Republicans want voters to think California recall election could be stolen

As polls ahead of the California gubernatorial recall election show Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom more likely to outlast the Republican effort, GOP elites – including Donald Trump himself – are looking to baseless claims that the result would be tainted with fraud.

“Well, it’s probably rigged,” the former president said on Newsmax Tuesday in response to a question about solid polls for Newsom. “They send out all the ballots. Ballots are mail ballots.

“The only thing they’re good at is rigging the election,” Trump continued. “So I predict this is a rigged election. Let’s see how it goes.

Trump’s comments on Newsmax came hours after Tomi Lahren made similar statements on Fox News. Notably, on neither of the two networks, this unproven conspiracy theory has encountered hindsight.

There’s a reason the Trumps and Lahrens of the world don’t cite any evidence. Ballots are mailed to every registered active voter, and the system features a number of security measures, including verification of signature and barcodes corresponding to specific voters, making the California one of the many states that have shown postal voting to be safe and secure.

But the lack of evidence hasn’t stopped the apparent leader among the Republican candidates, talk show host Larry Elder, from making an appearance on Fox News and suggesting that Democrats are engaged in “shenanigans” aimed at steal the election of Newsom.

“The 2020 election, in my opinion, was full of shenanigans. And my fear is that they will try that in this election here and remember, “Elder told Fox News last Sunday, before urging people to go to his website to report” anything suspicious ” .

Elder echoed the comments during a campaign event on Wednesday, teasing a Trump-style effort to use the courts to overturn election results if defeated.

It may seem odd that Republicans are getting so angry about a race against the California Democrats, who have a nearly 2-to-1 registration advantage, hold every office in state, and have no not lost statewide elections for 15 years. And Newsom, who won 61.9% of the vote in 2018, would almost certainly beat Elder in a one-on-one clash.

But due to the bizarre design of the California recall system, Republican control of government is within the realm of possibility. As Shawn Hubler recently explained to The New York Times, Elder could overthrow Newsom as governor even if he only earns a fraction of Newsom’s support:

The ballot asks voters two questions: Should the governor be removed? And if so, who should be the new governor? If the majority of voters say no to the first question, the second is irrelevant. But if more than 50% vote yes, the challenger with the most votes becomes the next governor. Critics of the recall argue that this is a major flaw as 49.9% of voters could theoretically vote to keep Mr Newsom, and he could still lose and be replaced by a challenger whose plurality constitutes a much fraction. smaller voters. A legal challenge to this effect is pending before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

A Suffolk University poll released Wednesday found that about 58% of registered voters in California say they want Newsom to continue in office as governor. But questions remain as to how many California voters will make the ballots for the unusual election year out, and a sign of how seriously Democrats are taking the recall, President Joe Biden plans to travel to California to campaign for Newsom the day before the election.

Elder’s campaign has been largely negative. He criticized Newsom’s pandemic restrictions on business and support for vaccine mandates, even though polls show Californians back Newsom’s mandate policy by a 2: 1 majority. such unpopular position would be a big deal for Elder in a traditional election, but perhaps less so in a contest where the main agenda is to ensure that a majority of those who vote vote to remove the governor . .

And if that fails, Republicans and the right-wing media that amplify them have an insurance policy – pissing off their base with allegations of Democratic cheating.

Refusing to accept defeat has become a central part of the GOP brand

Beyond the idiosyncrasies of California and its unique recall system, the broader importance of Republicans trading in the same baseless voter fraud conspiracy theories as last year is what he says about the existential threat that the Trumpified GOP stands for Free and Fair Elections.

Just over a year ago, I first wrote about Trump’s attacks on postal voting. I asked readers to imagine an election night scenario where Trump prematurely declared victory, citing alleged irregularities with mail-in votes – a scenario that actually played out months later and, after the exhaustion of Trump’s legal options, culminated in the Jan.6 insurgency. Yesterday and today, the problem for Republicans isn’t that postal voting is ripe for fraud – it isn’t – but that by making it easier for people to vote, they think (maybe wrongly) that it is more difficult for them to win. elections. Instead of trying to broaden their base, Republicans are changing the rules of the game to make it harder for people to vote.

The insurgency’s violence and chaos prompted prominent Republicans like Parliamentary Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to briefly shine the light of day between them and Trump, but the former president has remained popular with the Republican base and is currently the frontrunner of the 2024 GOP. presidential nomination.

Instead of distancing themselves from his lies about the election, Republicans in several states, including Texas and Georgia, have passed laws based on those lies to restrict voting in the months since January. Meanwhile, Arizona Republicans have opened a new front on the GOP’s war on free and fair elections with a partisan ‘audit’ of the 2020 election results that is expected to soon result in a storm of disinformation aimed at fueling Trump’s lies.

Unlike Texas, Georgia and Arizona, California is a blue state where Trump has virtually no chance of winning in 2024. And yet, even here, casting doubt on the US election is now part of the story. orthodoxy of the GOP. This is bad news for American democracy.