Politics
In 2024 cycle, election workers face ‘incomprehensible’ threats
In Texas last week, a man wore a Make America Great Again hat inside a polling location in San Antonio. Asked to remove it, the man allegedly ended up throwing several punches at a 69-year-old election worker.
Fortunately, the local precinct worker wasn’t seriously injured, and the suspect was arrested. But the incident served as a timely reminder about the kind of conditions election workers are facing in the United States this year. The New York Times reported on the “rising wave of threats to election workers.”
On Monday, the Justice Department unsealed a complaint against a man in Philadelphia who had vowed to skin alive and kill a party official recruiting volunteer poll watchers. On Tuesday, the police in Tempe, Ariz., arrested a man in connection with shootings at a Democratic campaign office, which resulted in no injuries, and other acts of political vandalism. On Wednesday, prosecutors charged a 61-year-old man from Tampa, Fla., with threatening an election official — on top of pending charges over menacing messages sent in the past five years. And on Thursday, police officers in Phoenix arrested a person in connection with a mailbox fire, damaging some 20 ballots in a Democratic stronghold.
“Our elections are made possible by the hard work and patriotism of election workers in communities across the country who are also our neighbors, relatives and friends, and they deserve to do this important work without being subjected to threats,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement last week. “The fact that election workers need to be worried about their security is incomprehensible and unacceptable.”
That’s true, but these are nevertheless the circumstances we find ourselves in as Americans in 2024. NBC News published a report last week noting that election officials nationwide are ramping up their security measures at polling places, “from beefing up law enforcement presence to donning bulletproof vests to deploying drones for surveillance amid an increasingly hostile environment.”
A few days earlier, The Wall Street Journal published a report out of Maricopa County, Arizona, where the local election headquarters “has become a fortress.”
On Election Day, as workers tabulate ballots behind new fencing and concrete barriers, drones will patrol the skies overhead, police snipers will perch on rooftops and mounted patrols will stand ready. Across the state, election workers have gone through active-shooter drills and learned to barricade themselves or wield fire hoses to repel armed mobs. At the ready are trauma kits containing tourniquets and bandages designed to pack chest wounds and stanch serious bleeding.
It’s difficult to fully appreciate the degree to which Donald Trump has poisoned American politics, but these reports are a good place to start.
As Rachel noted via Threads, highlighting the report out of Arizona, “Pop this in the time capsule for when it comes time to tell future generations about how awesome the Republican Party’s Trump years were.”
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
The meeting came ahead of a markup planned for next week on AI policy and kids online safety measures…
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Former Rep. Trey Gowdy insists he’s not interested in running in the South Carolina special election. But a new poll suggests Gowdy would be formidable if he changed his mind.
Gowdy holds a massive lead over seven other potential and declared GOP candidates for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s seat, according to a poll from Republican-aligned firm Peak Insights that was obtained by POLITICO.
Gowdy draws 38 percent of the vote. The actual candidates in the race are bunched closely, with no clear frontrunner: Rep. Ralph Norman trails at 13 percent support, followed closely by both Rep. Russell Fry and Sen. Darline Graham, Lindsey’s sister who is running for a full term after being appointed, who both sit at 9 percent. Businessman Mark Lynch, a self-funder who lost a Senate primary to Graham last summer, pulls 7 percent support. The survey of 900 likely GOP primary voters for South Carolina’s special election was conducted before anyone formally entered the contest.
The election will be a test of Trump’s power. He endorsed Darline Graham last week, but that hasn’t stopped other prominent South Carolina Republicans from jumping in the race, all of them touting their loyalty to the president — despite not having his formal support.
And at least according to the poll, his endorsement doesn’t shift things much. When respondents are informed that Trump “asked Darline Graham Nordone to run in the special election for U.S. Senate, saying if she runs, she has his complete and total endorsement,” Graham’s support improves from 9 percent to 16 percent, and Gowdy falls from 38 percent to 35 percent.
The poll is a sign of why some prominent Republicans — like his longtime friend, Sen. Tim Scott — may want Gowdy in the race. Peak Insights has polled for Scott, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, as well as the NRSC and the Republican National Committee among many others.
Gowdy left the U.S. House in 2019 and now hosts a show on Fox News. Through a spokesperson, he said he “has not had any conversations about the open senate seat and does not have any interest in it.”
That hasn’t stopped Scott from pushing his longtime buddy to run. Scott advocated for Gowdy to be appointed to the vacant Senate seat after Lindsey Graham’s death, before South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster appointed Darline Graham to the seat. Scott announced last week he was recruiting Gowdy to run in the special election, before Graham announced she would run.
“I can’t think of a better person that I think best represents the heart of South Carolina than Trey Gowdy,” said Scott during a press conference Wednesday. “I’m trying to get him interested in it, but we’ll see if that works out at all.”
Scott and the NRSC have not yet issued an endorsement in the special election. Scott praised Graham during a Fox News interview Monday, saying she is “strong so far, calm under pressure, and really poised.”
The meeting came ahead of a markup planned for next week on AI policy and kids online safety measures…
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