Iowa Republicans suddenly concerned about "disenfranchising voters"

after nominating an election denier

Jul 25, 2024

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From left: Iowa GOP co-chair Linda Upmeyer, U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, Gov. Kim Reynolds, U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn, U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, and Iowa GOP chair Jeff Kaufmann at the RNC in Milwaukee. Photo published on Hinson’s X/Twitter, July 17

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Top Iowa Republicans complained this week that Democratic voters were “disenfranchised” by President Joe Biden’s decision to step aside as his party’s nominee.

Days earlier, they had celebrated the nomination of Donald Trump, who tried to nullify millions of Americans’ votes after losing the 2020 presidential election.

“HISTORIC INJUSTICE”

Biden announced on July 21, “while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term.”

Within hours, Iowa Republicans echoed talking points their party was pushing across the country.

U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01) characterized Biden’s decision as the “overthrow of democracy,” saying in a statement posted to social media, “A historic injustice is being perpetrated by the Democrats who lecture the country about democracy. Yet they just disenfranchised millions of primary voters while attempting to cover up the President’s cognitive decline.”

U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson (IA-02) posted on her political X/Twitter account,

For months, Democrats have been fear-mongering that our democracy will end if President Trump wins again.
But now Democrat elites will hand pick the Democrat Presidential candidate instead of having to go through a primary. Talk about disenfranchising voters!

Iowa GOP state chair Jeff Kaufmann chimed in,

This whole situation was caused by the Democrat elites, big donors and corporate media who just plunged Democracy and their party into complete chaos simply because their candidate was losing in the polls. Every voter who supported Biden in the primary election should feel abandoned and betrayed.

Those comments were misleading on several levels.

MOST DEMOCRATS WANTED BIDEN TO STEP ASIDE

After Biden performed poorly in his debate against Trump, influential Democrats did try to persuade the president he was unlikely to win in November—first in private, then through a growing number of public appeals.

But contrary to the GOP narrative, those “elites” were not defying the wishes of rank-and-file Democrats. Several nationwide polls showed a majority of Democrats wanted Biden to leave the race and believed the party would have better prospects with a different candidate.

Far from the “complete chaos” Kaufmann predicted, Democrats quickly coalesced around Vice President Kamala Harris. Within a day, most Democratic governors and members of Congress had endorsed Biden’s preferred successor. By the evening of July 22, Harris had enough support from Democratic National Convention delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot.

Again, this wasn’t a case of “elites” overruling the masses. Hundreds of thousands of people donated to Harris’ campaign, signed up as volunteers, or joined organizing calls during the first two days after Biden’s announcement.

The latest SSRS poll for CNN, which was in the field on July 22 and 23, found that 90 percent of Democrats and 90 percent of past Biden supporters approved of the president’s decision to end his campaign. Those findings, and the Harris campaign’s record-breaking grassroots fundraising, tracked with anecdotal reports that Democrats are mostly relieved and excited to have a new standard-bearer.

So much for the “abandoned and betrayed” voters Kaufmann imagined.

The same CNN poll found 95 percent of respondents who had previously backed Biden were now for Harris. More revealing:

Half of those who back Harris in the new poll (50%) say their vote is more in support of her than against Trump. That’s a dramatic shift compared with the Trump-focused dynamic of the Biden-Trump race. Among Biden’s supporters in CNN’s June poll, just 37% said their vote was mainly to express support for the president.

It often takes a few weeks before surveys reveal the full impact of a major news event, so I wouldn’t take CNN’s snap poll as gospel. But it’s obvious most Democrats don’t feel disenfranchised by the change at the top of the ticket.

The Republican accusations look like projection, given how little Trump respects the democratic process.

WHAT DISENFRANCHISING VOTERS LOOKS LIKE

Trump lost the popular vote in 2020 by more than 7 million votes and roughly 4.5 percent in terms of vote share. He also lost the electoral college to Biden by 306 votes to 232.

Nevertheless, the Trump team and Republican allies filed dozens of lawsuits seeking to throw out millions of votes from states Biden carried. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds wanted to join one of those frivolous lawsuits.

Trump and his associates also tried to steal the electoral votes of some states by recruiting fake electors or pressuring state legislators to approve a pro-Trump slate. The then-president asked Georgia’s secretary of state to find him enough votes to overturn Biden’s victory there.

When those efforts failed, Trump tried to persuade his vice president to reject the electoral college tally—an act not within his constitutional powers—and encouraged a crowd to march on the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

Although Iowa’s Congressional delegation voted to certify Biden’s electoral college victory, our state’s most prominent Republicans were never willing to admit Trump lost fair and square. In January 2021, Miller-Meeks amplified claims about “fraud” and “irregularities.” Hinson suggested others were right to be concerned about “election mismanagement” and “illegal” votes in blue states. Kaufmann cited the widespread “perception” that the election was stolen from Trump as reason to “tighten up the election integrity.”

That’s code for putting more barriers in front of eligible voters. Most GOP-controlled states, including Iowa, have made it harder to cast ballots (especially absentee ballots) in recent years. Project 2025, the blueprint for a second Trump presidency, would subvert democratic processes in many other ways.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to lie about the “rigged” election at every campaign rally. All four nights of the Republican National Convention, the party played a video featuring the nominee’s “false claims about election fraud.” During his long, rambling RNC acceptance speech, Trump twice claimed Democrats cheated in the last presidential race—but those statements didn’t even make the cut amid the many other lies fact checkers had to debunk.

Iowa’s top Republicans cheered Trump on and keep letting their followers know how enthusiastic they are about putting him back in the White House.

Hinson was still at it on July 24, demanding that the media keep pressing Democrats to justify “why they are disenfranchising millions of Democrat primary voters & why they’re okay with party elites anointing Kamala Harris or another left-winger.”

Nothing disenfranchises voters more than disregarding the results of a free and fair election. Iowa Republicans should be asked why they want to reward that behavior with four more years as president.