“Lazy voters” and “election fraud” are the great myths that people take the self-pleasure in believing were the reason for the losses of their side. That way they can convince themselves that the policies of their side had nothing to do with how the opposition voted—or why their side did not vote.

The greatest motivator to vote is to have a clear target to vote against. The Republicans were exceptionally fortunate to have had H. Clinton and then Harris to vote against. But as bad as those two were, there were still thoughtful people who considered DJT to be even worse than his opponent and they therefore voted against him. An acquaintance was motivated by that reason to vote for Clinton despite how much he disliked her. And that was obviously true in 2020: “Biden? Yeah, Trump’s worse than he is.”

In 2026 the electorate again had a clear target to vote against: the policies and practices of the Trump administration. Anyone who actually believes that the people weren’t voting against him by proxy is … not very perceptive. There were of course exceptions. I personally voted Republican because I was voting against what I knew a Democrat victory across the board would—and will—mean. Far more of the ignorant, however, voted against DJT and his actions because they didn’t like their effects.

But why didn’t the nominal Republicans turn out? They too don’t like much of what the Democrats don’t like—or at least their dislike of things in general is greater than what they do like. Because most of them were too ignorant to realize that there was a clear target to vote against, and they didn’t want to support the things they don’t like, they just stayed home.

You know what would’ve been a terrific sales pitch? Save Congress because it’s been so important and effective. But this lazy and unproductive GOP Congress gave the base nothing to show up for. If anything, they constantly aggravated us.

The SAVE Act, the simplest idea in politics (prove you’re a citizen before you vote), passed the House not once but twice, then died in a Senate that wouldn’t touch the filibuster to save it. “We don’t have the votes,” shrugged Majority Leader John Thune. What can we do? The rest of the agenda went the same way.

For comparison, by midterm Election Day, Biden’s Congress, also a one-party trifecta and working with a 50-50 Senate, had passed 214 laws. Our flaccid group passed only 121, the second-thinnest record in 40 years, per Pew. (The Wednesday after Trump’s 2020 loss, I noted that Election Day shares initials with Erectile Dysfunction.)

Meanwhile, the House stayed out for nearly eight weeks during last fall’s shutdown, took a five-week August vacation, then canceled two more weeks in September to go campaign.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you can’t cry about how the republic is on the line and then take a recess. Voters noticed. They didn’t switch sides or rebuke anybody. They just stayed home. Why save this Congress? I did everything I could to prop them up, but the One Big Beautiful Bill was too long ago and not nearly enough.

Now it’s their last chance. They’ve got less than two lame-duck months to impress us with something. Well? I’m not holding my breath. Let’s see how well the filibuster works now.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com...rue&utm_medium=email

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I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you can’t cry about how the republic is on the line and then take a recess. Voters noticed. They didn’t switch sides or rebuke anybody. They just stayed home. Why save this Congress? I did everything I could to prop them up, but the One Big Beautiful Bill was too long ago and not nearly enough.

Read on X where the R voters did show up, the numbers for Abbot and overall in TX were up over the last mid term elections where the R won easily. However the D numbers are up by over a million and a half voters, the volume was more along the lines of a presidential election year.

But you are correct, everyone told the R vote they needed to show up in the numbers that were as if Trump was running, didn't happen for the R, but the D did and if you add in all the CA people that have moved to TX in the past years, it's changed the base level numbers for mid terms because of that.

The big concern is when the next spending bill comes up it will be loaded with pet projects for the D including reinstituting the NFA tax and some are saying it will be $1 just to make the NFA rules and laws apply, or, it will be adjusted for inflation making the $200 close to $5,000 per item.

Point being that Trump may have to compromise on things to get the spending bill done and keep the government open, letting the NFA fee come back will be a bargaining chip for that bill.

If I were Greg Abbot I’d be demanding an audit and forensic investigation into those numbers. I can see Texas turning blue gradually, but literally overnight? The entire state? Talarico got more votes than Paxton in just early voting. Yeah, I know, high prices, Paxtons a bad candidate, yada yada, but it seems statistically impossible for millions of people to come out of nowhere and overwhelm the state in one election.

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Originally posted by WKirk:

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Originally posted by tatortodd:

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Originally posted by sigspecops:
Wow! 20 million more votes for Democrats? Uh, something smells fishy about that number.

To be fair, Kamala was a shit candidate and thrust upon them after being lied to for a year that Biden was fine.

Balze's graph is comparing to the 2022 midterms, not the 2024 presidential election.

Oops, my bad.

Number of votes alone is only a partial metric. For example:

Wednesday, I first showed the increased number of registered voters in Texas (1.5 million voters between midterms; TX doesn't track R or D registration) and then showed the increased votes per office. Even showed how one candidate with a lot of baggage, Paxton, bled off 500k-700k votes compared to Gov, Lt. Gov, etc. who didn't have the baggage.

In 2024, if one just looked at increased Republican votes in Pennsylvania then you'd arrive at the erroneous assumption that Republicans cheated. When, you bring the increase in voter registration into picture you'll see the amazing work that people like Scott Pressler did. In 2015, Demonrats had nearly a 1 million registered voter advantage, but by the time of the 2024 election the Demonrat advantage was down to 191k. Add in a compelling message from Trump that resonated with voters and he carried PA by 120k votes.

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

Biden's excessive "stimulus" spending during a supply-limited economy spiked inflation. But once high inflation occurs, in most cases you can just get the inflation rate back down, you can't get prices back down where they were. People wanted prices to go back to pre-Biden levels, and that wasn't going to happen, especially not a two years.

Housing prices spiked due to high demand and low supply. Letting in millions of illegals increased demand, and for the most part democrat cities and states make it way too difficult to build new housing.

The Iran war caused oil prices to rise.

So the democrats caused much of the problem, and republicans couldn't fix it in two years, and in the case of oil prices made it worse. So now we go back to the democrats. They will do the same things they did under Biden and make the same problems worse.

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Originally posted by sigfreund:
“Lazy voters” and “election fraud” are the great myths

Maybe. Maybe not.

Who Registered 418,000 Texas Voters Since 2024? One voter for every two people

The Dems had a pretty clear plan to flip Texas, assemble a coalition of Hispanic voters, urban black voters and liberal suburban voters. It didn’t work in previous elections, but it did this time.

Liberal suburban voters tend to turn out in high numbers if they think there’s a chance they can win. Black and Latino voters need to be registered and from the look of things, the usual lefty voter turnout ‘non-profits’ were very busy registering legal or illegal voters.

A record 19 million Texans were registered to vote in Tuesday’s election, roughly 418,000 more than in 2024. A little more than half of them — 51.6% — cast ballots in the general election, according to preliminary data from the Texas Secretary of State’s office.

That’s up from 17,119,632 in 2022.

The 418,000 number is all the more impressive when you consider that the population of the state grew by only 391,243 people in one year.

Voter registration growth outpaced population growth in the year for which we have population figures for. Even using estimates, there was a growth of one voter for every two people That ain’t natural. But no one will be very surprised where those voters came from.

The biggest swings to Democrats came from majority-Hispanic counties in South Texas and along the border that went heavily for President Donald Trump in 2024, with Starr, Zapata, Maverick, Hidalgo and Webb counties each shifting upwards of 38 points toward Democrats.

Hidalgo County gained 50,000 voters. There were sizable increases in voter registration around Houston, Dallas and Austin.

Waller County picked up 22% new voters. Brazos County picked up 20,000 voters. Kaufman County in Dallas gained 25,000 voters. Danton County picked up over 81,000 voters. Hays County near Austin gained 35,740 voters.

Numbers like that aren’t natural. Neither was the outcome.

Frontpage Magazine

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Numbers like that aren’t natural. Neither was the outcome.

It's easier to cheat in areas already controlled by Democrats. They do the counting, and control the machines. If they "run up the score" in these areas, they can swing the entire state. The Dems learned that in Chicago a long time ago.