The Democrats know they’re in trouble. Deep trouble.
And so, it looks like they have something big planned for the midterm elections — and they’ve been preparing it since last year.
In March of 2021, Joe Biden signed an executive order on “access to voting” containing a Democratic Party wish list of “reforms” that would enshrine many of the procedures that were temporarily implemented during the pandemic for the 2020 election. Among other things, it directs federal government agencies to encourage voter registration, assist Americans in applying to vote by mail, and “combat misinformation.”
The New York Times characterized the reach of the executive order as being rather narrow, so it wasn’t quite clear what the Biden administration’s intentions were. But the Justice Department has been working with various left-wing voting rights groups in secret meetings, so something is definitely up, and it doesn’t look good.
The next stage of the plan has been to sow the seeds of doubt in the election results. As early as January, Joe Biden cast doubt on the legitimacy of the midterm election results by refusing to say that he believed the upcoming midterm elections would be conducted fairly and the results would be legitimate — essentially suggesting that they’d only be fair and legitimate if Democrats voting rights legislation passed.
It’s no coincidence that Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacy Abrams has already started lobbing allegations of voter suppression despite record early voting turnout in her state. This looks to be a premeditated effort to cast doubt on the legitimacy of her inevitable defeat — even though virtually all polls show she’s going to lose by a considerable margin.
Related: Why Aren’t Democrats’ Attacks on ‘Election Deniers’ Working?
But as bad as things have looked for Democrats this cycle, they’ve become much worse in recent weeks. Several elections that Democrats appeared to have in a lock have become competitive. Polls are now showing Dr. Mehmet Oz in the lead in Pennsylvania and Herschel Walker on the verge of ousting Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia. For most of this season, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) looked like she was cruising to reelection, but a new poll now has her Republican opponent Don Bolduc with a small lead. Recent polls also show Republican Tiffany Smiley within striking distance of ousting Sen. Patty Murray in Washington state.
Republican momentum could not only see the GOP win big in the House, but it could give them a sizable majority in the U.S. Senate, too. This would not only put the brakes on Joe Biden’s legislative agenda but would effectively stall his efforts to load up the judiciary with left-wing judges.
So, what are Democrats going to do? Well, there have been some indications of shenanigans in Pennsylvania where the secretary of state, who happens to be a left-wing voting rights activist, seems to be doing her best to ensure that illegitimate ballots are counted. And Joe Biden’s director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is telling the nation that election irregularities are normal and should not be assumed to be a sign of something sinister. And last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned of alleged threats by enemy nations to interfere with our elections.
“The threat of any nation-state to our election system to influence, to interfere is something that we all have to remain vigilant about. In many ways, malign foreign influence – whether it’s from the Chinese government, the Russian government, or other governments – is not just an election cycle issue, but a 365-day-a-year problem,” Wray said.
So, we have a number of close races that could determine the balance of power, state-level efforts to count bogus ballots, and claims from the Biden administration that there are active threats to interfere with our elections. Do you think that Stacey Abrams is the only Democrat who is going to claim an election was stolen from her? Don’t count on it.
It’s reasonable to anticipate that the various left-leaning voting groups with whom the Biden administration has been collaborating will bring lawsuits to try to overturn the results of close elections that Democrats lose. It’s probably unlikely that these efforts will succeed, but the allegations of election interference will probably be used as a pretext for convincing Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) to support the election overhauls that Democrats have failed to secure so far.
Let’s not forget that even if the Republicans win the majority in November’s midterm elections, they won’t take office until January 3, 2023. Democrats have tried and failed in the past to pass their voting rights legislation, and all the signs point to a concerted effort to cast doubt on the upcoming midterm elections and make one final push to pass, amongst other things, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, which Democrats have claimed are necessary to “protect democracy.”
Democrats have shown an ability to play the long game, and this could be it. Maybe they can’t save their majority in the Senate, but they can try to use their final moments in the majority to convince the holdouts in their party to support legislation designed to help Democrats stay in power for the foreseeable future.
