What Went Down At The California Recall Election: Live Results

That point is really important, Amelia. We shouldn’t forget that Elder’s embrace of voter fraud myths was a pretty calculated move to increase his support. He said Biden won “fairly and squarely” and then changed his tune when he got blowback from the base. From the outside, telling voters an election is rigged seems like it should dissuade them from voting. But from the inside of the GOP electorate, it can be an indicator that this is someone worth voting for.

This question is fascinating to me because it’s about people’s ability to believe two contradictory ideas at once — that the election is rigged and that their participation matters. Accepting that an election is rigged should, logically, prompt people to tune out. But, of course, logic is not what drives politics, and repeating outrageous (if untrue) claims about election fraud probably does a pretty good job of stoking people’s outrage and — ironically — keeping them engaged that way.

Galen, Republicans will have more faith in the election results if they win. But I don’t think that’ll tell us whether they’ll be more confident going forward in cases when they lose. Based on the 2020 result, Republicans were far more confident in results when Trump won their state than when he didn’t. I am suspicious we’ll see more of the same going forward because of the consistent tendency to claim there’s fraud.