Too bad Andrew Rice doesn’t have Clay as a second surname: I kinda like the idea of Andrew Rice Clay serving in Virginia’s General Assembly.
Hickory Dickory Dock,
Your gun-ban has taken my Glock.
But not for the elites,
Our civil rights in retreat,
Which led to electoral shock.
What electoral shock? Last night in a Virginia, Republican candidate Andrew Rice Clay defeated Democrat Cheryl Smith in a special election by 25 points. And that’s eye-opening for several reasons:
- Only a few months earlier, Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears edged now-Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) in that district by just 6.7 points. Which means, between November 2025 and March 2026, GOP support grew by 18+ points.
- Since winning big in November, Virginia’s Democrats have made national news for a slew of far-left policy proposals, including “sanctuary” protection for illegal immigrants, 50+ new taxes, strict gun bans, and partisan gerrymandering. It’s reasonable to assume the Riceman’s victory was at least partially fueled by voter blowback.
- With the Spanberger administration refusing to cooperate with the federal government to remove an adult illegal alien who groped multiple girls in a Fairfax County public high school, the Dems are increasingly painting themselves as indifferent to public safety, tolerant of fraud, and far outside the mainstream. As Fox News noted, “What is even more shocking is that Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) told parents of the alleged victims that the alleged assailant would be allowed to return to school upon his release.”
- The media narrative has mostly focused on GOP infighting, particularly the Tucker Carlson-Megyn Kelly-Candace Owens wing versus MAGA. But based on last night’s results, it certainly doesn’t appear that the GOP is a divided party, because Republicans unified in far greater numbers than they did in November.
There’s a growing cognitive dissonance between what the Democrats say and what they do. In Virginia, Spanberger campaigned on “affordability” and then delivered Bernie Sanders-style leftism. Even in a state that hasn’t gone red in a presidential election in 20+ years, there’s a limit to how much far-left garbage the voters will tolerate.
And now, with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act front and center, the Dems are once again on the wrong side of yet another 80%-20% issue.
It’s a policy long opposed by Democrats in Congress, who liken it — along with the bill's proof-of-citizenship requirement to register to vote — to nefarious Jim Crow-era laws aimed at preventing African Americans from voting.
But that message is increasingly falling flat with the American public, including Black voters, as photo IDs are increasingly required for common activities, like flying.
A Pew Research Center poll in August tested a variety of election rules and found that 83% of U.S. adults support “requiring all voters to show government-issued photo identification to vote,” while 16% oppose it. That’s up from 77% support in a 2012 Pew poll.
Add in the stunning examples of fraud in Blue States like California and Minnesota, and the SAVE Act is threatening to brand the Democrats as the Party of Fraud.
From Reuters: “Republicans Hope to Label the Democrats as Party of Election Fraud in Voter ID Debate”
With Democrats poised to block the legislation, Trump's Republican allies have begun a marathon floor debate to highlight that Democrats oppose photo IDs in voting, an idea that is broadly popular with the public across the political spectrum, according to polls.
"We're going to put every one of them on the record so that everyone in America knows that Republicans support voter ID and Democrats are the party of open borders and illegal voters," Senator John Barrasso, the chamber's No. 2 Republican, told reporters.
In today’s New York Times morning newsletter, readers were informed that voter fraud is so rare, it’s really not a problem:
Voter fraud almost never happens in the United States. Still, in order to prevent it, President Trump is pushing Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act, an election law that would, among many provisions, require people to show photo identification to vote.
It’s a solution in search of a problem — a solution that narrowly passed in the House last week and is now under debate in the Senate. The law is unlikely to pass there, given deeply felt opposition from Democrats who can block it with a filibuster. Republicans lack the 60 votes they need to overcome one. [emphasis added]
But voters don’t believe the Times — and for good reason: There’s no proof that voter fraud “almost never happens in the United States,” because those who succeeded, by definition, weren’t caught.
Just like we’ll never know the actual rate of immigrant fraud, criminality, and lawbreaking, the honest answer is, “We simply don’t know how rampant voter fraud is.”
All we can do is examine correlations, which seem to indicate that the rate of immigrant crimes is exponentially greater than we were told. I wrote last month:
If our hypothesis is that illegal immigrant crime is being dramatically underreported, it would be logical to assume that a crackdown on illegal immigrants and/or border crossings would coincide with a drop in crime. Limiting one should limit the other.
The Trump administration claimed that more than 2.5 million illegal immigrants left the country last year.
So roughly 18% of illegal immigrants left the country — and the murder rate dropped by 21%.
Coincidence?
Or is this EXACTLY what you’d expect, especially if illegal immigrants commit crimes at a disproportionately higher rate?
[…]
Otherwise, the correlation of a crackdown on illegal immigration — and the national crime rate hitting a 100-year low — was one helluva weird, inexplicable coincidence.
Yet the Democrats’ willful ignorance of ANY fraud whatsoever is quickly becoming their calling card. They see nothin’, know nothin’, and refuse to stop it.
And whenever anyone suggests otherwise, they respond with hysterical personal attacks.
The most disturbing part of his unhinged comments is how comfortable he is in telling the world how stupid he and his followers are. But I guess it’s expected from a man who regularly and publicly fantasized about sleeping with his own daughter and is clearly implicated in the… https://t.co/OTm2cCmWUc
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) March 17, 2026
Free PR advice to Omar: When there are credible reports that you’ve married your brother, it’s probably unwise to accuse others of incest.
All taken together, it’s introduced a radical new fault line in American politics. Forget about left versus right or small government versus big. The Trump Revolution was attitudinal: “Make America Great Again” was less about specific legislation and more about an overall approach to governance.
That’s what makes it different: MAGA defines itself by the values it prioritizes, not necessarily the tactics it employs.
Which means, protecting American taxpayers from abuse, fraud, crime, and mismanagement is an “America First” priority. Tactics like the SAVE Act are a means to an end, not the end itself. Either way, it puts the Republicans on the side of the American people.
And politically, it’s another 80%-20% issue.
So now we have the storyline of the Virginia Democrats attempting to ban guns for the people — while carving out cute exceptions for the political elites. We still have full funding for the security details of D.C.’s most-powerful politicians, but everyone else must wait in God-awful lines at the airport, because the Dems refuse to fund TSA employees, FEMA, CISA, Coast Guard, and other critical Department of Homeland Security functions.
It’s painfully obvious that the Democrats don’t give a damn about ANY fraud anywhere. They only care about themselves.
Just like clockwork, every single time the Dems taste power, they overreach. (Badly, too.) Had Spanberger followed her campaign pledge of focusing like a laser beam on affordability, it’s highly improbable that Andrew Rice Clay would’ve won his race by 25 points, just four months after Spanberger came within 6.7 points of winning the district outright.
Something else is going on: The Democrats are branding themselves as pro-fraud, pro-criminals, pro-illegal immigration, pro-elites, and pro-corruption — and the American people are noting their hypocrisy.
What else can you say about a political bloc that stages “No King” rallies while banning guns from the citizens, attempts to carve out exceptions for its elites, and then denies us security while making sure their own security detail was 100% unaffected?
Idea for the GOP: Tie TSA and/or Homeland Security funding to congressional security protection, and I’ll betcha we won’t be forcing TSA employees to work without pay anymore.
So why did Andrew Rice Clay overperform Winsome Earle-Sears by 18+ points?
Because the Democrats are treating the voters like mindless children. Instead of telling us the truth about fraud and crime, they’re telling us fairy tales and nursery rhymes, claiming that it simply doesn’t exist.
And no offense, but the Riceman knows WAY more about nursery rhymes than they do.
Recommended: The Iranian People WILL Overthrow Their Government, Even Though the Iraqis Couldn’t, Because…
One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First: It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battle lines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.
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