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A team of Democratic strategists has launched a new political action committee to help candidates fight potential GOP legal challenges to election results this November.
The Democracy Defenders PAC has formed in anticipation of Republican legal challenges to Democratic wins this November, NBC News reports. This comes after a wave of election denialism at both the federal and state levels during the 2020 election.
The PAC will be led by former president Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, Jim Messina.
“We are not messing around with this — too much is on the line and we’ve seen what Trump is capable of when he loses an election fair and square,” Messina said in a statement, per NBC News.
In 2020, Trump falsely claimed he won the presidential election and was cheated out of the White House due to voter fraud. This is untrue and there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud influencing the election.
After Trump repeatedly made this claim, thousands of his supporters stormed the US capitol on January 6, 2021, to interrupt lawmakers from confirming President Joe Biden’s legitimate win.
The former president is criminally charged in Fulton County, Georgia alongside his former attorney Rudy Giuliani and several others over election interference charges.
“We’re going to be stepping up and providing resources directly to state parties and allies on the ground to make sure every American can cast their vote with confidence and without interference,” Messina continued.
Since Trump left office, four secretaries of state said they’ve received death threats for carrying out their duties.
“Threats against elections officials in the United States of America is domestic terrorism. Terrorism is defined as a threat or violence for a political outcome. That’s what this is,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said in May.
Meanwhile, one in six election workers reported being threatened because of their job, according to a 2022 survey from the Brennan Center for Justice.
To combat this, the Cobb County, Georgia Board of Commissioners approved nearly $50,000 in funding toward panic buttons for election workers this November.
“There has been a trust with respect to this elemental aspect of government to ensure that people have the opportunity to vote,” Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid told The Independent earlier this month.
“Those that are responsible for that process feel a level of concern and possibly even threats that they have not felt in the past,” she continued. “It is pretty unfortunate.”
