Election week update – Dems funding conservative candidates
Boxes of ballots
The Democrat Party is dragging out an old tactic: support opposition third party candidates to draw votes from Republicans.
In Kansas, an organization called the American Center is putting tens of thousands of dollars ($92,000 according to the same article – Ed.) behind independent gubernatorial nominee Dennis Pyle, who, in a recent poll, was at just 3% while the GOP and Democratic candidates were well ahead of him and running neck and neck.
Political strategists say the organization is trying to splinter the GOP vote through deceptive advertising in hopes of ensuring a Democratic victory.
And it’s not just Kansas, Toto.
The Voter Protection Project (VPP), run by a former pollster to Sen. Bernie Sanders, has spent nearly $160,000 in recent weeks to promote Libertarian Party candidate David Canny. The money has gone into digital ads and campaign mailers contrasting Canny, a retired retail seller of seafood, with GOP nominee Paul Junge.
VPP did not respond to requests for comment for this story. In recent years, the organization has raised millions to bolster Democratic candidates committed to expanding voting rights and stopping voter suppression.
Apart from boosting third-party candidates, VPP is also running ads in a heated California matchup, calling Rep. David Valadao a traitor for having voted to impeach former President Trump. The group’s maneuver comes as Valadao is fighting a general election matchup against Democrat Rudy Salas.
The use of such tactics is nothing new for Democrats. Earlier this year, the party spent heavily to boost far-right Republicans in contested primaries from Arizona to Pennsylvania in an effort to prevent stronger candidates from ascending to the general election.
It’s legal, and while both parties do it, with the control of Congress in the balance, the Dems appear to be a little more blatant this year. So:
1) Know your candidates
2) Know what they stand for
3) Make up your minds before you see the ballot (admit it, some of us look at some races and say “dunno who that is but I like the letter by their name.” That’s a dangerous course, that’s how Texas ended up with the oft-indicted Ken Paxton and Louie Gohmert, Texas’ response to Hank “Guam” Johnson).
4) Vote early and vote often!
One for Wretched in his Friday trivia column: explain why, if Election Day is the first Tuesday in November as most of us were taught, why is it on the 8th this year?
Category: 2022 Elections, Democrats, Politics
Unfortunately, under Georgia’s election law a candidate must win 50% plus ome vote. I suspect in the Senate race as there is a libertarian running, we’re going to see a runoff in January, so we have to put up with another month of political ads if/when there is runoff.
As long as it is not a socialist democrat…
“Americans first began the custom of weekday voting in 1845, when Congress passed a federal law designating the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November as Election Day.”
https://www.history.com/news/why-is-election-day-a-tuesday-in-november
The Libertarian in the Arizona Senate race dropped out today and endorsed the Repub.
Oops. That ought to put a bit of a crick in the socialist democrat’s plans. All those votes they thought they bought…
Dominion will elect whomever it is programmed to elect, sometime around 0300 and 0400 hrs the morning of the 9th.