Capitol Police Hate the National Anthem | 6/5/23

Capitol Police Hate the National Anthem | 6/5/23

Report says Democrat voters in GOP primary helped Georgia secretary of state win



Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who surprised many by winning last week's Republican primary in the face of opposition from former President Donald Trump, may have had unexpected help in the election from an unlikely source: Democratic voters.

The state of Georgia has an open primary system, where anyone can vote in party primary elections, i.e. Democrats voting for Republicans in the GOP primary and vice versa. According to an Associated Press analysis of early voting records, more than 37,000 people who voted in Georgia's Democratic primary two years ago crossed over to vote in the GOP primary this year, an "unusually high number." The AP reported that these so-called crossover voters tipped the scales in several Republican contests, bailing out incumbents like Raffensperger who faced challenges from the right.

Raffensperger was one of Trump's top targets for defeat, since the former president holds a grudge against the secretary of state for refusing to go along with his false claims that the 2020 presidential election in Georgia was stolen.

Yet when the votes were counted last Tuesday, Raffensperger won more than 50% of the primary ballots, clearing the threshold to avoid a runoff election against Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) by more than 27,000 votes. Hice was endorsed by Trump.

The AP's analysis found 37,144 former Democratic voters voted in the Republican primary, giving Raffensperger the push he needed to win outright. The AP reported that Republican Gov. Brian Kemp did not need Democratic votes to secure his blowout victory against the Trump-endorsed former U.S. senator David Perdue.

In a statement, Raffensperger's campaign denied that Democrats made the difference in the race.

“It is clear that Brad Raffensperger carried a majority of the Republican vote here in the state of Georgia and that there are people who stopped voting in Republican primaries after 2016 who are now reengaged,” campaign consultant Jordan Fuchs told the AP.

Trump, meanwhile, was not happy. He spoke out against open primaries while campaigning in Wyoming on Saturday, where he has endorsed Harriet Hageman against Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). Cheney has openly courted Democrats and independents to fend off her primary challenger.

“Don’t let the Democrats do what they did in another state last week,” he told supporters, urging them to support a change to state law that would ban crossover voting.

In March, Wyoming legislators failed to advance a bill that would have prohibited voters from changing their party registration on Election Day so they could vote in another party's primary election.

Poll: Only 16% of Americans say US democracy is working



Most Americans are feeling pessimistic about the state of democracy in their country, according to a new poll conducted by the Associated Press.

Only 16% of Americans surveyed said that democracy is working well or extremely well in the United States, a sentiment shared by individuals of all political persuasions. Almost half of Americans, 45%, think that democracy isn't functioning properly. A little more than a third, 38%, say democracy is working only somewhat well.

According to the Associated Press, the poll's findings are "broadly consistent with how Americans graded democracy before the election," however there was a noticeable partisan swing in views about democracy since the 2020 election.

Last October, 68% of self-identified Republicans said democracy was working at least somewhat well. After the election, though, only 36% of Republicans felt that way. Conversely, in October, just 37% of Democrats believed democracy was working at least somewhat well, but after Joe Biden won the election, that number increased to 70%.

In other words, when Donald Trump was president, most Republicans believed democracy was at least partially working, while most Democrats disagreed, and after Joe Biden won, most Republicans thought democracy wasn't working, but Democrats were more optimistic.

Roughly two-thirds of Americans say Joe Biden is the legitimately elected president, but only one-third of Republicans believe the election was legitimate, according to the survey.

The Associated Press report blames former President Donald Trump's claims that the 2020 election was stolen for at least in part eroding Republicans trust in the election:

The core elements of democratic government, including free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power, were put to a dire test by the baseless claims of election fraud advanced by former President Donald Trump. Those assertions of fraud were a root cause of the deadly violence at the U.S. Capitol last month, which damaged the country's reputation as a model for democracy.

Trump will face an unprecedented second impeachment trial in the Senate this week for his role in sparking the violence. About half of Americans say the Senate should convict the Republican former president.

...

The poll's findings are broadly consistent with how Americans graded democracy before the election. But there are signs that Trump's attacks on the democratic process, including his repeated and discredited argument that the election was "stolen" because of voter irregularities, resonated with Republicans.

But Democrats and the mainstream media are not without blame either.

In the wake of the 2016 election and Trump's surprise win, many Democrats advanced claims that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton. The mainstream media in 2017 spread a misleading story that "Russian government cyber actors" attempted to hack the 2016 election results. A poll conducted in 2018 found that 67% of Democrats believed that "Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected." Further, the 2018 Georgia Democratic candidate for governor, Stacey Abrams, never conceded the election to her Republican opponent Brian Kemp, the legitimately elected governor, whom Abrams accused of engaging in voter suppression tactics to win.

Both political parties have criticized the electoral system in America when it was politically convenient to do so. Perhaps that's why so many Americans have doubts about their democracy.