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The advantage of “cheating” and “stolen goods” is that the latter is easy to disprove. It can also simply show that no illegal votes were cast. But “cheating” is a more flashy, catch-all connotation of unsavory behavior that can be followed by new theories over time. So the appeal to Trump’s allies is that they can point to almost anything as contributing to election fraud, and in doing so add to President Trump’s broader assessment that 2020 was unfair. It means staying loyal.
That same ambiguity is now being deployed defensively by Democrats.
Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate in Tuesday’s primary election. He finished third in the state’s all-comer system, beating out Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) and former baseball star Steve Garvey (R.).
Wednesday evening, she offered Description: It was rigged.
“Thank you to everyone who supported our campaign and voted to change the status quo in Washington,” she wrote on social media. “Because of you, we cowed the establishment, withstood a 3-to-1 ratio in TV spending, and withstood the onslaught of billionaires who spent millions of dollars rigging this election.”
After the comment sparked widespread backlash, particularly from members of her own party who echoed President Trump’s comments, she issued the following statement: statement.
“‘Fraud’ means to be manipulated by fraudulent means,” it began. “Several billionaires spent more than $10 million on attack ads against me, including ads that were rated ‘false’ by independent fact-checkers. It is a fraudulent means of manipulating results. I said, ‘Manipulated by billionaires,’ but our politics is — in fact — manipulated by huge amounts of dark money. ”
In common parlance, “misconduct” means more than what is explained above. This means that the election was inherently biased to achieve the outcome. That’s how the term is used in Trumpworld, and that’s how Porter’s original statement was read.
The statement’s argument is a common one on the left for decades: that the influence of big money taints election results. But applying the word “cheating” in 2024 has different implications, including for those who use it.
But that aside, Porter’s central argument is questionable.
All the polls conducted in the past few months had Mr. Schiff in the lead. At times, the lead was narrow and he was even ahead of Porter. Recently, Schiff’s lead has increased over Garvey. But there is little indication that Porter’s support has eroded over time. An average of 538 polls in the state consistently shows her in the mid-teens.
Millions of dollars were spent against Porter, with funds from the crypto industry responding to her criticism of the industry and its use of energy. One of her ads was criticized by the Sacramento Bee. But Mr. Porter has also spent more than $20 million from his campaign as of mid-February, less than the roughly $40 million spent by Mr. Schiff up to that point, but not by Mr. Garvey or Mr. Garvey. That’s far more than fourth place Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). . ).
Mr. Garvey has also been the target of intense outside spending, dwarfing spending from his own campaign. But he came in second anyway, mainly because he was the biggest name among the Republican candidates.
There is a correlation between spending and support on the Democratic side. Mr. Lee spent relatively little, ranking third among Democrats. Porter had more money than that, even after her expenses. She took second place. And at the top is Schiff, the man with the most spending and the most support.
Assuming Porter hadn’t had that $10 million committed against her and the support to spending ratio had remained the same, she would have been in the light blue outlined circle. And even assuming all of her support comes from Schiff, she’s still in third place.
But there’s an obvious reason why Schiff has always been in control. That’s because Schiff was far more famous. Over the past five years, Google searches have had more interest in Schiff than Porter in 85% of his weeks. Since 2017, when Schiff began making a name for himself as an opponent of Donald Trump, he has been mentioned more than 17,000 times in a 15-second block on MSNBC and more than 22,000 times on Fox News. Porter is mentioned in about 2,300 blocks on both channels combined.
Trump is understandably frustrated at losing in 2020, and Porter is equally understandable at being targeted for millions of dollars in outside spending. But what happened in California was not nefarious forces secretly manipulating the election results. For better or worse, that’s how politics works. There was no attempt to rig the election so that Porter wouldn’t win. It was her effort to not let her win, but perhaps even as a result of her spending, she didn’t win.
Calling an election “rigged” does not enhance the truth, it obfuscates it.
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