Data Sources

At AEI, Karlyn Bowman and Samantha Goldstein have a report titled "The exit polls: A history and trends over time, 1972–2020."

Key Points

• Since the 1970s when they were first used nationally, exit polls have been an invaluable tool to understand voters’ views.
• In this report, we examine how more than 50 different groups of voters have voted in the past 13 presidential elections. To name a few groups, we look at men and women, married and not married voters, voters across various regions, and voters by age, race and ethnicity, religion, and partisan and ideological affiliation. 
• This AEI Public Opinion Study is a unique historical compilation and includes an interview with Joe Lenski, Edison Research’s cofounder and executive vice president, who discusses the challenges COVID-19 posed to the exit poll and the future of the consortium going forward.

 Read the PDF.

 

Updated: U.S. House Special Elections, 1957-Presenthttps://t.co/q5mmq1eQyO

— Greg Giroux (@greggiroux) January 12, 2022

From Decision Desk HQ:

• The folks at Daily Kos Elections have begun releasing their tables showing how much of the population of newly-drawn congressional districts comes from existing districts. As an example, they show the results of the redistricting process in Oregon, which added a sixth district.
• The trouble I have in picking a political email of the week is that there are so many to choose from. So this might sound like a cop-out, but this week I’m letting you choose. This is very much a work in progress, but here’s a searchable database of the political emails that I’ve been getting over the past few years, more than 103,000 so far

Insurrection, Fraud, and Force

Our book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.  Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  DOJ has charged the head of the Oath Keepers with seditious conspiracy.

Makes you wonder how there could 𝙣𝙤𝙩 have been a conspiracy or attempt by Trump or Eastman and others to "corruptly ... obstruct[], influence[], or impede[]" the electoral-vote count proceedings within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2). https://t.co/gKrrx3L080 https://t.co/MoMj3pBwZl

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) January 15, 2022

The forged electoral certificates show coordination across seven states. Those fake certificates were key to the plan of the Eastman memo and to the Jeffrey Clark DOJ draft letter to Georgia. The conspiracy involved fraud and force. At the head of the conspiracy: Donald Trump.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) January 15, 2022

In a CNN interview, a lawyer for the Oath Keeper does a very bad job:

Seditious Conspiracy

Our book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.  Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  

A January 13 release from the Department of Justice:

A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia returned an indictment yesterday, which was unsealed today, charging 11 defendants with seditious conspiracy and other charges for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, which disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress that was in the process of ascertaining and counting the electoral votes related to the presidential election.

According to court documents, Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, 56, of Granbury, Texas, who is the founder and leader of the Oath Keepers; and Edward Vallejo, 63, of Phoenix, Arizona, are being charged for the first time in connection with events leading up to and including Jan. 6. Rhodes was arrested this morning in Little Elm, Texas, and Vallejo was arrested this morning in Phoenix.

...

As alleged in the indictments, the Oath Keepers are a large but loosely organized collection of individuals, some of whom are associated with militias. Though the Oath Keepers will accept anyone as members, they explicitly focus on recruiting current and former military, law enforcement and first-responder personnel. Members and affiliates of the Oath Keepers were among the individuals and groups who forcibly entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The seditious conspiracy indictment alleges that, following the Nov. 3, 2020, presidential election, Rhodes conspired with his co-defendants and others to oppose by force the execution of the laws governing the transfer of presidential power by Jan. 20, 2021. Beginning in late December 2020, via encrypted and private communications applications, Rhodes and various co-conspirators coordinated and planned to travel to Washington, D.C., on or around Jan. 6, 2021, the date of the certification of the electoral college vote, the indictment alleges. Rhodes and several co-conspirators made plans to bring weapons to the area to support the operation. The co-conspirators then traveled across the country to the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area in early January 2021.

According to the seditious conspiracy indictment, the defendants conspired through a variety of manners and means, including: organizing into teams that were prepared and willing to use force and to transport firearms and ammunition into Washington, D.C.; recruiting members and affiliates to participate in the conspiracy; organizing trainings to teach and learn paramilitary combat tactics; bringing and contributing paramilitary gear, weapons and supplies – including knives, batons, camouflaged combat uniforms, tactical vests with plates, helmets, eye protection and radio equipment – to the Capitol grounds; breaching and attempting to take control of the Capitol grounds and building on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to prevent, hinder and delay the certification of the electoral college vote; using force against law enforcement officers while inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; continuing to plot, after Jan. 6, 2021, to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power, and using websites, social media, text messaging and encrypted messaging applications to communicate with co-conspirators and others.

On Jan. 6, 2021, a large crowd began to gather outside the Capitol perimeter as the Joint Session of Congress got under way at 1 p.m. Crowd members eventually forced their way through, up and over U.S. Capitol Police barricades and advanced to the building’s exterior façade. Shortly after 2 p.m., crowd members forced entry into the Capitol by breaking windows, ramming open doors, and assaulting Capitol police and other law enforcement officers. At about this time, according to the indictment, Rhodes entered the restricted area of the Capitol grounds and directed his followers to meet him at the Capitol.

At approximately 2:30 p.m., as detailed in the indictment, Hackett, Harrelson, Meggs, Moerschel and Watkins, and other Oath Keepers and affiliates – many wearing paramilitary clothing and patches with the Oath Keepers name, logo, and insignia – marched in a “stack” formation up the east steps of the Capitol, joined a mob, and made their way into the Capitol. Later, another group of Oath Keepers and associates, including James, Minuta, and Ulrich, formed a second “stack” and breached the Capitol grounds, marching from the west side to the east side of the Capitol building and up the east stairs and into the building.

While certain Oath Keepers members and affiliates breached the Capitol grounds and building, others remained stationed just outside of the city in quick reaction force (QRF) teams. According to the indictment, the QRF teams were prepared to rapidly transport firearms and other weapons into Washington, D.C., in support of operations aimed at using force to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power. The indictment alleges that the teams were coordinated, in part, by Caldwell and Vallejo.

 ...

In the one year since Jan. 6, more than 725 individuals have been arrested in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including over 225 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement. The investigation remains ongoing.


Attachment(s):
Download U.S v. Crowl et al.
Download U.S. v. Rhodes et al.
Download U.S. v. Walden

MTG Update

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.   Case in point: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Brad Reed at Raw Story:

While speaking with right-wing media personality Sebastian Gorka, Greene slammed Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams for her policies regarding both vaccines and gun rights.

Greene then pivoted to talking about how Americans are guaranteed the right to bear arms to resist such supposed tyranny.

"Ultimately the truth is it’s our Second Amendment rights, our right to bear arms, that protects Americans and give us the ability to defend ourselves from a tyrannical government," she said. "And I hate to use this language but Democrats, they’re exactly -- they’re doing exactly what our Founders talked about when they gave us the precious rights that we have.”

David Edwards at Raw Story:

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) asserted on Thursday that scientists have been wrong "since the beginning of time."

During an interview on Real America's Voice, Steve Bannon told Greene that Dr. Peter Hotez of the Baylor College of Medicine had criticized her and other conservatives for their campaign against Covid-19 vaccines.

Bannon asked Greene if she was responsible for "200,000 deaths" that could have been prevented if people were vaccinated.

"The only people responsible for deaths are the people that created Covid-19 and they should be held accountable," Greene replied.

Greene went on to refer to Hotez as "Mr. Bowtie, who calls himself a scientist."

"He thinks he's the authority of truth," she complained. "Here's the situation, scientists have been wrong over and over and over since the beginning of time. So just because he's a scientist doesn't mean he's right."

 

The Democratic Departure Lounge

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things,  it discusses congressional elections.

Reid Wilson at The Hill:

House Democrats facing an uphill fight to retain control of the lower chamber are finding their mission all the more imperiled by a wave of incumbents who have opted against seeking another term in Congress later this year, a troubling sign of pessimism from those who see an unappealing life in the minority ahead.

Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) this week became the 26th House Democrat to say he will not seek a new term in office this year. He is the 18th member to say he will quit politics outright, while another eight are running for another office.

Already, more Democrats have called it quits this year than in any cycle since 1996, when 29 members newly in the minority decided not to run again. The same number of Democrats, 29, retired in 1994, the year Republicans reclaimed control of Congress for the first time in four decades.

Registration Drives in the Midterm

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses congressional and state elections.  The 2021 off-year races were a curtain-raiser for the midterms -- and the stage was full of bad mojo for Democrats.

Blake Hounshell and Leah Askarinam report on Democratic midterm strategy:

The latest entry into the debate comes from Forward Majority, a Democratic-aligned super PAC focused on winning the sorts of state legislative races that are increasingly central in American politics.

In a provocative new “Blueprint for Power,” the group calls for a “radical departure” from the Democratic Party’s existing strategy, which has left Republicans in command of key state legislatures across the country.

“We need to claw our way back to power to prevent election subversion,” Vicky Hausman, founder and co-chief executive of Forward Majority, said in an interview, expressing a common fear on the left that in 2024 Republicans will use those statehouse majorities to steal the next presidential election. Forward Majority has identified nearly 2 million unregistered voters it sees as likely Democratic, largely in suburban areas that the group says are critical to winning those legislatures back.

The new data comes as Republicans have begun to outpace Democrats in voter registration in major swing states, including Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Worse for Democrats, the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the usual pathways that the party had used to bring in new voters: sign-ups at the Department of Motor Vehicles and face-to-face field work. And it comes as President Biden faces growing skepticism among African Americans over whether he has a formula to overcome voting restrictions pushed by G.O.P.-led state legislatures — the topic of a high-profile address that he plans to give on Tuesday in Atlanta.

An analysis by Catalist, a Democratic data firm, shows that in 2020, the Democrats’ traditional edge in voter registration shrank to nine percentage points in key states, down from a 19-percentage-point advantage over Republicans in 2009.

Forgery and Electors

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.

From the 6-page Eastman memo:

Because of these illegal actions by state and local election officials (and, in some cases,

judicial officials, the Trump electors in the above 6 states (plus in New Mexico) met on

December 14, cast their electoral votes, and transmitted those votes to the President of the

Senate (Vice President Pence). There are thus dual slates of electors from 7 states.

Nicholas Wu at Politico:

As Trump's team pushed its discredited voter fraud narrative, the National Archives received forged certificates of ascertainment declaring him and then-Vice President Mike Pence the winners of both Michigan and Arizona and their electors after the 2020 election. Public records requests show the secretaries of state for those states sent those certificates to the Jan. 6 panel, along with correspondence between the National Archives and state officials about the documents.

Spokespeople for the Michigan and Arizona secretaries of state declined to comment on the documents. The offices confirmed that Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, both Democrats, and their staff met with the panel in November.

“They mostly discussed election administration in Arizona, the 2020 elections, threats/harassment directed toward the office, and the Cyber Ninja’s partisan ballot review,” said Hobbs' spokesperson C. Murphy Hebert.

Benson and her staff took questions from the committee on the 2020 election and events leading up to the Jan. 6 riot, according to Tracy Wimmer, a spokesperson for Benson.

The National Archives sent emails to the Arizona secretary of state on Dec. 11, 2020, passing along the forged certificates “for your awareness” and informing the state officials the Archives would not accept them.

Arizona then took legal action against at least one of the groups who sent in the fake documents, sending a cease and desist letter to a pro-Trump "sovereign citizen" group telling them to stop using the state seal and referring the matter to the state attorney general.

“By affixing the state seal to documents containing false and misleading information about the results of Arizona’s November 3, 2020 General Election, you undermine the confidence in our democratic institutions,” Hobbs wrote to one of the pro-Trump groups.

That group’s leader, Lori Osiecki, had told the Arizona Republic in December 2020 that she decided to send in the certificates after taking part in post-election rallies and after attending a daylong meeting in Phoenix that had included Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.

The group that forged the Michigan certification had not used the state seal, and it appears state officials there took no further action after the Archives rejected it.