There is an old political saying that ‘all politics is local‘, meaning that candidates for office needed to emphasize their local connections and highlight local issues in order to connect with voters. This was especially true for down ballot races that were for seats in state and local elected bodies. While national issues sometimes entered the discussion, they tended not to be front and center.
Not anymore. Nowadays, national issues are driving pretty much all elections, tending to overshadow local issues like infrastructure projects. As a consequence, local races are now viewed as venues for testing national issues. Hence the shock result in an Alabama state house race is raising eyebrows.
Alabama is a solid red state and the house seat had been comfortably won in 2022 by a Republican David Cole by a margin of 54-46% over Democrat Marilyn Lands. But Cole had to resign after being found guilty of voter fraud. (Is anyone surprised snymore that the party that shouts loudest about voter fraud seems to regularly produce people who actually commit it?)
When the election to fill the vacant seat was held last week, Lands easily beat her Republican opponent by a margin of 62-38%, a landslide. But what is significant is that Lands focused her campaign almost entirely on the abortion issue while her opponent focused on economic development and infrastructure.
In the Huntsville AL area, Democrats have flipped state House District 10 tonight. In 2022, Marilyn Lands (D) lost by about 7 points. This time, she won by almost 25%, sweeping nearly everything.
This was a stronger margin here than Doug Jones's 23-point spread from 2017. pic.twitter.com/NUlH8cZEeF
— J. Miles Coleman (@JMilesColeman) March 27, 2024
While this is encouraging for Democrats and unnerving for Republicans, Alabama is still a solidly red state with a Republican supermajority. Lands’ district is one of the few that has been trending towards Democrats. But still, the size of her win has encouraged Democrats that they should not write off the South as hopeless.
Meanwhile in Arizona, Kari Lake is one of the most ardent advocates of the Big Lie that serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) had the election stolen from him in 2020. This catapulted her to the top ranks of MAGAheads, her name even being floated as a possible running mate for him. Not only that, she claimed that the 2022 race she lost for governor was also stolen from her, and she still has not conceded it nearly two years later. She even leveled wild accusations against an election official, who then sued her for defamation.
Stephen Richer, the top election official in Maricopa county, sued Lake, her campaign and an aligned Pac last year after she lost her gubernatorial bid and repeatedly lied about him. Lake, who is now running for the US Senate, falsely accused him of injecting 300,000 illegal votes into machines and intentionally misprinting ballots so they would be rejected by ballot tabulators.
Richer said the claims turned the lives of him and his family “upside down” and made them “the targets of threats of violence, even death”. He asked a jury to award compensatory and punitive damages and wants Lake and her team to remove all false information about him from the internet.
In an abrupt switch, last week Lake said that she would not contest the defamation charge and wanted to go straight to the issue of finding damages.
In a court filing on Tuesday, Lake essentially conceded she won’t try to prove that her claims were true or that she had a reasonable basis to believe they were. Instead, she asked a Maricopa county judge to quickly set a hearing for a “default judgment” against her and move to hold a hearing to determine what damages, if any, she should have to pay. Lake is still requesting the empaneling of a jury to resolve any factual disputes around the damages issues.
This move is widely seen as a concession that her charges were false.
Richer and lawyers for Protect Democracy, a non-profit organization representing him, said Lake’s filing was essentially a surrender and claimed victory. “After months of doubling down and defending their lies across Arizona, in the media, and on social media, when push came to shove, the defendants decided to completely back down and concede that their lies were just that: lies,” Richer said in a statement.
But Lake claims that this is not so.
Lake denied she had conceded anything.
“I didn’t surrender, I simply cut-to-the-chase. We filed papers demanding a hearing in 30 days for Stephen to prove how my words harmed him. I am ready to go to court now, Stephen. Are you?” she wrote in a Twitter post.
In the MAGA world, you have never lost even when you have.
What’s up with that little infected appendix in the northern part of the district that remained resolutely Republican? What’s there to make that such a hold out?
Per the Arizona Mirror (via Raw Story):
The Big Lie is still in full swing. It’s evidence (as if we needed it) that tribalism is the engine that drives the right wing. Despite no evidence for the Big Lie -- and plenty for voter fraud of all sorts on the right -- tens of millions will still vote repub.
Well, that Lake admitted she lied is refreshingly honest of her. Unusual too: she’s never exhibited honesty before.
I wonder, did the AL legislature (or courts) think that banning IVF (and, right before an election) would *win* them votes? After three (I think) referendums protecting abortion passed solidly in other red states? Change or die.
“This catapulted her to the top ranks of MAGAheads, her name even being floated as a possible running mate for him.”
Which is another reason to believe that the people who worship SSAT only see a projection, not the actual man, because there is no way he’d pick a running mate who would take that much attention off of him.
Matt G @3
“The Big Lie is still in full swing.”
Yup, and it’s going to be used in November to ensure that every state with a Republican government only has Republican electors for the electoral college all in the name of “election integrity.”
[Excellent link @2, Pierce]
garnetstar, I think you are too generous.
She very clearly didn’t, according to that article Pierce adduced. Pretty obvious.
Trump playbook. Openly two-faced.
Outside the court, she herself: “My words are true”;
inside the court, her lawyer Wright: “Lake’s claims about Richer were “rhetorical hyperbole” and not meant to be taken as facts”.
#4 Garnetstar
Except she didn’t.
She may have conceded the lie in every practical sense, but that last quote shows she is still maintaining a pretence in her voter-facing media. Unless… is it possible that she and her lawyer(s) are stupid enough to believe she is actually turning the tables on her plaintiff with this move??
It is good that the political class is forced to reconsider what constitutes common political sense.
I get the sense that “legacy democrats” are complacent and feel threatened by new ideas. The old senator from California who died not long ago considered counter-culture (you know, gay rights people, etc) to be the problem. But somehow, the world changed.
The majority of US people approve of “progressive” policies if they are asked about those policies *outside* the left-right context.
And we see that when people are confronted with the *reality* of losing reproductive rights, they are willing to switch parties.
.
“Tribalism is the engine that drives the right wing”.
Absolutely. We see this in Britain too. Except the tories managed to f*ck over the country so thoroughly that many tory voters will stay home on election day, or even switch party.
Don’t underestimate the decision to not move Space Force HQ from Colorado to Alabama due, in no small part, to decisions made by state legislators to target women’s reproductive rights and the rights of LGBTQ citizens. Citizens of Huntsville and Alabama were counting on the economic boost that those legislative decisions have now cost them. Voters were not happy and went Blue.
https://apnews.com/article/space-command-biden-colorado-alabama-382b12b57733848fd1d083227aefa0bf and https://youtu.be/l40mKM8uo8w?si=JSm9kESeJd5DXQxq