Tag Archives: battleground states

How Trump Beat the Margin of Theft

By J Robert Smith

  • Nov. 7, 2024
  • 2-min read

How many of us expected the trouncing that President-elect Donald Trump administered to Kamala Harris? Okay, so the trends were good leading up to Trump’s win, but not many people foresaw the excrement-kicking Trump dealt Kamala. Trump is only the second president in history who’ll serve nonconsecutive terms – Grover Cleveland is the other. For presidential history buffs, that’s remarkable. But Trump is more than Cleveland could ever imagine on multiple levels. He’s had to run a gauntlet of biblical dimensions. He’s withstood malicious prosecutions, two assassination attempts, a corporate media and Democrats who never missed an opportunity to slander him as Hitler or a would-be dictator. If you don’t think there’s a God, think again.

Long before Tuesday’s elections, the consensus among conservatives and Trump backers was that for Trump to win, he’d have to “beat the cheat” – or perform better than the “margin of theft.” If you look at the totals and Trump’s margins of victory in the battleground states, his margins were tight, except for Arizona, where, at this writing, he enjoys about a five percent margin between Harris and himself. If Trump failed to perform better than the margin of theft but still won a resounding victory, how did he accomplish that?

Here are four reasons to consider:

1. In the aftermath of the highly suspect Biden victory in 2020, conservative alternative media and citizen journalists made the rigged 2020 election an unrelenting focus. The information, data, and analyses generated by these cadres spread to audiences throughout the country.
2. Such effective jobs were done in reaching audiences that a third or better of the public were convinced that cheating impacted the outcome of the Biden-Trump contest.
3. In many, though not all, battleground states, efforts were made by governors and state legislatures to reform election laws aimed at tightening ballot security. Lawsuits were filed as required. Georgia suffered the loss of the 2021 MLB All-Star game because of election reforms passed by the Georgia legislature.
4. The 2024 Trump campaign, and then the Republican National Committee (RNC), under the leadership of Lara Trump and Michael Whatley, dedicated resources to deploy an army of election watchers and lawyers to aggressively challenge any irregularities encountered. Grassroots groups weighed in, too. Thousands of eyes watching elections in swing states made it clear that election officials and workers would be held civilly and criminally liable for wrongdoing.

What Happened to Biden’s 2020 Voters?

Take a look at this bar-graph from zerohedge comparing presidential vote totals from 2012 through 2024. The outlier, as anyone can see, is Biden’s 2020 total. This certainly doesn’t prove cheating but it does raise the question: “Where did Biden’s voters go?”

Where did Biden’s voters vanish to this election? Or did they really ever exist?

J. Robert Smith is a regular contributor to American Thinker.

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How Dark Money Could Harm Trump in 2024

By J Robert Smith

  • Nov. 21, 2023
  • 2-min read

Pennsylvania just had off-year elections. They weren’t for high-profile offices. That made them un-sexy. But the results of those contests offer clear warning shots for Trump and Republicans in 2024.

A state supreme court seat was filled along slews of lesser judgeships. County offices and school boards in some places were filled, too.

The Democrats did well, too well. Much of that is attributable to “dark money.” That’s money from sources where the donors are generally anonymous. Dark money involves a lot of big dollar contributors (as in multimillionaires and billionaires) giving huge chunks of cash to national groups who, in turn, target contests in states. The money is used not only to boost Democrat – most often “progressive” – candidates, but to run negative campaigns against Republicans.

This November in Pennsylvania, dark money made significant differences in contests that most voters pay scant attention to. Yet, the mostly local offices targeted serve as building blocks for bigger offices. They’re foundational, so critical in their ways.

If Trump and Republicans aren’t fretting now about what dark money means in statewide and larger district races in 2024 (legislative, governorships, attorneys general, secretaries of state, state treasurers, Congress, and last but hardly least, the presidency), they better start fretting and figuring out ways to raise money to counter this onslaught of rich progressives across the country … accomplished people who don’t hesitate to stroke big checks that are funneled through progressive groups to win elections.

To that end, it’s best to read Matthew Brouillette’s article at Real Clear Wire, Democrat’s National Dark Money Machine Dominates PA Elections.

Even if you don’t live in PA or give much of a damn about what happens there, what is happening there is happening – or will happen – in your state.

Here’s one pull from Brouillette’s piece that sums up the danger. In the statewide contest for a seat on the PA Supreme Court:

The media howls about outside money or individual Pennsylvanians engaging on behalf of Republicans but largely turns a blind eye to special interests bankrolling Democrats. With final spending reports still coming in, nearly 95% of McCaffery’s [pro-abortion Democrat nominee] funding came from unions, trial lawyers, other special interests, and dark-money groups.

Dark money, along with tactics (put charitably) to identify and harvest ballots, made the difference in battleground states in 2020. Trump lost those states – including Pennsylvania – by razor thin margins.

History can repeat itself if Trump and Republicans fail to fully appreciate the dark money threat and put in place strong countermeasures today.

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