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Donald Trumps January 2021 coup attempt failed to overturn the election; but Trump has succeeded in transforming the GOP into an ever more radicalized party that rewards extremism, and punishes, or even banishes, those members who fail to support ever more audacious attacks on democracy and the nations electoral process.

The Republican Party is now institutionally oriented to work towards the anti-democratic aims of its charismatic leader, Trump.

As the one-year anniversary of the Capitol insurrection approaches, we are only beginning to gain a picture of the full scope of what can now fairly be described as a coup scheme, intended to void the outcome of a presidential election. The scheme was encouraged, if not planned, by the White House, with Trumps chief-of-staff Mark Meadows serving as field general for the putsch, and encouraging the pursuit of various extreme proposals and bizarre conspiracy theories from a range of co-conspirators, including members of Congress as well as state legislators and freelance neo-fascists such as Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, and John Eastman.

It is essential that Congress Jan. 6 committee, as well as the Justice Department and other law enforcement agencies, continue to seek out every relevant item of evidence regarding this effort to take down the nations democracy, and identify the role of each of the schemers. The evidence may well establish that individuals, potentially including Trump himself, are guilty of federal crimes arising from the putsch scheme, such as obstruction of the congressional electoral vote counting proceedings.

Yet regardless of what additional facts the congressional and law enforcement investigations establish, we already know that Trump has succeeded in a broader goal of transforming the Republican Party into a vehicle for ever more radical and extreme attacks on the democratic foundations of the nation. His success is reflected in the fact that Trump no longer needs to tell followers inside and outside of government to play their parts in undermining democracythey now take the initiative to anticipate Trumps desire for extreme actions and act upon them.

Historian Ian Kershaw famously described the Third Reichs operating principle as working towards the Fhrer. Party members anticipated the steps its leader wanted, particularly attacks on political opponents and undesirables like Jews, and frequently took them without being asked. Over time, it became clear that those who pursued the most radical, and often violent, steps to serve the party would be met with approbation, while those who hesitated would be met with disfavor or worse.

While Trump is, of course, no Hitler, he and his acolytes have used a similar reward-and-punishment dynamic to relentlessly move the GOP towards a dynamic of ever greater extremism, in which adherence to legal and moral norms is viewed as intolerable weakness.

During 2016, Trumps most devoted acolyte, his namesake son, responded to news that the Russian government was illicitly aiding his fathers presidential campaign by exclaiming I love it in an email, and arranging a meeting in the hope of getting dirt on Hillary Clinton from Russia. In early 2021, after Trump lost the election, Meadows likewise responded to fellow extremists plans to undermine the electoral vote count by replacing duly designated electors with Trump shills by, likewise, declaring I love it.

We do not know if Trump expressly blessed either scheme beforehand, but it is clear that both Don Jr. and Meadows understood that they would risk Trumps ire if they failed to pursue the most extreme attacks on American laws and democratic norms available in Trumps name.

The GOPs dynamic of rewarding extremism, and penalizing restraint, has only strengthened since Trump lost the election. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy disavowed his initial support for an investigation of Jan. 6, and ultimately supported the sanctioning of Liz Cheney for participating in the Congressional inquiry into the coup attempt. Cheney and fellow Jan. 6 committee member Adam Kinzinger are now facing a call for their expulsion from the GOP caucus from prominent party activists and institutions that are now singularly dependent on Trump, such as Matt Schlapp and the Club for Growth, as virtually all of their House colleagues cower in silence. Meanwhile, McCarthy, recognizing that his hope to be elected Speaker depends on maintaining the support of Trumps most radical allies, gives free license to members like Paul Gosar, who recently disclosed evidence establishes was an active participant in the coup effort and who recently joked about murdering a House colleague.

At the state level, the impetus within the GOP to work towards Trump is likewise even more powerful than it was during the weeks following the election. Trumps now-infamous call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, demanding that he find additional votes for Trump, failed to induce Raffensperger to corrupt the election, and Trumps rejection of the election results likely contributed to the runoff losses of both GOP incumbent senatorscosting Republicans control of the senate.

Yet during the succeeding months, Trumps relentless attacks on Raffensperger and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp have induced other Republicans to join in attacking the two for not undoing the outcome of the 2020 election, and to induce opponents who share Trumps extremist agenda to plan primary challenges against them, making radicalism the norm in the party.

The story is the same in many other states, including Wisconsin, where a GOP legislative leader has responded to Trumps loss there by attacking the states bipartisan election commission (including a commissioner he appointed), while some Wisconsin Republican leaders, including Sen. Ron Johnson, are calling for what amounts to a GOP takeover of the administration of elections in the state. In Arizona, an audit that confirmed Trumps loss has nonetheless served as a rallying cry for efforts to undermine voting rights in that state and others. Across the country, people who claim the 2020 election was stolen by Biden are running to take control of the local election machinery to ensure that the next election can be stolen by Trump.

While they rarely direct these actions, Trump and his acolytes have praised these extremists while often threatening retaliation against party members who question such a radical approach.

A case in point is Michigan, where Trump supporters have demanded an Arizona-style audit of the election, despite the fact that a GOP-sponsored probe found no evidence of election fraud. A group of Trump supporters, some of them members of the state legislature, have commenced a campaign to intimidate state party leaders to support this audit, as a sign of support for Trump, declaring that their effort is the first step in a revolution against the electoral system.

This brings us back to Jan. 6. Trumps address to a crowd of supporters that day came after a presidential term in which he openly praised neo-Nazi rioters, encouraged gun-wielding protesters to go to state capitals to liberate them from COVID restrictions, and wielded a Bible in front of a church after a crowd of protesters had been cleared for him by a violent police and National Guard attack. It followed weeks during which Trump himself had waged a relentless campaign to delegitimize the results of the election, commencing even before it was held and using every legal and political lever that he could to get himself reinstalled against the will of the people.

The former president claims that he didnt tell the crowd that gathered for his speech on Jan. 6 to attack the Capitol, but virtually all of the people who did believed they were acting in his interests, and had every reason to believe that their attack would meet with his approbation.

Indeed, evidence that has come to light during recent months has only added further support for their belief. Trump has confirmed that he was wholly unconcerned with Pences safety during the insurrection, and failed even to call him as the siege proceeded. We are also now learning that Trump ignored entreaties from legislators inside the Capitol, and even from Don Jr., and Sean Hannity, to call off his supporters siege, as only he could have done.

It is also becoming increasingly clear that, as the siege proceeded, Trumps acolytes, including Rudy Giuliani, and (as reported by The Daily Beast) possibly Peter Navarro, may well have been employing the disruption in the proceedings as an the opportunity to attempt to encourage more legislators to vote against certificationor to at least to delay it until they could engineer the naming of replacement electors.

We now know that in the weeks before Jan. 6, a group of legislators had been working hand-in-glove with Meadows and other Trump allies to implement the coup scheme. Most GOP members of Congress had not joined the scheme. But the insurrection contributed to making more of them more pliant Trump allies. Freshman GOP Rep. Peter Meijer has recounted that, in the immediate wake of the insurrection, a number of his colleagues who had planned to vote in favor of certifying Bidens election reversed course, some out of fear for their own lives.

Since that time, most GOP politicians have routinely endorsed, or at least chosen not to oppose, the extreme attacks on democracy and the electoral system that have become core tenets of the GOP. As I have previously discussed, appeals to an extremist base are now such a central element of the partys political strategy that GOP leaders fear losing support if they dont support conspiracism and anti-democracy. For example, during a recent Minnesota GOP senate debate, all five of the candidates resisted acknowledging that Biden had won the 2020 election.

Even Trump himself has found that his power as a leader of an extremist movement depends on his own reliably continuous appeals to extremism. This was starkly evident last week when Trump himself faced criticism from some of his most fervent followers for acknowledging that the COVID vaccine saves lives, and admitting that he received a booster dose.

In short, extremism is Trumps calling card, and the force that fuels his movement. Accordingly, whether or not Trump ordered the insurrection, he clearly chose to allow it to continue by his silence, likely because Trump believed the attack on the Capitol served his own ends. And during the months that have followed, GOP activists encouraged by Trump have normalized the goals and even the tactics of the insurrectionistswho are now frequently described by Trumpist Republicans as harmless tourists, or patriots.

The party is working towards Trump.

Originally posted here:
Jan. 6 Was Just the Start of Radicalizing Trump's Republican Party - The Daily Beast

Rep. Devin NunesDevin Gerald Nunes Rep. Mike Turner to replace Nunes in top House Intel spot Members of Congress not running for reelection in 2022 Lowenthal becomes latest House Democrat to not seek reelection MORE (R-Calif.) formally resigned from Congress on Monday, as the California Republicandeparts to run former President TrumpDonald TrumpCheney cites testimony that Ivanka asked Trump to 'please stop this violence' on Jan. 6 McCarthy says Democrats using Jan. 6 as 'partisan political weapon' Biden, Harris to speak on anniversary of Capitol insurrection MORE's new media and technology company.

Nuness resignation letter was read aloud on the House floor during a pro forma session on Monday. It is set to take effect at 11:59 p.m. today.

The honorable, the speaker, House of Representatives, madam, I write to inform you that I have notified California Gov. Gavin NewsomGavin NewsomChicago's 797 homicides in 2021 highest in 25 years, most of any US city 2021's top political celebrity moments Year that broke the recall? Why COVID led to recalls flopping nationwide MORE of my resignation from the U.S. House of Representatives effective today at 11:59 p.m. the letter reads.

It has been the honor of my life to represent the people of Californias San Joaquin Valley for the last 19 years, the letter adds.

GOP Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) officially resigns from Congress to become CEO of former President Trumps media company. pic.twitter.com/h45SjLxIu0

Rep. Debbie DingellDeborah (Debbie) Ann DingellLawmakers in both parties to launch new push on Violence Against Women Act Michigan adopts congressional map that pits two incumbent Democrats against each other House Republican, Democrat say political environment on Capitol Hill is 'toxic' MORE (D-Mich.), who was presiding over the House at the time, then announced that with Nuness resignation the whole number of the House is 433.

In addition to Nuness seat, late Rep. Alcee HastingsAlcee (Judge) Lamar Hastings2021 was another good year for women running for election Carrie Meek, former Florida congresswoman, dies at 95 Florida officials certify 5-vote victory in primary for Alcee Hastings' seat MOREs (D-Fla.) remains vacant following his death in April.

The Chair announced that in light of the resignation of the gentleman from California, Rep. Nunes, the Whole Number of the House is 433.

Nunes announced last month that he was resigning from Congress to become the CEO of Trumps new company, the Trump Media & Technology Group. The company is advertising itself as an alternative to Big Tech.

Nuness plan to depart the House was a shock to many in Washington, as the California Republican was poised to become the chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee if Republicans win control of the House in Novembers midterm elections.

The congressman in his announcement said he was "presented with a new opportunity to fight for the most important issues I believe in.

The news further illustrated Trumps continued influence in the Republican Party, despite his reelection defeat in 2020.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthyKevin McCarthyMcCarthy says Democrats using Jan. 6 as 'partisan political weapon' GOP rep says Republicans have 'no other option' than to back Trump Rep. Mike Turner to replace Nunes in top House Intel spot MORE (R-Calif.) announced last week that Rep. Mike TurnerMichael Ray TurnerSunday shows preview: Omicron surge continues; anniversary of Jan. 6 attack approaches Rep. Mike Turner to replace Nunes in top House Intel spot The Memo: Biden, bruised by Afghanistan, faces a critical test in Ukraine MORE (R-Ohio) will replace Nunes as ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Nunes served in Congress for 10 terms before resigning. California'sredistricting process may have played a role in his decision to leave the House, as an initial proposed map had him shifting from a fairly safe Republican-leaning district to one where Democrats have the advantage.

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Nunes formally resigns from Congress | TheHill - The Hill

2021 was the year that Americas democracy came under attack from within.

Donald Trumps effort to overturn the election results, an endeavor that culminated in the 6 January assault on the Capitol, ultimately failed. But the lies the former president spread about fraud and the integrity of the 2020 results have stuck around in a dangerous way. False claims about the election have moved to the center of the Republican party.

Republican lawmakers have seized on the fears created by those baseless claims and weaponized them into new laws that make it harder to vote. Between January and October, 19 states enacted 33 laws to restrict voting access, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

But Republicans havent stopped there. There is now a concerted effort to take more partisan control of election administration. Trump is supporting election deniers in their efforts to take control of key offices that control the rules of elections and counting of ballots. That effort has elevated fears that Trump is laying the groundwork for another coup in 2024, when supporters in those roles could help overturn the election results.

All these actions are taking place against the backdrop of the once-per-decade redistricting process, which Republicans dominate in many states. Republicans are taking full advantage of that power, drawing districts that will entrench their control of state legislatures and win congressional seats for the next decade.

Joe Biden has described this attack as the most significant test of our democracy since the civil war. But Democrats in the US Senate have been unable to pass two bills with significant voting rights protections. Whether Biden and Senate Democrats can find a way to get those bills through Congress looms as a major test of his presidency.

Here are the ways that voting rights emerged as the most important story in American politics in 2021:

When state legislatures convened at the start of 2021, many moved quickly to enact new laws making it harder to cast a ballot. Many of these new measures targeted voting by mail, which a record number of Americans used in 2020.

One of the most high profile battles was in Georgia, a state Trump targeted with baseless claims of fraud after a surprising loss to Biden there. Republicans enacted a law that requires voters to provide additional identification information on both absentee ballot request forms and the ballot itself. They also restricted the availability of absentee ballot drop boxes, a popular method of returning ballots in 2020. The law also criminalized providing food and water to people standing in line within 150ft of a polling place.

In Florida, Republicans enacted a new law that also restricts the availability of ballot drop boxes, imposes new rules around third-party registration groups, and requires voters to more frequently request absentee ballots.

The fight over new voting restrictions exploded in July, when Democrats in the Texas legislature fled the state for several weeks, denying Republicans the quorum they needed to pass new voting restrictions. Republicans eventually succeeded in passing a law that banned 24-hour voting, established regular citizenship checks for voter rolls, made it harder to assist voters, and empowered partisan poll watchers.

A staggering number of Americans continue to deny the results of the 2020 election. A September CNN poll found 36% of Americans do not believe Biden was the legitimate winner of the election.

Trump has fed that disbelief by continuing to make claims of irregularities that have already been debunked. Republicans in several states continue to call for the decertification of elections, something that is legally impossible.

Republicans in some places have gone even further, authorizing unusual post-election inquiries into election results.

The most high-profile of those reviews was in Arizona, where Republicans hired a firm with no election experience, called Cyber Ninjas, to examine all 2.1m votes cast in Maricopa county, the most populous in the state. That monthslong effort, which included a hand count of every single ballot, was widely criticized by election experts, who noted that the firm had shoddy methodology and its leader had embraced conspiracy theories about the election. Ultimately, the Cyber Ninjas effort affirmed Bidens win in Maricopa county.

Republicans elsewhere have embraced similar reviews. In Wisconsin, Republicans in the legislature have hired a former Republican supreme court justice to examine the election, but that effort has been marked by sloppiness and accusations of partisan bias.

This is a grift, to be clear, Matt Masterson, a former top official at the Department of Homeland Security, who works on election administration, said in December.

These efforts have been coupled with an even more alarming effort in Republican legislatures to empower lawmakers to alter election results. Lawmakers in seven states, including Michigan, Arizona, Missouri and Nevada, introduced 10 bills this year that would empower them to override or change election results, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Some of the bills would allow partisan lawmakers to outright reject election results, while others would allow for post-election meddling in the vote count.

Over the last year, theres been a surge in election administrators who have left their positions because of threats and harassment. Experts are deeply concerned about that exodus and say that it could make room for more inexperienced, partisan workers to take over the running of elections. Ben Ginsberg, a longtime Republican election lawyer, said earlier this month the effort was an attempt to take election administration from the pros and give it to the pols.

Trump has endorsed several candidates who have embraced the myth of a stolen election to be the secretary of state, the chief election official, in many states. So far, hes made endorsements in GOP primaries in Michigan, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada all swing states that could play a determinative role in 2024.

At the start of each decade, state lawmakers across the US draw new congressional and state legislative districts. In 2020, Republicans dominated the down-ballot races that determine who gets to control the redistricting process. And this year, theyve used their power remarkably powerfully.

In Texas, where 95% of the states population growth was from non-white people, Republicans drew maps blunting the political power of minorities. They drew no new majority-minority districts, instead giving Republicans an advantage at winning the states two new congressional seats. Republicans have also moved to shore up their advantage in politically competitive states like North Carolina, Ohio and Georgia. Democrats are gerrymandering the states where they have power, like Illinois and Maryland, but control the redistricting process in far fewer places than Republicans do.

These rigged districts will insulate Republicans from threats to their political power for the next decade.

One of the biggest frustrations of the first year of Bidens presidency has been that Democrats have not been able to pass two crucial pieces of voting rights legislation through Congress. One bill would set a minimum of access across the country, guaranteeing things like 15 days of early voting, as well as prohibiting partisan gerrymandering. The second bill would re-establish a critical piece of the 1965 Voting Rights Act requiring states where there is repeated evidence of voting discrimination to get voting changes approved by the federal government before they go into effect.

There is growing frustration that Biden has not pushed hard enough to get rid of the filibuster, which Republicans have relied on to stall those bills. Democrats have pledged to find a way around the filibuster next year.

Original post:
Democracy under attack: how Republicans led the effort to make it harder to vote - The Guardian

Nashville will bid to host both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions for the upcoming 2024 election cycle.

Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. CEO Butch Spyridon said Monday it will bid on both conventions at the "request of and support from the Governor's Office."

"The NCVCs primary role is to book convention business for Nashville without bias," Spyridon said in an emailed statement. "We work daily with clients to book conventions and with individuals who want assistance in recruiting meetings and events. Its not appropriate for the NCVC to pick and choose which groups get to meet in Nashville."

NCVC confirmed Monday it submitted a response to the Republican National Committee's request for proposals on Dec. 8, andrequested an RFP from the Democratic National Committee on Nov. 2.

Weve got a lot to show off in Tennessee and are always willing to play host," Casey Black, Lee's press secretary, said in an email Monday. "Wed be glad to welcome either partys convention to Nashville.

Tennessee Republicans in 2017courted RNC officials for early consideration for the 2020 convention, but Nashville ultimately decided not to proceed in 2018.In 2020, Nashville was in the mix as the RNC scrambled to find a last-minute host city amid a stand-off with North Carolina over restrictions amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Major convention events, slated to move to Jacksonville, Florida, were later canceled.

As RNC leaders planned to visit Nashville, some city leaders expressed concerns over cost and safety as the searchfor a new location occurred just months into the pandemic on a short timeline. A spokesperson for Mayor John Cooper said the city had no plans to use its "limited public funds" to recruit the convention at the time.

Cooper's office has not yet returned request for comment regarding the 2024 conventions.

RNC: Republican National Convention could give Nashville's economy a major boost. But risks loom.

Political conventions are mammoth undertakings for host cities, which must be able to accommodate thousands in appropriate meeting spaces and hotel rooms. Philadelphia, host of the 2016 Democratic National Convention, estimated 50,000 visitors descended on the city, which also drew thousands for political demonstrations.

Economic researchers in Ohio, where the 2016 Republican convention was hosted in Cleveland, found the convention resulted in $142 to $188 million in economic impact for the city, depending on the study. Organizers spent more than $110 million, WKYC reported in 2017.

Reach Melissa Brown at mabrown@tennessean.com.

Want to read more stories like this? A subscription to one of ourTennessee publicationsgets you unlimited access to all the latest politics news, podcasts like Grand Divisions, plus newsletters, a personalized mobile experience and the ability to tap into stories, photos and videos from throughout the USA TODAY Network's daily sites.

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Nashville will bid to host 2024 Republican, Democratic National Conventions - Tennessean

RICHMOND, Va. On a December afternoon, Winsome Sears, Virginias lieutenant governor-elect, stood at the podium in the State Senate chamber where she will soon preside. It was empty but for a few clerks and staffers who were walking her through a practice session, making pretend motions and points of order. Ms. Sears followed along as the clerks explained arcane Senate protocols, though she occasionally raised matters that werent in the script.

What if theyre making a ruckus? Ms. Sears asked her tutors.

Then, a clerk said, pointing to the giant wooden gavel at Ms. Searss right hand, you bang that. Ms. Sears smiled.

That she was standing here at all was an improbability built upon unlikelihoods. Her campaign was a long shot, late in starting, skimpily funded and repeatedly overhauled. The political trajectory that preceded it was hardly more auspicious: She appeared on the scene 20 years ago, winning a legislative seat in an upset, but after one term and a quixotic bid for Congress, disappeared from electoral politics. She briefly surfaced in 2018, announcing a write-in protest against Virginias Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, but this earned her little beyond a few curious mentions in the press.

Yet just three years later she is the lieutenant governor-elect, having bested two veteran lawmakers for the Republican nomination and become the first Black woman elected to statewide office in Virginia history. She will take office on Jan. 15, along with Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin.

The focus on Ms. Searss triumph, in news profiles and in the post-election crowing of conservative pundits, has been on the rare combination of her biography and politics: a Black woman, an immigrant and an emphatically conservative, Trump-boosting Republican.

The message is important, Ms. Sears, 57, said over a lunch of Jamaican oxtail with her transition team at a restaurant near the State Capitol. But the messenger is equally important.

This is the question that Ms. Sears embodies: whether she is a singular figure who won a surprise victory or the vanguard of a major political realignment, dissolving longtime realities of race and partisan identification. Democrats say there is little evidence for the latter, and that Ms. Sears won with typical Republican voters in an especially Republican year. But Ms. Sears insists that many Black and immigrant voters naturally side with Republicans on a variety of issues and that some are starting to realize that.

The only way to change things is to win elections, she said. And who better to help make that change but me? I look like the strategy.

Ms. Sears dates her own partisan epiphany to her early 20s. She already had plenty of life experience by that point: moving at the age of 6 from Jamaica to the Bronx to be with her father, who had come seeking work; joining the Marines as a lost teenager and learning to be a diesel mechanic; becoming a single mother at 21. When she listened to the 1988 presidential campaign, hearing the debates over abortion and welfare, she realized, to her surprise, that she was a Republican.

More than a dozen years passed before Ms. Sears, then a married mother of three who had run a homeless shelter and gone to graduate school, began her political career. At the urging of local Republicans, she ran in 2001 for the House of Delegates in a majority Black district in Norfolk. The seat had been held by Billy Robinson Jr., a Democrat, for 20 years; his father had held it before him. Weeks before the election, Mr. Robinson spent a night in jail on a contempt of court charge. Ms. Sears won in the surprise of the election season.

In the Legislature, she adjusted to the political architecture and her unusual place in it: joining, then leaving, the legislative Black caucus; voting dependably as a Republican but calling earlier than many colleagues for the resignation of the Republican House speaker when news broke of his sexual harassment settlement.

She did not run for re-election, instead launching an underdog campaign against Democratic U.S. Representative Bobby Scott. Mr. Scott returned to Congress, where he remains, and the House of Delegates seat returned to Democratic hands for good. Ms. Sears was done with politics, she said.

Her family moved to the small city of Winchester in the Shenandoah Valley, where Ms. Sears and her husband ran a plumbing and electrical repair shop. She held a few posts on the state board of education and on a committee at the Department of Veterans Affairs and wrote a book, Stop Being a Christian Wimp! Much of her focus was on caring for a daughter struggling with mental illness. In 2012, the daughter, DeJon Williams, was killed in a car accident along with her two young children.

While Ms. Sears was absent from politics, Barack Obama won the presidency, Trayvon Martin was killed, the Black Lives Matter movement rose up, Donald Trump was elected and neo-Nazis marched on Charlottesville, Va. Ms. Searss political example, as a Black woman Republican representing a majority Black district in Virginia, went unrepeated.

Republicans, she said, rarely even tried to sever the old ties between Black voters and the Democratic Party. This is partly why she decided to run this year.

I just took a look at the field, and said, My God, were gonna lose again, she said. Nobody was going to reach out to the various communities that needed to be heard from: women, immigrants, you know, Latinos, Asians, Blacks, etc.

She stood to the right of much of the field and was arguably the furthest right of the three Republicans nominated for statewide office. She favors strict limits on abortion, calling Democratic abortion policies wicked; she is an advocate of vouchers to help students pay for private school tuition and of tighter restrictions on voting; and she insists that gun control laws do not deter crime gun ownership does. A photo that went viral last spring, showing her holding an AR-15 while wearing a blazer-and-dress outfit suitable for a Chamber of Commerce luncheon, propelled her as much as anything to the Republican nomination.

Ms. Sears derides the left as too concerned with race but often explains her politics as rooted in Black history, stressing Marcus Garveys rhetoric on self-reliance as a Jamaican immigrant in Jim Crow America, emphasizing that Harriet Tubman carried a gun and referring to the infamous Tuskegee experiments in explaining her opposition to Covid-19 vaccine mandates. If the Democrats are always going to talk about race, then lets talk about it, she said.

She rejects the notion that the problems Republicans have attracting Black voters might run deeper than mere neglect. She was angered when Republicans nominated Corey Stewart, who had a history of associating with Neo-Confederates, for the 2018 U.S. Senate race in Virginia. But she said this didnt give her qualms about the party. She remains a champion of Mr. Trump, who openly endorsed Mr. Stewart; indeed, she was the national chairwoman of a group called Black Americans to Re-elect the President.

Jennifer McClellan, a Democratic state senator from Richmond, agreed that Democrats could not assume that Black people would show up for them at the polls, saying that Black voters, like any voters, choose candidates based on who they believe is going to help solve their problems. But, she continued, little that Ms. Sears has said suggests she would be that person in office.

The vast majority of Black voters disagree with her on abortion, on school choice, on guns, Ms. McClellan said. Those arent necessarily the issues driving Black voters anyway. Its the economy, its health care, its broader access to education.

The evidence that this years elections scrambled the fundamentals of race and partisanship is mixed at most. If anything, some Republicans worried that Ms. Searss hard-right politics might jeopardize the campaign strategy of appealing to more moderate voters. This risk was largely mitigated, said John Fredericks, a conservative radio host, by the fact that Ms. Searss general election campaign, which he called a train wreck from start to finish, never raised enough money to really broadcast her politics.

In any case, the attention was overwhelmingly directed to the top of the ticket.

The election this year was all about the gubernatorial candidates, said Stephen Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington. There were few big surprises in the exit polls, several political experts said, and Ms. Sears won her race by a margin that would have been expected of just about any Republican this year.

But there were some warning signs for Democrats, outlined in a postelection survey by the Democratic Governors Association. While Black Virginians overwhelmingly voted for Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee for governor, the analysis found a drop in Democratic support among Black men, compared with the 2020 presidential election. There was notable erosion in Democratic support among Asian and Latino voters as well.

We dont need to be tied or beholden to one particular party, said Wes Bellamy, a Black political activist and a former vice mayor of Charlottesville. He will be watching Ms. Sears closely, he said.

Lieutenant governors in Virginia are fairly limited in their responsibilities, but they have a public profile and they almost always run for governor. If Ms. Sears advocates for policies that improve the day-to-day lives of Black people and, more crucially, if she can persuade her Republican colleagues to go along, Mr. Bellamy said, I think shes gold.

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I Look Like the Strategy: Winsome Sears Wants Black Voters to Rethink the G.O.P. - The New York Times