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I've never seen a FOX national newscast, not that I'd want to, but I only saw on YouTube after the election the kind of crap they were putting out nationally. I've seen FOX local news in St. Louis, Phoenix and here in Tucson. The only reason that's important is the local FOX news I've seen never indulged in the kind of political vitriol FOX is famous for. So the Republican candidate for State Governor here was one of the anchors on the local FOX news in Phoenix for many years. The times I saw her giving the news, she seemed like a nice, perfectly reasonable person. So I was concerned that the state and particularly Phoenix would vote for her even though she was endorsed by Trump in the primary. Compared to the other candidates for state-wide offices they did. But fortunately it wasn't enough for her to win.
The Republicans ran a couple of those really bad candidates here, you may have heard about generally. Their candidate for Senate was a weasel-faced reactionary, who fortunately made enough outrageous statements publicly, that it was no challenge to find ammunition for attack ads against him featuring him saying those things not just implying he believed them. Their candidate for Secretary of State (the person in charge of elections in this state) was clearly visible in videos outside the Capitol building in Washington during the January 6 riots.
So why did the Republicans do badly in general? The Supreme Court did Democrats everywhere a big favor by overturning Roe vs Wade. Donald Trump hand picked people for his supporters to vote for in primaries whose most notable quality was loyalty to himself. Donald's repeated praise for Vladimir Putin when he was in office didn't help Republicans either.
It is funny to see all the finger pointing in conservative circles these days. Yes, a lot of them are mad at Trump, but not enough of them. Forget about Trump. None of the Republicans big wigs seem to blame themselves for not ridding their party of the guy after the last election. Too worried that the extremist voters would look elsewhere, when their turn for re-nomination came up. Now they are stuck with the guy, and as long as the rank and file Republican voters are mostly going to go for people loyal to Trump in the primaries and State caucuses the Republican candidates are going to keep losing general elections. I don't think even putting Trump in jail would change that.
A couple of the videos I've seen show a televangelist telling other televangelists on a panel on TV somewhere, that God came to him and told him that there was going to be a red wave in the election. I wish I had the nerve to go to his home church and shout out to him in the middle of his plea for donations, "Either God is a liar, or you are! What's it going to be?" I think it was a clip from MSNBC that had somebody say that it was the gullible, the easily conned, who the Republicans were aiming for. The two videos clips fit together nicely. Some analyst on FOX was musing after the election about what happened to all the donations Trump personally collected for candidates this election. He didn't already know? Talk about gullible!
It appears that the Republicans planned a tactic to win 'last minute' in any close races in Arizona this time. It seems they must have encouraged Republicans who received early ballots in the mail to not use them, show up at the polls and vote normally. The voter rolls show you got an early ballot so you can do this, but you have to do it by means of a provisional ballot. All that means is that your ballot will be counted dead last, so they can be sure you didn't also turn in your early ballot somewhere at the last minute.
These legal late-counted ballots would create a 'last minute' surge for Republican candidates. (The only person in Arizona convicted of vote fraud after 2020 was a Republican who went to different polling places and voted 4 provisional ballots!) Amongst other folks who chose to/had to vote that way, it did create a Republican surge. But it only succeeded in creating a last minute change in two extremely close races. The State Superintendent of Schools went to an old time Republican who's held the job before, and an incumbent Republican Congressman barely won after trailing for nearly the whole week. The tactic didn't backfire but it must have scared the pants off that Republican incumbent.
The Republicans ran a couple of those really bad candidates here, you may have heard about generally. Their candidate for Senate was a weasel-faced reactionary, who fortunately made enough outrageous statements publicly, that it was no challenge to find ammunition for attack ads against him featuring him saying those things not just implying he believed them. Their candidate for Secretary of State (the person in charge of elections in this state) was clearly visible in videos outside the Capitol building in Washington during the January 6 riots.
So why did the Republicans do badly in general? The Supreme Court did Democrats everywhere a big favor by overturning Roe vs Wade. Donald Trump hand picked people for his supporters to vote for in primaries whose most notable quality was loyalty to himself. Donald's repeated praise for Vladimir Putin when he was in office didn't help Republicans either.
It is funny to see all the finger pointing in conservative circles these days. Yes, a lot of them are mad at Trump, but not enough of them. Forget about Trump. None of the Republicans big wigs seem to blame themselves for not ridding their party of the guy after the last election. Too worried that the extremist voters would look elsewhere, when their turn for re-nomination came up. Now they are stuck with the guy, and as long as the rank and file Republican voters are mostly going to go for people loyal to Trump in the primaries and State caucuses the Republican candidates are going to keep losing general elections. I don't think even putting Trump in jail would change that.
A couple of the videos I've seen show a televangelist telling other televangelists on a panel on TV somewhere, that God came to him and told him that there was going to be a red wave in the election. I wish I had the nerve to go to his home church and shout out to him in the middle of his plea for donations, "Either God is a liar, or you are! What's it going to be?" I think it was a clip from MSNBC that had somebody say that it was the gullible, the easily conned, who the Republicans were aiming for. The two videos clips fit together nicely. Some analyst on FOX was musing after the election about what happened to all the donations Trump personally collected for candidates this election. He didn't already know? Talk about gullible!
It appears that the Republicans planned a tactic to win 'last minute' in any close races in Arizona this time. It seems they must have encouraged Republicans who received early ballots in the mail to not use them, show up at the polls and vote normally. The voter rolls show you got an early ballot so you can do this, but you have to do it by means of a provisional ballot. All that means is that your ballot will be counted dead last, so they can be sure you didn't also turn in your early ballot somewhere at the last minute.
These legal late-counted ballots would create a 'last minute' surge for Republican candidates. (The only person in Arizona convicted of vote fraud after 2020 was a Republican who went to different polling places and voted 4 provisional ballots!) Amongst other folks who chose to/had to vote that way, it did create a Republican surge. But it only succeeded in creating a last minute change in two extremely close races. The State Superintendent of Schools went to an old time Republican who's held the job before, and an incumbent Republican Congressman barely won after trailing for nearly the whole week. The tactic didn't backfire but it must have scared the pants off that Republican incumbent.