2018 Midterm Elections Thread.

[FaxModem1]

Looks like Ted Cruz found his line. Who knew he had one?

Politico

Ted Cruz: ‘Vote for the Democrat’ over the GOP Nazi
By NATASHA KORECKI 06/29/2018 08:14 PM EDT
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CHICAGO — Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz on Friday urged residents of a Chicago-area congressional district to vote for a Democrat if they must, to avoid giving even one vote to an avowed Nazi who won the GOP nomination.

Cruz’s comments, made on Twitter, came after a POLITICO story detailed the Illinois Republican Party’s failed efforts to oust Holocaust denier Arthur Jones from the ballot or offer up an alternative for Republican voters.

“This is horrific. An avowed Nazi running for Congress,” tweeted Cruz. “To the good people of Illinois, you have two reasonable choices: write in another candidate, or vote for the Democrat. This bigoted fool should receive ZERO votes.”


Ted Cruz
✔
@tedcruz

US Senate candidate, TX
This is horrific. An avowed Nazi running for Congress. To the good people of Illinois, you have two reasonable choices: write in another candidate, or vote for the Democrat. This bigoted fool should receive ZERO votes. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/ ... ans-686875 …

2:46 PM - Jun 29, 2018

‘I snookered them’: Illinois Nazi candidate creates GOP dumpster fire
Republicans fear blowback from Holocaust denier’s run for Congress.

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The tweet generated nearly 12,000 likes and 4,900 retweets by Friday evening.

Jones is running against Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski in a heavily Democratic district that includes portions of Chicago and the south suburbs.

This week, state Republicans let a deadline pass that would have allowed them to run someone as a third-party candidate to provide Republican voters with an alternative candidate to vote for. The GOP said the ballot requirements, including having to collect more than 14,000 signatures, was too burdensome and costly in a district Democrats dominate.

Instead, the party said it will seek to draft a write-in candidate for the general election.

Arthur Jones is pictured. | AP Photo
‘I snookered them’: Illinois Nazi candidate creates GOP dumpster fire
By NATASHA KORECKI
Republicans missed several chances, including in the primary, to challenge Jones or oust him from the ballot. The party failed to recruit a candidate to challenge him in the March primary where he went unopposed, did not draft a write-in candidate in the primary, and failed to knock him off the ballot by challenging his signature petitions.

Jones celebrated his role in sidelining Republicans, telling POLITICO this week: “I snookered them.”

[The Romulan Republic]

I think we're going to be finding out where a lot of peoples' lines are, and who has no lines at all.

[FireNexus]

Ted Cruz is going to reverse on that in an instant if it looks like the Nazi might win, if history is any indication.

[The Romulan Republic]

Ted Cruz is going to reverse on that in an instant if it looks like the Nazi might win, if history is any indication.

Probably.

Another thing we're going to find out is who will stand their ground no matter what, and who will shift with the winds.

[FireNexus]

Probably.

Another thing we're going to find out is who will stand their ground no matter what, and who will shift with the winds.

We found that out two years ago to now. The former was basically only Bill Kristol. Which... I didn’t figure he’d be the one honest man in the GOP, but I have been really enjoying watching a 60-year-old man slowly undergoing essentially the same identity crisis I did from 2005-2007.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, I think that at this point anyone who's still R... might have some lines they're not willing to cross, maybe, but are clearly willing to tolerate/rationalize some pretty awful shit. Or are utterly ignorant of politics and just vote for the team without thinking about it, but even that's getting harder to buy, because some of Trump's worst shit has been very well-publicized.

So, to be Republican now, you have to basically be okay with associating with (and thereby at least tacitly condoning and supporting) a fascistic organization, or you have to be a conspiracy theorist living behind a truly frightening level of self-delusion about what Trump is and what he's doing.

[Knife]

The fact that you think a person's personal record doesn't matter, and that we should make political decisions based only on broad labels and what "team" someone belongs to, is the problem here. This is the very antithesis of responsible voting.

Yes, when you're a party leader, it matters both what your positions are and what you party positions are.

And yes, I'm aware that I have applied a similar argument to Republicans- that anyone who supports them or is a member of the party is culpable. But the Republicans and the Democrats are NOT the same, regardless of how many people think it wise to pretend that they are. The Democratic Party is not virtually lock-step behind a cult of the leader bent on destroying basic democratic, legal, and international norms. The Republican Party is.

Yes the GOP and Dems are not the same except they are a party, and those parties have xyz goals. You can differ with your party but if you're a leader of you're party, that becomes harder since as a leader you can affect the goal.

I suppose your position would make sense if you regarded the Democratic Party, top to bottom, as a fundamentally and intrinsically corrupt organization. I don't, and I don't think you do, either. I regard it as a deeply flawed organization, but not homogenously so or beyond salvaging. In that case, one must apply a scalpel, not a sledge-hammer.

Here is the actual problem.

There are Democratic voters who are part of the party, and can be broken up into camp A, camp B, and etc.... but that's only 40% of the voter base. The rest is 'independent' voters. Not all independent voters are the same. It's not a monolithic voting block. Some thing the Dems are too liberal, some think it's to conservative.

Now you can do a crosstype with the GOP and their 'unistep'. But I'd suggest their need for a unified position is more indicative of authoritarianism than an actual unity of position. Those are the ones Dems should be trying to pick off. Are you a Nazi? No? Try the Dems.

And only the Dems due to the US's stupid two party system.

Lets be frank. The Democratic party isn't an awesome thing right now, it's just better than Trump and the shitty authoritarian GOP.

Between Dems and Nazi GOP, there is only one answer. That said, it's not like we should NOT hold the DEMS to a very high standard in primaries.

[bilateralrope]

Ocasio-Cortez with another surprise election win - in a district she wasn't even running in

Things are going so well for insurgent Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that she’s winning primaries she didn’t even enter.

In addition to recently whipping longtime Queens Rep. Joseph Crowley in the 14th congressional district Democratic primary, Ocasio-Cortez also won the Reform Party write-in primary over Bronx Rep. Jose Serrano in the neighboring 15th congressional district.

Neither she nor Serrano were competing for the line.

Still, the city Board of Elections certified Ocasio-Cortez’s write-in victory on Tuesday. Of the 22 people who received write-in votes, Ocasio-Cortez got the most with nine.

While write-in votes are not unusual, someone actually winning a race she wasn’t running for is.

But having won it, Ocasio-Cortez had to decline one of the nominations she won since state law bars individuals from being candidates for two different offices at the same time.

Ocasio-Cortez, after the Daily News reported her surprising win online Tuesday evening, said she’d be rejecting the Reform Party line in the Serrano district.

“Shockingly — and I’m told this is not a joke — we have ALSO won a primary in the neighboring 15th Congressional District via write-in campaign on the Reform line!,” she tweeted. “While I am honored that so many Bronxites are excited about our campaign, I will remain the Dem nominee for NY-14.”

Ocasio-Cortez will face off against Republican Anthony Pappas, a St. John’s University professor.

You know someone is doing well when they win two different primaries at the same time.

[The Romulan Republic]

Heh.

I'm glad that it kept her name in the news, and gave her the opportunity to say that she will remain a Democratic nominee. It helps to draw the distinction between progressive/socialist democrats (who we badly need more of), and destructive Bernie-or-Bust/third party types.

And as distasteful as demographic-based politics may be, I think that, as a female, Latina Leftist candidate, Ocasio-Cortez can, just by existing on the national stage, help bridge the divide that emerged in the Democratic Party during the primary in 2016, and counter the false perception that Leftist/"anti-establishment" Democrats are all just "Bernie Bros"/angry white men.

In short, while past experience has taught me to be wary of charismatic political newcomers, everything so far suggests that Ocasio-Cortez is exactly the kind of candidate that the Democrats need more of.

[houser2112]

Part of me wishes she'd take the write-in position so that the guy she primaried in the other district could get the nomination, since he seems like a strong candidate.

[The Romulan Republic]

Part of me wishes she'd take the write-in position so that the guy she primaried in the other district could get the nomination, since he seems like a strong candidate.

I disagree.

While the guy she primaried did sound like a strong candidate, and would not have been my first choice for primarying from the Left, Ocasion-Cortez is the sort of politician the Democratic Party needs to mobilize the base.

I also think that her running third party would further fuel divisions in the party and lead to more "Bernie-or-Bust"-type sentiment- divisions that we absolutely cannot afford right now.

I'm not terribly worried about her losing. This is a pretty safe blue district IIRC- if a genuine democratic socialist candidate can't win there, then where?

[houser2112]

I said that not because I'm afraid that she'd lose the race she was nominated for, but because I'm afraid that whomever the Democrats put up in the district she won as a write-in candidate (if anybody) would lose. Instead of one weak and one strong, we have two strong.

[The Romulan Republic]

I said that not because I'm afraid that she'd lose the race she was nominated for, but because I'm afraid that whomever the Democrats put up in the district she won as a write-in candidate (if anybody) would lose. Instead of one weak and one strong, we have two strong.

Oh I see. That's an interesting point, but it would be a very odd district where a third party candidate (even a popular one) had a better shot than the Democrat. I'm not saying its impossible (see Bernie winning as an independent in Vermont, for example), but it would only be a viable option in certain districts, I think. I'm not sufficiently familiar with the district in question to say whether that would be the case.

And her running third party would still have encouraged more progressives to ditch the Democrats in other races, and would thus be a net loss, in my opinion.

[The Romulan Republic]

Just a reminder: there is a special election tonight for Ohio's 12th. Congressional district. This will be the last big race before the midterms, in a district which Trump won by double digits but which is now neck and neck, so it could be something of an indicator of whether the Blue Wave has staying power going into the midterms. Trump dropped by recently to campaign for the Republican candidate.

I'll be posting results as soon as I see them, provided its before nine o'clock (I'm on a public library computer).

Edit: Its particularly notable because the Dems. just lost a special Congressional election in Texas quite badly (although this was a hard right district, so not a huge shock): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... ct-27.html

[Knife]

Too close to call and will come down to provisional ballets. I do believe the GOPer is up 1700 votes, to high for an automatic recount and they don't count the provisional for 10 days, or that's what's being reported.

[The Romulan Republic]

A big factor is going to be the overseas/absentee vote from what I hear. I actually slightly know a guy in the local Democrats Abroad chapter who's an overseas Ohio voter, though I'm not sure what district- I'd be interested in hearing his take on it.

Its likely going to be a razor-thin Republican win, though its just possible that the overseas vote could flip it (it tends to be a more left-wing demographic). Or, failing that, at least make it close enough to warrant a recount. I expect we're going to be getting a lot of these razor-close races this November- expect to have no idea who controls the House and Senate on election night.

How bad a loss here will be for the Democrats depends on how its perceived. If its taken as a sign that the Blue Wave has run out of steam, if Republicans are energized while Democrats conclude that they can't win and stay home, it'll obviously be very, very bad. But there's no actual grounds for such a pessimistic assessment. Trump won this district by 11 points- that's not as big a gap as some others Democrats have overcome in special elections in the last two years IIRC, but its a pretty big shift. The take away here should not be "we're screwed"- it should be "Its going to be close, every vote counts, so don't get overconfident, and make sure you damn well vote."

I'm on the Democratic Party's email list, so here's the message DNC chair Tom Perez sent out today (followed by a request for donations):

"OH-12 wasn't supposed to be competitive -- but last night proved Democrats can close the gap anywhere, even in the reddest districts.

Now, the mere fact that this race is this close is good news for Democrats. Trump won this district by 11 points in 2016, and it hasn't been represented by a Democrat in Congress for nearly four decades. If we're keeping it this close in this district now, it's a good sign for our chances across the country this November.

There are dozens of seats on the line in November that are major red-to-blue opportunities -- and more than 60 Republican-held congressional districts currently rate more competitive for Democrats than OH-12. No matter what the outcome is in OH-12, we've proved we can compete and fight for every vote in every one of those districts -- as long as we have the resources."

[The Romulan Republic]

Some unambiguously good news from last night:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/08/politics ... index.html

(CNN) - Rashida Tlaib will likely be the first Muslim woman elected to Congress after CNN has projected her to win the Democratic primary in Michigan's 13 District.

Tlaib, who beat a crowded field of Democrats to win Tuesday's primary, will not face a Republican opponent in November's general election. She can still be opposed by a write-in candidate, but would be the overwhelming favorite in the deeply Democratic district.

"The winner of tonight's primary will with the election," Andy Goddeeris, Tlaib's campaign manager, said on Tuesday. "No doubt about it."

The congressional seat had been held by former Rep. John Conyers before he resigned in December amid allegations of sexual harassment.

Tlaib, the eldest daughter of Palestinian immigrants, was one of more than 90 American Muslims running for office this year.

"Its not about just being out there and flaunting our faith," Tlaib told CNN last month. "I always tell people that I'm exposing Islam in such a pivotal way, an impactful way, through public service."

In 2008, Tlaib became the first Muslim woman ever to serve in Michigan's state legislature.

"Rashida is the perfect example of how to hustle and win the right way, not just for Muslims or Arabs, but for anyone who ever felt the system was too stacked against them and had no place for a face like theirs," said Zaki Barzinji, the White House liaison to American Muslims under former President Barack Obama.

"She may be the first Muslim congresswoman, but she just opened the door for millions of Rashidas to follow. As a Muslim and Arab father of a 9-month-old baby girl, I've never felt more hopeful about my daughter's future."

Hoda Hawa, director of policy and advocacy at the Muslim Public Affairs Council, likewise celebrated Tlaib's historic win.

"We are thrilled for Rashida's monumental victory last night and what this means for American Muslims in the political and civic process and what it means for America's new leadership," Hawa said.

In the 13th District race, Tlaib beat out much of Detroit's Democratic establishment, running to the left of Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones and other Democratic candidates. She was endorsed by the party's progressive wing, including Justice for Democrats, the group that backed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her upset win in New York in June.

"Rashida sees a lot of herself in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez," Goddeeris told CNN last month. "We feel like we are part of this wave that's coming: unapologetically progressive people who are unafraid of taking on the Democratic establishment."

Like many Democratic candidates, Tlaib has been critical of President Donald Trump, referring to his election as the "bat signal" that provoked many progressive women to run for office.

Two years ago, she was arrested for disrupting a Trump speech in downtown Detroit, where she shouted at him that "our kids deserve better" and encouraged him to read the Constitution.

Tlaib is also running against Jones in a primary for the special election in the district, and the winner will serve from November until the beginning of the next Congress. CNN has not yet called the results for that race. The general election primary Tlaib won is for the full two-year term that begins next January.

So it turns out that the progressive revolution isn't dead by a long shot. And since its women of color leading the charge, the old line about it just being a bunch of misogynist Bernie Bros doesn't hold water. Hell, at this rate, in another election cycle or two, we might actually be able to get a socialist caucus going in the US Congress.

The times, they are a-changing.

This is the future of the Democratic Party, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Also, points for the Batman reference.

[houser2112]

Good news indeed.

[The Romulan Republic]

An eleven year old hacks a replica of the Florida state voting site in less than ten minutes.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/an- ... 10-minutes

An 11-year-old boy on Friday was able to hack into a replica of the Florida state election website and change voting results found there in under 10 minutes during the world's largest yearly hacking convention, DEFCON 26, organizers of the event said.

Thousands of adult hackers attend the convention annually, while this year a group of children attempted to hack 13 imitation websites linked to voting in presidential battleground states.

The boy, who was identified by DEFCON officials as Emmett Brewer, accessed a replica of the Florida secretary of state's website. He was one of about 50 children between the ages of 8 and 16 who were taking part in the so-called "DEFCON Voting Machine Hacking Village," a portion of which allowed kids the chance to manipulate party names, candidate names and vote count totals.

Nico Sell, the co-founder of the non-profit r00tz Asylum, which teaches children how to become hackers and helped organize the event, said an 11-year-old girl also managed to make changes to the same Florida replica website in about 15 minutes, tripling the number of votes found there.

Sell said more than 30 children hacked a variety of other similar state replica websites in under a half hour.

"These are very accurate replicas of all of the sites," Sell told the PBS NewsHour on Sunday. "These things should not be easy enough for an 8-year-old kid to hack within 30 minutes, it's negligent for us as a society.

Sell said the idea for the event began last year, after adult hackers were able to access similar voting sites in less than five minutes.

"So this year we decided to bring the voting village to the kids as well," she said.

In a statement regarding the event, the National Association of Secretaries of State said it is "ready to work with civic-minded members of the DEFCON community wanting to become part of a proactive team effort to secure our elections." But the organization expressed skepticism over the hackers' abilities to access the actual state websites.

"It would be extremely difficult to replicate these systems since many states utilize unique networks and custom-built databases with new and updated security protocols," it read. "While it is undeniable websites are vulnerable to hackers, election night reporting websites are only used to publish preliminary, unofficial results for the public and the media. The sites are not connected to vote counting equipment and could never change actual election results."

But Sell said the exercise the children took part in demonstrates the level of security vulnerabilities found in the U.S. election system.

"To me that statement says that the secretaries of states are not taking this seriously. Although it's not the real voting results it's the results that get released to the public. And that could cause complete chaos," she said. "The site may be a replica but the vulnerabilities that these kids were exploiting were not replicas, they're the real thing."

"I think the general public does not understand how large a threat this is, and how serious a situation that we're in right now with our democracy," she said.

Matt Blaze, a professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania who helped organize the "hacking village," said that thousands of adults including voting security experts also tried to access voting machines and other voting software currently being used in U.S. elections to become "more knowledgeable about voter technology."

He also noted that the children who participated in their own challenge last week were dealing with replicas that were in many cases created to be even more formidable to access than the actual websites used by secretaries of states across the nation.

"Its' not surprising that these precocious, bright kids would be able to do it because the websites that are on the internet are vulnerable, we know they are vulnerable," he said. "What was interesting is just how utterly quickly they were able to do it."

To be clear, he wasn't able to change actual votes, but the results displayed on the site- raising concern about hackers changing who the sites say won, sowing confusion and distrust about the results on election day. This could in turn provide fodder for claims that the election was rigged by the losing side, further undermine trust in democracy and the legitimacy of the government, and provide pretexts for further voter suppression laws under the pretext of "preventing voter fraud".

Worst case scenario, it could lead to riots or Trump using the confusion to declare results he doesn't like invalid.

[The Romulan Republic]

More primaries last night. The big stories are the defeat of Joe Arpaio in the Republican Senate primary in Arizona (for Jeff Flake's seat), and the victory of Andrew Gillum in the Democratic Governor primary in Florida.

As to Arpaio, some might think this a set-back for the Democrats, on the basis that Arpaio would be easy to beat. Personally, I remember how Trump was supposed to be "easy to beat" too, and while all the options in the Arizona primary are various shades of Trumper IIRC, I am just as glad that a man who ran concentration camps for Latinos and was pardoned by Trump for contempt of court will not be a candidate for the Senate.

Gillum, meanwhile, is a Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez-backed progressive who according to Ocasio-Cortez's Facebook page supports universal Medicare, legalized Marijuana, and abolishing ICE. If elected, he will also be the first black governor of Florida.

I'll be watching this race closely, as it will to my knowledge be the first real test of whether a Sanders-backed progressive can win a general election at the statewide level in a more conservative/swing state- which in turn has potential significant implications for the future viability of the progressive movement on a national scale, and the future direction of the Democratic Party and the Left in America.

[Knife]

More primaries last night. The big stories are the defeat of Joe Arpaio in the Republican Senate primary in Arizona (for Jeff Flake's seat), and the victory of Andrew Gillum in the Democratic Governor primary in Florida.

As to Arpaio, some might think this a set-back for the Democrats, on the basis that Arpaio would be easy to beat. Personally, I remember how Trump was supposed to be "easy to beat" too, and while all the options in the Arizona primary are various shades of Trumper IIRC, I am just as glad that a man who ran concentration camps for Latinos and was pardoned by Trump for contempt of court will not be a candidate for the Senate.

Gillum, meanwhile, is a Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez-backed progressive who according to Ocasio-Cortez's Facebook page supports universal Medicare, legalized Marijuana, and abolishing ICE. If elected, he will also be the first black governor of Florida.

I'll be watching this race closely, as it will to my knowledge be the first real test of whether a Sanders-backed progressive can win a general election at the statewide level in a more conservative/swing state- which in turn has potential significant implications for the future viability of the progressive movement on a national scale, and the future direction of the Democratic Party and the Left in America.

It should be noted that how he won was a huge spike in primary voters came out in Florida and he got the bigger share. A virtual groundswell of voters came out and wanted a progressive in Florida.

[madd0ct0r]

More primaries last night. The big stories are the defeat of Joe Arpaio in the Republican Senate primary in Arizona (for Jeff Flake's seat), and the victory of Andrew Gillum in the Democratic Governor primary in Florida.

As to Arpaio, some might think this a set-back for the Democrats, on the basis that Arpaio would be easy to beat. Personally, I remember how Trump was supposed to be "easy to beat" too, and while all the options in the Arizona primary are various shades of Trumper IIRC, I am just as glad that a man who ran concentration camps for Latinos and was pardoned by Trump for contempt of court will not be a candidate for the Senate.

Gillum, meanwhile, is a Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez-backed progressive who according to Ocasio-Cortez's Facebook page supports universal Medicare, legalized Marijuana, and abolishing ICE. If elected, he will also be the first black governor of Florida.

I'll be watching this race closely, as it will to my knowledge be the first real test of whether a Sanders-backed progressive can win a general election at the statewide level in a more conservative/swing state- which in turn has potential significant implications for the future viability of the progressive movement on a national scale, and the future direction of the Democratic Party and the Left in America.

It should be noted that how he won was a huge spike in primary voters came out in Florida and he got the bigger share. A virtual groundswell of voters came out and wanted a progressive in Florida.

non-retired people in Florida are getting worried about how wet their feet are getting.

[Gandalf]

As to Arpaio, some might think this a set-back for the Democrats, on the basis that Arpaio would be easy to beat. Personally, I remember how Trump was supposed to be "easy to beat" too, and while all the options in the Arizona primary are various shades of Trumper IIRC, I am just as glad that a man who ran concentration camps for Latinos and was pardoned by Trump for contempt of court will not be a candidate for the Senate.

He was. The Democrats just voted for a less than ideal candidate, who ran a shit campaign and then had a lack of people turn up to vote for them.

[The Romulan Republic]

More primaries last night. The big stories are the defeat of Joe Arpaio in the Republican Senate primary in Arizona (for Jeff Flake's seat), and the victory of Andrew Gillum in the Democratic Governor primary in Florida.

As to Arpaio, some might think this a set-back for the Democrats, on the basis that Arpaio would be easy to beat. Personally, I remember how Trump was supposed to be "easy to beat" too, and while all the options in the Arizona primary are various shades of Trumper IIRC, I am just as glad that a man who ran concentration camps for Latinos and was pardoned by Trump for contempt of court will not be a candidate for the Senate.

Gillum, meanwhile, is a Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez-backed progressive who according to Ocasio-Cortez's Facebook page supports universal Medicare, legalized Marijuana, and abolishing ICE. If elected, he will also be the first black governor of Florida.

I'll be watching this race closely, as it will to my knowledge be the first real test of whether a Sanders-backed progressive can win a general election at the statewide level in a more conservative/swing state- which in turn has potential significant implications for the future viability of the progressive movement on a national scale, and the future direction of the Democratic Party and the Left in America.

It should be noted that how he won was a huge spike in primary voters came out in Florida and he got the bigger share. A virtual groundswell of voters came out and wanted a progressive in Florida.

Hopefully that is indicative of a similar groundswell in the general. A Bernie-endorsed progressive winning the single largest (and often closest) swing state would be a very difficult thing for even the most die-hard Centrists of the old guard to ignore.

The fact that its more people of color leading the progressive movement now also reinforces the fact that no, its not just a bunch of angry white "Bernie Bros" who want a real Left-wing party in this country.

As to Arpaio, some might think this a set-back for the Democrats, on the basis that Arpaio would be easy to beat. Personally, I remember how Trump was supposed to be "easy to beat" too, and while all the options in the Arizona primary are various shades of Trumper IIRC, I am just as glad that a man who ran concentration camps for Latinos and was pardoned by Trump for contempt of court will not be a candidate for the Senate.

He was. The Democrats just voted for a less than ideal candidate, who ran a shit campaign and then had a lack of people turn up to vote for them.

Maybe, but my point is, you don't know what's going to happen. Sure, you can say "Arpaio would be the easiest to beat"... but what if he won?

[The Romulan Republic]

If anyone else here is a US citizen in Canada sending in a ballot by mail, you might want to mail it before the weekend, as Canada Post will be striking starting Monday.