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Sarah Huckabee Sanders may not be the White House press secretary anymore, but when an opportunity for some Donald Trump image management presents itself, shes still got it. As the spread of the COVID-19 delta variant and rising caseloads coincides with stagnant vaccination rates and heightened concerns about health misinformation, the Arkansas candidate for governor put her platform to good use in an op-ed Sunday that urged people to get inoculated with the Trump vaccine.

The gubernatorial candidate highlighted how caseloads and hospitalizations are rising exponentially in the state shes running in, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, and cited data about the benefits of getting vaccinated, noting that if getting vaccinated was safe enough for [President Trump and his family], I felt it was safe enough for me. Sanderss persuasion tactics also brought in right-wing talking points politicizing the public health issue, such as through bashing Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Biden administration, as well as scorning liberal media outlets that did not give President Trump and his team the credit they are due.

On the downside, Sanderss rhetoric isnt exactly factual, and it will likely add to mistrust of the current administration. But it will likely resonate with her Republican base, many of whom may be resistant to the idea of getting the COVID vaccine. The urgent need for those holdouts to change their mind has necessitated a certain type of strategic communication. What [holdouts] dont want is to be indoctrinatedtheyre willing to be vaccinated, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie said on ABCs This Week Sunday, noting one of the places where our leaders have fallen down is theyre not explaining the facts to Republicans hesitant or completely unwilling to get the shot. These folks do not respond to being ordered to do those things, he said, noting its a libertarian type of response to perceived government overreach. You have to walk them through the logic of this, he said.

Some Republican officials are increasingly adopting that approach as parts of the party shift their messaging to promote the vaccine, including some lawmakers who have either actively or passively fueled vaccine reluctance, the Associated Press reports. After holding off on getting vaccinated for months, Rep. Steve Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, shared photos of himself receiving his first dose earlier this month and called it safe and effective. The Louisiana congressmans decision comes as his state, where only 36% of eligible residents are fully vaccinated, confronts a delta-fueled surge in hospitalizations and infections.

Even conservative leaders now are having a hard time figuring out how to rein in what had primarily been a propaganda campaign, and they are now realizing their constituencies are particularly vulnerable, Eric Ward, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told the AP. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida whose 2022 reelection campaign merch includes beer koozies that say Dont Fauci My Florida, recently noted that nearly all COVID-19 hospitalizations are among unvaccinated people and affirmed that these vaccines are saving lives. Theres been an overall shift in some corners of Fox Newsa network that has for months amplified misinformation and politicized the shots.

By now, though, it may be too little, too late. Once you are opposed, it is very hard to change that position. And thats whats happening right now, Republican pollster Frank Luntz told the AP. Some officials are now urging constituents to use common sense, as Alabama governor Kay Ivey did last week, though without indicating that shell impose new safety restrictions in her state. These folks are choosing a horrible lifestyle of self-inflicted pain, she said of unvaccinated people. I can encourage you to do something, but I cant make you take care of yourself. Republican Governor Chris Sununu of New Hampshire seemed similarly resigned to his states diminished vaccination rates, telling the AP that there are no new measures to encourage vaccination on the immediate horizon and its folks individual responsibility. If someone hasnt been vaccinated at this point, theyve made that conscious decision not to.

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The Republican Reckoning on COVID Vaccines Has Finally Arrived - Vanity Fair

Ten years ago, Republicans pulled off what would later be described as the most audacious political heist of modern times.

It wasnt particularly complicated. Every 10 years, the US constitution requires states to redraw the maps for both congressional and state legislative seats. The constitution entrusts state lawmakers with the power to draw those districts. Looking at the political map in 2010, Republicans realized that by winning just a few state legislative seats in places like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, they could draw maps that would be in place for the next decade, distorting them to guarantee Republican control for years to come.

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Republicans executed the plan, called Project Redmap, nearly perfectly and took control of 20 legislative bodies, including ones in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Then, Republicans set to work drawing maps that cemented their control on power for the next decade. Working behind closed doors, they were brazen in their efforts.

In Wisconsin, lawmakers signed secrecy agreements and then drew maps that were so rigged that Republicans could nearly hold on to a supermajority of seats with a minority of the vote. In Michigan, a Republican operative bragged about cramming Dem garbage into certain districts as they drew a congressional map that advantaged Republicans 9-5. In Ohio, GOP operatives worked secretly from a hotel room called the bunker, as they tweaked a congressional map that gave Republicans a 12-4 advantage. In North Carolina, a state lawmaker publicly said he was proposing a map that would elect 10 Republicans to Congress because he did not think it was possible to draw one that would elect 11.

This manipulation, called gerrymandering, debased and dishonored our democracy, Justice Elena Kagan would write years later. It allowed Republicans to carefully pick their voters, insulating them from the accountability that lies at the foundation of Americas democratic system. Now, the once-a-decade process is set to begin again in just a few weeks and Republicans are once again poised to dominate it. And this time around things could be even worse than they were a decade ago.

The redistricting cycle arrives at a moment when American democracy is already in peril. Republican lawmakers in states across the country, some of whom hold office because of gerrymandering, have enacted sweeping measures making it harder to vote. Republicans have blocked federal legislation that would outlaw partisan gerrymandering and strip state lawmakers of their authority to draw districts.

Advances in mapmaking technology have also made it easier to produce highly detailed maps very quickly, giving lawmakers a bigger menu of possibilities to choose from when they carve up a state. It makes it easier to tweak lines and to test maps to ensure that their projected results will hold throughout the decade.

Im very worried that well have several states, important states, with among the worst gerrymanders in American history, said Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a law professor at Harvard, who closely studies redistricting. Thats not good for democracy in those states.

In 2019, the supreme court said for the first time there was nothing federal courts could do to stop even the most excessive partisan gerrymandering, giving lawmakers a green light to be even more aggressive. And because of the supreme courts 2013 decision in the landmark Shelby County v Holder case, places with a history of voting discrimination will no longer have to get their maps approved by the federal government for the first time since 1965. Its a lack of oversight that could embolden lawmakers to attempt to draw districts that could dilute the influence of minority voters.

The gerrymandering clock is ticking. There is a consensus that Republicans could use the redistricting process to draw maps that will allow them to retake the House of Representatives in 2022. In state capitols where Republicans have control, there are already discussions about how aggressive lawmakers should be when they carve up districts for the next decade.

Texas, Georgia, Florida and North Carolina are all states where Republicans have complete control over the redistricting process and where experts are on high alert for GOP efforts to gerrymander districts. And even though Democrats are at a severe redistricting disadvantage overall, there are a handful of states Illinois, New York and Maryland where Democrats hold control of state government and can use that control to draw maps to their advantage.

Even though gerrymandering poses a uniquely dangerous threat to democracy, for decades, the process has largely gone under the radar. The mapmaking process is a complex, technical one, difficult to understand for average citizens. While some of the most egregiously gerrymandered districts are obviously contorted, it can be difficult to spot a gerrymander with the naked eye. And even if it were easy, lawmakers have largely taken the process behind closed doors, blocking the public from what they are seeing.

Thats set to change this year too.

Democrats and grassroots groups have spent the last few years educating citizens about the process and building up an army of volunteers across the country to closely monitor mapmaking. Part of that effort has been teaching people how to use publicly available technology to draw their own electoral maps.

Its an entirely new world than 10 years ago in terms of public mapping software. The capacity for the wide public to draw their own maps and identify their own communities, said Moon Duchin, a mathematician who leads the MGGG redistricting lab at Tufts University, which has built publicly available mapping tools.

Empowered with those maps, members of the public can better challenge lawmakers on their justification for drawing strange-looking maps, said William Desmond, a redistricting expert who advised Arizonas redistricting commission in 2010 and is working with Californias this year.

Members of the public and interested parties, theres going to be a lot more avenues open to them if they want to try their hand at drawing their own districts, he said. If they want to test the claims, like, OK you said you can only do this if you split these counties, lets see if I can take a whack at it. Theres lots more ways you can do it this time, and a lot higher level of quality.

Technology aside, theres also some hope that 2021 wont be a repeat of 2011, when Republicans dominated redistricting. While Republicans do have a huge advantage in drawing the districts, its not as severe as it was in 2011. In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, two of the most gerrymandered states a decade ago, Republicans still control the state legislatures, but now have Democratic governors who will be able to veto egregiously extreme maps.

Adam Kincaid, the director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, a GOP group focused on redistricting, downplayed the effects of Project Redmap.

Redmap has kind of taken on this mythos about what it was and what it was not. The reality was Redmap was a campaign to raise money to fund state legislative races around redistricting, he said. The best guardrails for gerrymandering have always been the American electorate. Shifting electorates break gerrymandering.

But critics argue that severe partisan gerrymandering prevents shifting electorates from being heard. In Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, Republicans have maintained a majority in the seats in the state legislature for the entire decade even as Democrats have won gubernatorial and other statewide races.

Kincaid agreed there would be significantly more public interest in the process this year than there had been in years past.

A decade ago the number of press calls I got could be counted on one hand. Really on one finger, he said.

Some states are also choosing to strip lawmakers of their ability to draw districts altogether. In Michigan, a group of novice organizers successfully passed a constitutional amendment in 2018 to put redistricting in the hands of an independent commission composed of four Democrats, four Republicans and five independents. The commission has strict partisan fairness requirements it must follow as it draws maps. Colorado and Virginia will also use commissions to draw districts this year, after voters approved ballot initiatives.

The gerrymandering last decade was so extreme that I think it has created this backlash. You see it in the reforms that have passed in a number of states. And you also see it in greater public awareness about gerrymandering, said Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice.

At the same time, he added, I think for Republicans they also learned that this actually does work. They actually can do this with micro-precision.

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Republicans poised to rig the next election by gerrymandering electoral maps - The Guardian

When a group of Texas Democratic legislators fled their state this month to prevent Republicans from enacting controversial voting restrictions, the incident became somewhat of a Rorschach test for lawmakers in Washington.

While Democrats praised the state legislators flight as a bold and righteous protest against voter suppression, Republicans mocked the group for trying to turn a joyride on private planes into a moral crusade.

But one thing seemed clear to members of both parties: the Texas Democrats abrupt departure was their last remaining option if they wanted to prevent or at least delay the passage of the voting restrictions in a state run by Republicans.

Across the US, state-level Democrats face similar power dynamics to Texas where Republicans control the governors mansion and both chambers of the state legislature. Republicans enjoy a similar legislative advantage in 22 other US states, which has forced Democrats in those states to get creative when it comes to pushing back against what they view as an increasingly radical conservative agenda.

State Democratic party leaders across the US said they felt inspired by the Texas legislators drastic action and that it showed what they could still do to resist the rise of rightwing power in red state America, despite being politically outgunned in their home states.

I dont think its an easy decision, but I think that the issue calls for this difficult action, said Raquel Tern, the chairwoman of the Arizona Democratic party. The lesson is that we are elected to fight for our communities to make sure that our stories are carried on in the state legislature, and we have to use our platform in any way, shape or form.

Chris England, a state legislator who serves as chairman of the Alabama Democratic party, agreed that the Texas Democrats flight was absolutely necessary.

When you dont have the numbers, youve got to use whatever tools you have at your disposal to make sure that youre fighting and protecting your constituency, England said.

Alabama Democrats are actually in a worse legislative position than their Texas counterparts. Republicans have a supermajority in the Alabama legislature, meaning they can form a quorum and advance legislation without any Democratic assistance. England and his colleagues have instead had to deploy other measures to push back against Republican bills.

When Alabama Republicans proposed their own set of voting restrictions earlier this year, Democrats launched a filibuster to try to block the bill from going into effect. The filibuster ultimately failed, but such tactics show Democrats commitment to protecting voting rights, England argued.

We generally use whatever tools we have, whether it be to engage in filibusters or try good-faith efforts to negotiate some of the worst parts of the bad bills out, England said. I guess the best way to put it is: we do the best we can to put lipstick on a pig.

Although their flight to DC has attracted the most attention, Texas Democrats say that their decision to leave the state is only one part of a multi-tiered strategy to resist Republicans legislative agenda.

It shows Texans that Democrats are fighting for them, said Luke Warford, the chief strategy officer of the Texas Democratic party. When it comes to electoral outcomes, that is going to translate into voters going to the polls and voting for people who they think have their backs.

In that sense, the Texas Democrats flight to DC fits into the partys longer-term efforts to flip more state legislative seats and eventually take the majority, giving them the power to block proposals like the voting restrictions that pushed them to leave Austin.

This is drawing national attention and national media and interest, and so its going to result in an increased amount of resources coming into the Democratic space in Texas, Warford said. I think that thats going to benefit the party and benefit candidates up and down the ballot.

But Warford argued that the ultimate response to Republicans efforts in the state legislatures lies in voter registration. The Texas Democratic party has launched an initiative called Project Texas, which targets 2 million eligible Texans who are not yet registered. The project is in a pilot phase right now, testing out the best methods for mass voter registration before it launches on a larger scale in 2022.

When you look at what has happened in the Texas legislature this year, the clearest takeaway is that Democrats need to win more elections, and voter registration is a critical piece of that pie for us, Warford said.

Arizona Democrats have pursued a similar strategy, launching a permanent statewide organizing program next month. Project 15/30, which references the 15 counties and 30 legislative districts in Arizona, is meant to help Democrats build year-round relationships with voters, with an eye toward eventually flipping control of the state legislature.

Democrats have come very close to that goal in Arizona, where Republicans hold two-seat majorities in both the House and the Senate. Arizona Democrats had hoped to take the majority with last years elections, but they fell short.

We cannot miss a beat from last election to this election, Tern said. Were ready. Were ready for next year. Nothings ever easy, but we are committed to engaging our Democratic base.

But for England, the goal of Democrats taking control of the state legislature is not all that realistic. In 2020, Donald Trump won Alabama by about 25 points, giving Democrats little hope of a blue wave sweeping the state.

For that reason, England believes that the most effective response to Republican voting restrictions is national legislation. During their time in Washington, Texas Democrats have similarly been pushing the Senate to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which remain stalled because of a Republican filibuster.

Every state that continues to propose restrictive legislation like that, it just becomes another example of why Congress needs to step in, England said. I think its obvious at this point that the only answer that we have in order to set a standard and stop the proliferation of these restrictive voting rights bills is for the federal government to step in and pass a law.

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We use what tools we have: Democrats take drastic action in bid to resist Republican rule - The Guardian

Elected Republican officials in a conservative Michigan county who gave themselves bonuses totalling $65,000 with federal Covid-19 relief funds said they would return the money following days of criticism.

The Shiawassee county commissioners acted after a prosecutor said the payments were illegal, the Argus-Press reported.

The Michigan state constitution bars additional compensation for elected officials after services had already been rendered, prosecutor Scott Koerner said.

The commissioners voted on 15 July to award themselves $65,000 as part of a plan to give $557,000 to 250 county employees as hazard pay for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

The smallest amounts for recipients were $1,000 to $2,000. But the chairman of the county board, Jeremy Root, got $25,000. Two commissioners received $10,000 each, while four received $5,000 each.

The vote was 6-0 with one commissioner absent.

The commissioners awarded money to other elected officials, including the prosecutor, the sheriff and the county clerk all Republicans too. They also said they would give it back.

Since these payments were made, confusion about the nature of these funds has run rampant, a statement said.

[We] deeply regret that this gesture has been misinterpreted, and have unanimously decided to voluntarily return the funds to the county, pending additional guidance from the state of Michigan.

One commissioner, Marlene Webster, insisted she had no idea she had voted to pay herself. She returned the money last week, posting a copy of the check on Facebook. She criticized the latest statement, saying there was no misinterpretation.

Thats an insult to the citizens of Shiawassee county, Webster said.

Two Michigan congressmen, a Democrat and a Republican, said federal virus aid was not intended to reward elected officials.

A judge set a hearing for Monday in a lawsuit aimed at rescinding bonuses for the officials, filed before the latest action.

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Michigan Republicans will return Covid relief funds used to pay own bonuses - The Guardian

PHOENIX Donald Trump came to Arizona over the weekend to praise Republicans in the state Senate for their insistence on an election audit. Now there are calls from some of those very same senators to shut the audit down.

Scottsdale State Senator Michelle Ugenti-Rita (R ) Scottsdale District 23 tweeted, it's become clear that the audit has been botched. The total lack of competence by @fannkfann over the last five months has deprived the voters of Arizona a comprehensive accounting of the 2020 election.

I would agree with that it's been botched, said State Senator Paul Boyer (R ) Phoenix-Glendale District 20.

Boyer said at the outset he supported the audit but he can't now. A comprehensive review, we were all fine with that. We just didn't think it would be done by a firm that didn't have a clue of what they were doing. That they were partisan with a preordained idea going into what they were going to come up with, Boyer said.

Cyber Ninjas, the company hired to do the audit, consistently fought attempts for an outside review of its ballot counts. Senate liaison Ken Bennett did it anyway, sending 24 boxes of machine-counted ballots to Larry Moore, the retired CEO of Clear Ballot an election technology company that does election audits.

We found of the 24 boxes that were sent, 20 had perfect matches, Moore said. In fact, Moore said the Cyber Ninja numbers and the counties matched 99.9% of the time. If you extrapolate that to the full 2,089,563 count, they would be off by 124 ballots, Moore said.

Bennett told azcentral.com he did the review out of curiosity but said it's premature to draw any conclusions from the sampling.

Still, it's a result that after Saturday's visit by Trump, the Cyber Ninjas and the Republicans pushing stop the steal probably didn't want to hear.

You don't like the third result, well go with the fourth result. When they don't like that, they'll come up with a fifth. Senator Boyer said. Again they are trying to come up with their own preconceived notion of what they want to come up with, they don't know what they're doing.

The auditors have said they should complete their work at the State Fairgrounds this week.

Late Monday afternoon the state Senate issued new subpoenas to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. The state Senate wants routers and other election data as well as the county's voter registration rolls.

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Some Republican state senators having second thoughts on election audit - ABC15 Arizona