in addition to the mayor s race in los angeles a couple of congressional races. here is the question, david valadao voted to impeach donald trump last year, will he hold on to second place in this 22nd district in california the central valley. if valadao can hold on to second place to set up a general election matchup between him and state legislature rudy salas. if not, valadao would be done. he would be out of office after this election. he wouldn t make it to the general election if one of these republicans have been campaigning against his vote on impeaching trump could catch him. not a ton of votes. not a ton of votes cast. maybe not a ton of votes left in this district. but still valadao has to wrap up second place to get to the general election. that would be tough for him, too. outstanding piece of business, national republicans badly want young kim freshman congresswoman to advance to the general election. she would face mahmood.
election. so the challenge for the democrats is very stark. they have to stop looking at races where local election boards, secretaries of state as boring, unsexy content. right now they still are. the donor base doesn t get it. they re giving money to these shiny object races instead of giving money to places like run for something horribly underfunded, terrific organization, trying to support candidates for secretaries of state and local election boards and having a lot of trouble raising money. democrats still don t get it that this is where the rubber meets the road if they want to save democracy, they have to invest in these races that relate to the election machinery. john allen, your thoughts on whether or not president trump, former president trump, is going to run in 2024? what could he possibly be
truly telling the story, letting the american people realize the gravity of what hung in the balance on january 6th. and let them realize people realize that there was a singular actor in donald trump that was responsible for this and should he arrive on the scene again as a nominee for the republican party, then a political judgment can be made in 24 by the american people. jonathan alter, speaking of donald trump, what about his influence on the republican primaries and the general election come november, how do you see the january 6th hearings impacting voters on that singular issue? because it seems from most of the republican races that i ve been tracking in the primaries so far, nobody is out here running as a never trumper. they re either running as a trump idealog.
and i would suggest in terms of political influence i don t think it will have any impact on 2022. it may on 2024 further isolates donald trump and lays culpability on donald trump s feet. but look, i think we will learn a lot about the actual coordination between the trump political universe, the organizers of the event, trump s knowledge of the likelihood of violence and did he do anything to actually enflame it or to fore stall it. i think those answers will be very telling. but i also think very, very importantly the democrats should not try to i think the power is in letting the information come out, letting the story be told. because if you learned the lessons of the benghazi hearings, if a party tries to actually politicize something in this case of january 6th that is a very grave matter where our democracy hung in the balance, you might be trying to do two things at the same time and it might actually get in the way of
well, i think first the big lie has really seeped into republican orthodoxy. but secondly, it reflects a republican strategy, a broader republican strategy that now the effort is being made to prevent the traditional certification of elections. if they can throw the election turnout or the election results into some type of chaos, they can move them into the hands of now partisan administrators. that is where the real threat to democracy lies and that is the legacy of donald trump s republican party. i think you know, democrats need to translate that to what does that mean? what does the loss of freedom? what is it around the area of around the area of gun violence? what is it that hangs in the balance if republicans taking away democracy from the voters. because ultimately republicans