The Republican head of the Wisconsin Assembly elections committee said she will ensure there is a “comprehensive, forensic examination” of ballots cast in the 2020 presidential election at the same time the state’s nonpartisan audit bureau conducts a review, the Associated Press reports.
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Arizona Election ‘Audit’ Falls Into Disarray
Arizona Republic: “Questions are mounting about who is in control of the long-running partisan review of Maricopa County’s 2020 election results — the Arizona Senate, which ordered it, or the outside firms that are running it.”
“On Friday, Ken Bennett, the Senate liaison to the audit, was not allowed into the building at the state fairgrounds where the audit is taking place, a day after he shared data with outside critics from an ongoing ballot count.”
Meanwhile, Arizona’s Senate issued a new subpoena “asking for additional election materials as the monthslong partisan review of the county’s 2020 election continues.”
‘We Need the Routers’
In his continuing search for non-existent voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump is now suggesting it can be found “in the routers.”
Trump Returns to Arizona
“Former President Donald Trump is set to head to Phoenix for a Saturday event that is ostensibly about election integrity and the 2022 elections for Republicans,” the Arizona Republic reports.
“But looming over his first return to the state that narrowly slipped away from him are the 2020 and 2024 elections.”
“Trump will arrive at the Arizona Federal Theater as the state Senate is still picking over the 2020 ballots from Maricopa County in a review that has dragged on for months. It has provided fresh — and false — fuel for second-guessing results that showed President Joe Biden defeated him.”
Bob Dole Says Trump Definitely Lost the Election
Former Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS) told USA Today that there’s no question that Donald Trump lost his reelection race in 2020.
Said Dole: “He lost the election, and I regret that he did, but they did. He had Rudy Giuliani running all over the country, claiming fraud. He never had one bit of fraud in all those lawsuits he filed and statements he made.”
He added: “I’m a Trumper. I’m sort of Trumped out, though.”
Midterm Enthusiasm Softens Among Democratic Voters
A new Morning Consult/Politico survey finds the share of Democratic voters who said they were “very” or “extremely” enthusiastic about the midterms has fallen 5 percentage points since April, to 48%.
Key finding: 33% of Republican voters said they’re “extremely enthusiastic” about the midterms, compared with 24% of Democrats, and Trump voters – who were virtually tied with Biden voters on the question in April – are now 8 points more likely than the current president’s supporters (31% to 23%) to share the sentiment.
Giuliani Given Wrong Time for Trump’s Debate Prep
Last September, Donald Trump sat down for the first in a series of prep sessions for the upcoming debates with Joe Biden, Insider reports.
“Rudy Giuliani, who at the time was Trump’s personal lawyer, also wanted to take part in the session.”
“However, he clashed with Christie and Conway over the president’s approach in taking on Biden, to the point where aides intentionally gave Giuliani the wrong start time for the next prep session.”
Most Arizona Republicans Think ‘Audit’ Will Flip Election
A new OH Predictive Insights poll in Arizona finds 62% of Republicans believe a partisan election “audit” there will show that former President Trump won the state instead of President Biden.
Another 21% of Republicans say Biden’s victory will stand, while another 16% are not sure.
Pollsters Have No Idea Why 2020 Polls Were Wrong
“National surveys of the 2020 presidential contest were the least accurate in 40 years, while the state polls were the worst in at least two decades,” Politico reports.
“But unlike 2016, when pollsters could pinpoint factors like the education divide as reasons they underestimated Trump and offer specific recommendations to fix the problem, the authors of the new American Association for Public Opinion Research report couldn’t put their finger on the exact problem they face now. Instead, they stuck to rejecting the idea that they made the same mistakes as before, while pointing to possible new reasons for inaccuracy.”
CNN: How pollsters are trying to fix the polls after 2020.
GOP Lawmaker Requests Election Audit In Oklahoma
Oklahoma state Rep. Sean Roberts (R) has requested that the state election board call for a forensic and independent audit of the 2020 General Election results in Oklahoma County and two other random counties in the state, KOCO reports.
Top RNC Lawyer Objected to Trump’s Election Lawsuits
The Republican Party’s top lawyer, Justin Riemer, warned in November against continuing to push false claims that the presidential election was stolen, calling efforts by some of the former president’s lawyers a “joke” that could mislead millions of people, according to an email obtained by the Washington Post.
Wrote Riemer: “What Rudy and Jenna are doing is a joke and they are getting laughed out of court. They are misleading millions of people who have wishful thinking that the president is going to somehow win this thing.”
Rupert Murdoch Made Decision to Call Arizona Early
Michael Wolff claims in his new book, Landslide, that Rupert Murdoch made the final decision for Fox News to call Arizona for Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential election, a move that infuriated Donald Trump, Insider reports.
When Lachlan Murdoch, the CEO of Fox Corporation, called his father on whether to make the early call, “his father, with signature grunt, assented,” and added, “Fuck him.”
Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Wolff, Michael (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 320 Pages - 07/13/2021 (Publication Date) - Henry Holt and Co. (Publisher)
Some RNC Staffers Refused to Vote for Trump
A new book, Frankly, We Did Win This Election, reports some RNC officials didn’t vote for then-President Trump in last November’s election, Fox News reports.
The book also spotlights the alleged friction between RNC chair Ronna McDaniel and Bill Stepien, who took over as Trump reelection campaign manager last summer.
And according to another excerpt from the book, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, after losing a power struggle with McDaniel over a new online fundraising program implemented by the national party, said he didn’t ‘give a fuck’ about the future of the GOP.
Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Bender, Michael C. (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 432 Pages - 07/13/2021 (Publication Date) - Twelve (Publisher)
Top Montana Election Official Denies Trump’s Claim
Former President Donald Trump claimed last week that a bunch of mail-in ballots were missing in Montana, the Missoula Current reports.
Said Trump: “In Montana, over 6 percent of a certain county’s mail-ballots are missing, evidence to prove that if they were legitimate or not, that they’re missing. All this evidence. Think of it, Montana. You know, a lot of mail-in ballots. Where you have mail-in ballots.”
But the Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen (R) says it’s not true and that all ballots are accounted for.
GOP Candidates Embrace Trump’s False Election Claims
Washington Post: “Across the country, as campaigns gear up for a handful of key races this year and the pivotal 2022 midterms, Republican candidates for state and federal offices are increasingly focused on the last election — running on the falsehood spread by Trump and his allies that the 2020 race was stolen from him.”
“While most of these campaigns are in their early stages, the embrace of Trump’s claims is already widespread on the trail and in candidates’ messages to voters. The trend provides fresh evidence of Trump’s continued grip on the GOP, reflecting how a movement inspired by his claims and centered on overturning a democratic election has gained currency in the party since the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.”
“Dozens of candidates promoting the baseless notion that the election was rigged are seeking powerful statewide offices — such as governor, attorney general and secretary of state, which would give them authority over the administration of elections — in several of the decisive states where Trump and his allies sought to overturn the outcome and engineer his return to the White House.”
Arizona GOP Pressured Officials to Stop Counting Votes
New records obtained by the Arizona Republic reveal the behind-the scenes efforts by Donald Trump, his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and state GOP Chair Kelli Ward to pressure the county supervisors, who make up the elected body that oversees elections in the state’s most populous county.
After Maricopa County Supervisor Clint Hickman asked Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward to clarify what she meant when she asked for the “transparency of a human evaluation,” Ward replied: “We need you to stop the counting.”
The Coming Elections Will Be Competitive and Bitter
Ron Brownstein on the new validated voter surveys: “The cumulative message from these studies is that we should brace for more years of grueling trench warfare between two coalitions that are becoming more and more inimical in both their demographic composition and vision of America. And to top it off? They appear to be about evenly matched.”
“While the Democratic coalition is clearly numerically larger—having won the popular vote in an unprecedented seven of the past eight presidential elections—Republicans have some offsetting advantages, some structural, others manufactured, that could allow them to control Washington nonetheless.”
The Senator Who Decided to Tell the Truth
Tim Alberta: “A Michigan Republican spent eight months searching for evidence of election fraud, but all he found was lies.”
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