The final balloting of the 2018 election—and the first of 2020—has begun in North Carolina, where actual, real Republican ballot fraud invalidated last November's results. In that race, Democrat Dan McCready appeared to have been narrowly defeated by fewer than 1,000 votes, but the scheme cooked up by his opponent Mark Harris and his team to steal the election was exposed and Harris went away. The next Republican to step up was state Sen. Dan Bishop, infamous for sponsoring the disastrous "bathroom bill" that cost the state millions in boycotts.
Given the very reason for this do-over election—Republican fraud—it's remarkably ironic but not at all surprising that Donald Trump stood on a stage in Fayetteville Monday night and how there is "a lot of illegal voting going on" in California. Because of course he did. "You go to California, which has so many sanctuary cities. They don't know what’s happening out there,” Trump said. "You have people that want to get rid of those sanctuary cities. They just aren't able to do it with the people that get elected. A lot of illegal voting going on out there, by the way."
His crowd, being his crowd, ate it up. The big question for today though is if he was able to gin up enthusiasm for Bishop outside that rally. So far in the early voting, there's an enthusiasm gap that definitely favors McCready. Republicans run the risk of boosting that anti-Trump enthusiasm by having him come in. That's a gamble national and state Republicans decided they had to make, turning this election into a referendum on Trump. That would make it so much sweeter for McCready to win.
But we won't know until tonight. The liveblogging of the ballot counting by the DK Elections team will start when polls close at 7:30 PM EDT. In the meantime, you can still help get out the vote either in person or virtually.
Volunteer to help GOTV either on the ground or virtually to get McCready over the finish line. And to keep Trump and Republicans running scared.