The political world was heavily focused on this week’s redistricting race in Virginia, and for good reason: It would open the door to a new congressional map in the commonwealth that would push Democrats closer to a House majority.
It was close, but Virginia voters narrowly approved the Democratic plan. Republicans, who started a partisan redistricting arms race last year without a strategy of success, will go from holding five of the state’s 11 congressional districts to one.
The finger-pointing in GOP circles was as swift as it was inevitable. Politico reported on party insiders, eager to assign blame, turning their ire on the state and national party, among others.
Donald Trump, however, went in a more typically Trumpian direction. On Wednesday afternoon, the president published an item to his social media platform that read in part:
A RIGGED ELECTION TOOK PLACE LAST NIGHT IN THE GREAT COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA! All day long Republicans were winning, the Spirit was unbelievable, until the very end when, of course, there was a massive ‘Mail In Ballot Drop!’ Where have I heard that before — And the Democrats eked out another Crooked Victory! … Let’s see if the Courts will fix this travesty of ‘Justice.’
He went on to argue that the specific language of the ballot measure was difficult to understand, adding, “As everyone knows, I am an extraordinarily brilliant person, and even I had no idea what the hell they were talking about in the Referendum, and neither do they!”
The missive was tiresome and predictable. The election in Virginia wasn’t “rigged,” nothing about the race was “crooked,” this wasn’t a “travesty” of justice and few seriously believe the incumbent president is “an extraordinarily brilliant person.” The Democratic campaign was expected to win narrowly, and that’s precisely what happened.
As for his observation about “ballot drops,” as anyone with even a basic familiarity with elections understands, it takes longer to count ballots in high-population areas, and in Virginia, high-population areas tend to have a lot of Democratic voters. There’s nothing nefarious about any of this, which is why even the Virginia Republicans who are furious about the outcome made no effort to question the propriety or legitimacy of the result.
As The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie recently summarized, “To this president, as we should know by now, a ‘rigged’ election is one that he lost or did not win to his satisfaction.” That appeared in a column published a month ago, and Trump, right on cue, helped prove it true.
The Republican’s latest nonsense is notable, however, because it’s an indelible sign of things to come. The midterm elections are 28 weeks away, and Trump is already doing what he’s done ahead of every election cycle for a decade, namely, taking steps to undermine public confidence in the integrity of the system to justify his rejection of results he doesn’t like.
Democrats are positioned to fare well in the fall, and the president’s reaction to Virginia tells us everything we need to know about what he’ll say and do in response to likely Republican defeats later this year.
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