on a promise to change the voting system so that Republicans never lost elections again in the state.
Concessions by candidates who spread unfounded theories of voting fraud are critical to ensure the stability of the election system, elections experts say. They note the public outreach from election officials can help put out fires.
The Hamadeh-Finchem/Fontes-Frontes Campaign of a Democratic Governor: Counting Every Vote
Ms. Lake and Mr. Masters projected victory on their social media accounts. Ms. Lake told Fox News on Thursday that she had “absolute 100 percent confidence that I will be the next governor of Arizona.” After taking a small lead in his uncalled race, Mr. Hamadeh appeared to claim victory when he posted a photo on twitter of himself at a rally. He has since lost ground and is slightly trailing.
The Masters campaign asked supporters to give money in order to get a fight going after seeing troubling issues during the election.
On Twitter, Mr. Finchem jokingly asked his followers to “make sure” Ms. Hobbs and Mr. Fontes weren’t “in the back room with ballots in Pima or Maricopa.” Mr. Fontes fired back, writing, “Stop with this conspiracy garbage.”
Both Mr. Fonte’s and Ms. Hobbs called on supporters to respect the vote counting process. “Despite what my election-denying opponent is trying to spin, the pattern and cadence of incoming votes are exactly what we expected,” Ms. Hobbs wrote on Twitter.
The final results could be even longer because the Arizona law requires a recount in contests where the margin of victory between the top two candidates was less than one percent.
CNN is reporting that Democrat Tina Kotek will win the open gubernatorial race in Oregon, making her one of the nation’s first out lesbian governors.
I want to let everyone know I appreciated their support and that they believed in the campaign. I want to make sure that Oregonians know that every vote will be counted, and that people were heard in this election. The math for a comeback simply doesn’t add up given what we know about the outstanding ballots.
The unpopularity of Brown coupled with the presence of Johnson vaulted a former state House minority leader into a heated contest with a former Democratic House speaker. Republicans comprise only about a quarter of the electorate, while Democrats make up about 34% and nonaffiliated Oregonians account for nearly 35%, according to the most recent figures from the Oregon secretary of state.
Portland Mayor Victims of a 2009 Police Officer-Involved Assisting Pandemics and Drazan’s 2019 Walk Against Homelessness
But Oregonians have been unnerved by the problems with homelessness and the rise in violent crime in Portland. The city’s downtown also still has not recovered from the impact of pandemic-era business closures and the more than 100 days of protests against police brutality – some of them violent – that followed the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020.
Drazan sought to capitalize on the disquiet about those issues, arguing that the state’s troubles stem from single-party control over about a decade that has led to a lack of accountability.
Drazan’s position on abortion rights, for example, was highlighted by Kotek as she was too extreme for Oregon. Drazan led a legislative walk off in 2020 to protest a climate bill, and Koken said that she was obstructionist with her actions. Legislation that would have advanced the state’s efforts to improve homelessness was effectively killed by Drazan’s move. (Drazan’s campaign said that allegation was an excuse.)
During a swing through the west, Biden urged voters to electing the former House speaker in order to stay ahead of the curve.
While those races are still in play, CNN projects that the Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly is going to defeat the Republican Masters in Arizona.
The crucial December 6 race is still important. A win by Democrats would give them a majority, not the power-sharing agreement that has Vice President Harris serving as a tie-breaker. It would also give them a pad ahead of a 2024 Senate battle in which the party must defend several seats in states that typically back Republican presidential candidates.
Republicans have won 211 of the 218 seats they’d need to take the majority, according to CNN projections, while Democrats have won 204, with 20 undecided as of Saturday evening.
The poor performance in the elections has caused a backlash against House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy.
The deadline for mail-in ballots to be postmarked by Election Day to be valid: Cochise County, Nevada, on Monday, November 14
State law allows for mail-in ballots to be received in Nevada through Saturday, though the ballots need to have been postmarked by Election Day to be valid.
“Curing” is a process in which voters correct problems with their mail ballot, ensuring that it gets counted. This can mean validating that a ballot is truly from them by adding a missing signature, or by addressing signature-match issues. The deadline for voters to “cure” their ballots in Nevada is Monday, November 14, according to state law.
One of the places where there has been a push to hand-count elections as a result of former President Donald Trump lying about election fraud is Cochise County, which has around 125,000 Arizonans.
He said that he was very confident that the votes would be recorded by Tuesday. He said the county will continue to report about 85,000 votes per night until they are done.
Hargove said that she hopes by Monday that Pima County will have the majority of the remaining votes counted. She had previously told CNN that all the votes would be counted by Monday morning. On Friday night, however, she clarified that would no longer be the case due to a large batch of around 80,000 votes received from the recorder’s office earlier that day.
The State of the Art: What Do Rural County Elections Have to Tell the Secretary of State About Counting Election Results? An Arizona State Attorney General Explains the Concerns
Gates said he wanted the RNC to communicate with him if there are concerns about the accusations. I’m a Republican. Three of my colleagues on the board are Republicans. If you want to raise these issues with us, talk to us about them.
He said the suggestion that there is something untoward happening here in Maricopa County is offensive to the good elections workers.
When pressed by CNN’s John King about exactly what the Arizona secretary of state’s role is in certifying the election, Bones said the process has worked the same way for years: all 15 counties will report their results to the secretary of state’s office, then the secretary’s office compiles those results and puts together the state-wide canvass. At that point “the secretary does sign off on that,” Bones said, but the governor, the attorney general and the chief justice of the state Supreme Court will also sign off on those final results.
“Over the past couple of decades, on average it takes 10 to 12 days to complete the count. That is not because of what the county decided to do. That’s because of how Arizona law is set up, and that’s what we do here at Maricopa County, we follow the law to make sure that the count is accurate.”
Arizona officials who have tried to conduct a hand count audit of ruralcounty’s election results are considering a scaled- down version of their plan that could still inject chaos and delay the process of certifying the state’s results.
On Thursday, a state appeals court made clear in a vote that it wouldn’t be reversing a court order and allowing the plan to be revived. A lawyer for Cochise County. The county is still pushing for a hand conduct that goes past the usual procedures, according to David Stevens, the recorder who has advocated for the audit.
The Night Before Elections in Nevada: Democratic Senator Joe Lombardo Wins a Republican Senate Electorate Against President Donald J. McConnell
CNN reported on Friday that Trump was trying to hurt McConnell ahead of the GOP leadership elections next week.
McConnell needs the support of a majority of Republicans to become speaker, which is more complicated than McCarthy needs because he needs more than just a majority.
McCarthy had a meeting with the House Freedom Caucus chair. He said afterward that the meeting “went well” but wouldn’t say if McCarthy has his – or the Freedom Caucus’ – support for speaker.
The string of wins Friday night was a reversal of fortune for the Democrats who had appeared to be in serious trouble going into the elections. Candidates like Kelly and Cortez Masto were laboring under President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings, an unfavorable economic climate – with inflation and high gas prices pinching the budgets of families all across the country – and facing historical trends that tend to lead to steep losses in the first midterm cycle of a new president.
But this has been a complex cycle with many different crosscurrents affecting voter behavior, including the Supreme Court’s decision in June overturning abortion rights that angered many voters across the country. Republicans were hampered by Trump boosting far-right candidates who were loyal to him, but often too extreme to appeal to the voters who decide elections. Democrats went to great lengths to protect their candidates as independent voters and moderates rejected some of them they believed to be too close to Trump.
The one bright spot for Republicans was in Nevada, where voters elected Republican Joe Lombardo as the state’s next governor – tossing out Democrat Steve Sisolak, CNN projected. Voters in Clark County were reminded of their struggles when the unemployment rate peaked at more than 30% during Covid-19. Sisolak had argued that his policies were restrictive and hampered the state’s economic recovery.
The 2019 Arizona State Election and the “Wheels” of Joe Biden: Betting, Reconciliation, and Keeping the Slate Clean
The spokeswoman said that the office has procedures in place that make sure the legal ballot is only counted once.
“Because ballots are tabulated by batch, we are able to isolate the results from those specific locations and reconcile the total ballots against check-ins to ensure it matches. This is a tradition that has been going on for decades with political party watchers present.
The chair of the County Board of Supervisors, Bill Gates, rejected the idea that the county should wipe the slate clean and begin again, stating that it is not allowed under Arizona law. Gates said the county’s pace for counting ballots is in line with previous years.
Gates said that if they have issues that they want to take to court, they have every right to do that.
Kelly entered the cycle with a well-stocked campaign account as a retired Astronaut, a Navy veteran and the spouse of a former congressman, so he was well positioned to take on Democrats despite Joe Biden’s narrow win in Arizona.
Masters had significant financial backing from Peter Thiel, who was Masters’ former boss. He said in a campaign video that he believed Trump would win the 2020 election, and that he had appealed to Republicans by promising to prioritize immigration issues.
Masters’ tone about the 2020 election results as well as the conservative stances he had sought out during the primary on abortion appeared to be altered in what seemed like an effort to appeal to broader swath of the Arizona electorate. (Though Republicans comprise a plurality in Arizona, independents make up about a third of the electorate and often sway close elections.)
After his victory in August, Masters scrubbed his website of language about the election being stolen. Under questioning from the moderator during a debate with Kelly, Masters conceded that he had not seen evidence of fraud in the 2020 vote counting or election results in a way that would have changed the outcome. Kelly had claimed that the “Wheels” could come off our Democracy if election deniers like Masters were elected.
Masters was portrayed by Kelly as a candidate who would jeopardize abortion rights, as well as Social Security and Medicare, during the campaign. In a state where the Legislature recently passed a new abortion ban at 15 weeks of age, Kelly 70’s campaign focused heavily on Masters anti-abortion stances.
For months election officials worried that activists would cause serious problems in the election if they thought the election system was corrupt. There were a few episodes during the vote, but they did not disrupt the system.
They pointed to better and more frequent communication by elections officials, and transparency measures such as live cams at ballot boxes and in counting rooms. Some people speculated that reports of a Republican victory in the upcoming polls may have discouraged right-wing activists from showing up to cast their votes.
The chairman of the Board of Elections in North Carolina said it was smooth. “You can tell by my giddiness I was not expecting that.”
Defending Democratic Candidates in Turbulent Elections: The Case of Washington, D.C., on Election Day and the Loss of Donald Trump
Dozens of races are still undecided and counting could continue into next week in a few places. Two states in particular, Nevada and Arizona, feature several election-denying candidates in tight races and elections lawyers say they are gearing up for legal challenges aiming to once again put the soundness of the system on trial.
According to the lawyer for Protect Democracy, there are still issues to be concerned about. He helped file legal challenges to self-appointed “swarmers” who were patrolling ballot drop boxes, often carrying long guns and wearing body armor.
After receiving calls and emails from voters demanding that their ballots be counted by hand rather than on machines, which many activists falsely believe can be manipulated, Fred Sherman, the election chief in Johnson County, Kan., came up with a solution. Voters who raised that question in the district, Kansas’ most populous, would be given the option to place their ballot in a specially marked white envelope in a sealed red ballot bag and were given assurances that they would be hand counted.
Sherman said that they created a little bit of turbulence. It’s like running a treadmill on an incline. Mr. Sherman said he’d like “an easy run and you don’t have that when you have constant election denial.”
According to Douglas Wilson, a Democratic strategist in Charlotte, N.C., polling predicting a large Republican wave may have also worked to cool the ardor of election deniers. Under that logic, he said, attempts to undermine faith in the results would only have discouraged Republican voters.
Election Defenders organized many sessions to teach people at polling places how to keep voters from being intimidated. Its goal was to recruit 1,250 volunteers, but instead was overwhelmed with more than 2,000 people who completed several hours of online training on how to intervene in tense situations, dispel confusion, de-escalate confrontations with potentially armed activists and, more than anything, keep things calm.
Tiffany Flowers was a lead organizer of the campaign and said that they had more people sign up than they had places for them to stay. She said she worked 20 hours on Tuesday monitoring social media and checking in with partners around the country.
There is an earlier version of the article that doesn’t accurately describe Ms. Flowers’s hometown and her involvement in election protection on Election Day. Ms. Flowers is not based in Atlanta and worked from her home on Election Day.
Ms. Flowers said that she believed that more Americans would like to see everyone who was eligible be able to vote.
Midterm Elections What to Know About House Senate Control: Joe Gluesenkamp Perez Spent a Huge Boost to Biden
The political world’s eyes are now on the battle for control of the House, where Republicans appear to be slowly inching toward a narrow majority but Democrats’ hopes have not yet fully faded.
CNN projected on Saturday that Marie Gluesenkamp Perez would defeat Republican Joe Kent in the 3rd District of Washington in order to give Democrats a major win.
Her victory came largely as a result of Trump’s efforts to punish Republicans who voted to impeach him. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a moderate who was widely viewed as a lock for reelection, did not finish in one of the top two slots in the primary and therefore didn’t advance to the general election.
The outcome is a huge boost to President Joe Biden over the remaining two years of his first term in the White House. It means Democrats will have the ability to confirm Biden’s judicial nominees – avoiding scenarios such as the one former President Barack Obama faced in 2016, when then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to hold a vote on his Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. Senate Democrats have the power to reject bills from the House and set their own agenda.
He said the Democratic Senate candidates “beat some very flawed challengers who had no faith in democracy, no fidelity to truth or honor. And even when the polls looked bleak, our candidates never gave up and never lost faith.”
He also claimed that Democrats were able to block any efforts to ban abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/politics/midterm-elections-what-to-know-house-senate-control/index.html
The Senate Runoff in Georgia is Coming Down: Democratic Sen. Peltola vs. Democratic Rep. Melissa Massahor, D-Ala., Oct. 18, 2019
Senate control already being settled will take some of the national spotlight – and the television advertising spending – away from the Senate runoff in Georgia.
“It’s just simply better. The bigger the number the better,” Biden, who is in the midst of an international trip, told reporters in Cambodia shortly after CNN and other news outlets projected Democrats would keep their Senate majority.
“It’s about who has the competence and character to represent us; who’s willing to tell the truth; who has the knowledge needed for the job,” a narrator says in the spot.
It’s the second straight election in which overtime in Georgia, which is triggered when no candidate tops 50% of the vote in the general election, will be necessary.
The Democrats swept two Georgia Senate contests in the year of 2021, against the Republican incumbents. Loeffler had been appointed to the Senate in 2019 when former Sen. Johnny Isakson resigned for health reasons. The special election was held for the remainder of Isakson’s term.
A Senate seat and an at-large House seat in Alaska can be determined by ranked-choice results. Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, who won a special election this summer, is in a strong position to eclipse the 50% mark. The Republican Kelly Tshibaka wants to punish Murkowski for her support of the US Capitol attack, which cost her her seat in the Senate.
Gloria said it was impossible to find ballots as they were taken in according to the law. The United States Postal Service brought them here. As long as it’s postmarked [by Election Day], we process those ballots and put them in the count.”
The mail-in ballots that arrived over the past couple of days continued to break higher Democratic margins than his team had calculated. This has narrowed our victory window. He said the race was coming down to the more than 20,000 Election Day Clark County drop-off ballots. We can still win if they are GOP or slightly DEM leaning. If they continue to move in a heavyDEM direction. then she will overtake us.”
Underscoring the closeness of the race, Laxalt put out a series of tweets Saturday evening encouraging voters to “cure” their ballots to ensure that any ballots with technical errors with signature or other issues could be fixed to ensure they are counted. The deadline to cure ballots is 5 p.m. on Monday.
“For my people who knocked doors in 115 degree heat, and for the million+ Arizonans who put their faith in me, we are going to make sure that every legal vote is counted,” Masters tweeted. If Senator Kelly accumulates more of them than I do, then I’ll give him a hug and say good-bye. But voters decide, not the media; let’s count the votes.”
Maricopa County Election officials pushed back on Masters’ earlier contention – one that Lake had also made – that the vote counting in Arizona was moving too slowly in Arizona’s most populous county.
Gates told Jim that some candidates and activists are going to spread misinformation. People shouldn’t expect election results on the night of the election or the day after, because we have spent weeks at Maricopa County getting that word out. That it does take this long.”
CNN believes that the democrat will win the Arizona governor’s race, ousting one of President Donald Trump’s most prominent defenders.
After Trump Will Not Win Elections: Kali Lake’s Opinion Concerns the Establishment of State and the Electoral Corrigendum
She was on Charlie Kirk’s talk show Thursday, and she said, “I hate that they’re slow- rolling and dragging their feet and slowing the inevitable.” They don’t want to put out the truth, which is that we won.”
Since she lost last month, Lake has questioned the integrity of the results. Arizona certified the election on Monday. It was not immediately clear what impact the challenge would have.
Barrett Marson, an Arizona GOP consultant who worked for Masters during the Senate primary, spoke to the wisdom of following Trump Monday night. It is over. Now is the perfect time for Lake to graciously concede. Following Trump will not win elections, that’s what this election tells us.
She was able to dispatch her primary opponents because of her denunciation of Democratic leaders’ handling of the Covid 19 PAIN. She admitted to one event she was delighted when one of her fans called her Trump in a dress.
For her part, Ms. Lake attacked the news media and campaigned on culture-war issues, barnstorming the state with the other three top Republicans on the ticket and with right-wing supporters, including Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser, and Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Josh Hawley of Missouri.
According to the filing,Kari Lake needs attention like a fish needs water, and independent experts and local election officials have made clear that this was a safe, secure, and fair election.
Accusing the Trump-President Flavor in Arizona: The Oct. 8 Election Day Voting Battle Against the Ducey/Cochise County Correspondence
Editor’s Note: Jon Gabriel is editor-in-chief of Ricochet.com and an opinion contributor to the Arizona Republic. Follow him on Twitter at @ExJon. The views expressed here are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.
In contrast with the tight and turbulent Arizona election, Monday’s certification of the state’s voting results was uneventful. Boring, even. And most voters on both sides seem content with that.
Seated alongside the current governor, attorney general and chief justice, Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs officially certified the November 8 results at a small ceremony.
The bipartisan group of officials smiled for the cameras and showed no sign of the battle that has raged since the election. Outside the venue, there were no protesters.
Election Day was dogged with long lines at polling places, malfunctioning tabulation machines and a last-minute lawsuit to extend voting hours. The vote count ended with razor-thin margins in key races. Ever since.
“This is a responsibility I do not take lightly,” outgoing Republican Gov. Doug Ducey said before signing the certification documents. “It’s one that recognizes the votes cast by the citizens of our great state. Voting is a fundamental principle of our nation’s democracy. It is an effective way to ensure Americans’ voices are heard.
Ducey, a staunch conservative, earned the ire of the “America First” wing of his party back in 2020. During that certification, he appears to have silenced a phone call from then-President Donald Trump, focusing instead on his legal duties as governor. It became a meme during the crazy December.
Cochise County, in the southeast corner of the state, tried to avoid certifying its results, despite their voters choosing the GOP by a large margin. Their Board of Supervisors finally gave in after a judge ordered them to do so.
But, outside of angry statements online and in conservative media, few seem interested in challenging the results. Lake’s team tries to start a parade, but nobody is following.
Lake can file a lawsuit up to five days after certification, according to state law. She must be hoping it will go better than her previous lawsuit in this election.
Lake, who has also amplified former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, makes numerous claims in the 70-page suit, including that printer failures at some polling places disenfranchised voters in Maricopa County, creating a “debacle” in the county.
A US District Court judge dismissed the suit in August because of the allegations of potential injuries.
Last week, Tuchi agreed, sanctioning Lake and Finchem’s legal team to deter “similarly baseless suits in the future.” The last damages are scheduled to be announced in a month.
One official who will oversee Lake’s next lawsuit was present at Monday’s certification. Outgoing Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich clarified that he served merely as a witness, and should not be interpreted as taking one side or the other in any future court case.
“As attorney general, I have made it one of my office’s highest priorities to defend our election laws and advocate for changes when necessary,” he added. “I will continue to do so throughout the end of my term.”
An investigation of a pillow company entrepreneur whose network of election machines is trying to circumvent the 2020/2022 cycle: A lawyer filed in Cochise County
She recently appeared on Steve Bannon’s podcast, accused Twitter of disabling “likes” and “retweets” on her account and pitched her upcoming appearance alongside former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell at the “America Fest” conference.
The former news anchor at Fox 10 in Phoenix was one of the most prominent candidates in the 2022 cycle as she and Hobbs vied to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Doug Ducey.
“I will do my very best to make this transition as smooth and seamless as possible,” he said last month.
A number of those cited as experts in the lawsuit and one of the lawyers who filed the case — Kurt Olsen — are part of a loose election-denial network led by Mike Lindell, the pillow company entrepreneur who has been pushing conspiracy theories about election machines since early 2021. Another Lake lawyer, Bryan Blehm, represented the contractor Cyber Ninjas during the partisan audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 election results last year and also represented supervisors in Cochise County this year in a lawsuit over an attempt to carry out a hand-counted audit plan.
Dan Barr, a lawyer for Mr. Hamadeh’s opponent, Kris Mayes, said the lawsuit was “based on speculation” and contained “no real facts.” He said he was going to file motions to dismiss it and move it to the neighboring state of Arizona.
That suit was filed by Daniel McCauley, who also represented Cochise County in its recent failed attempt to deny certification of the election results.