'350 election deniers': Biden puts number on MAGA Republicans on midterm ballot

W. James Antle III

November 03, 07:46 PM November 03, 07:46 PM

President Joe Biden has hesitated to name names when identifying “MAGA Republicans” who threaten democracy, but in New Mexico on Thursday, he did provide a number.

Biden said there were 350 “election deniers” on the Republican ticket in Tuesday’s midterm elections.

The president previously used this number during a reception earlier this month for Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL), who is challenging Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for reelection. “Well, what happens is, if we don’t move on, deal with the state and local officials — you know, there are 350 deniers, Charlie,” Biden said.

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Biden also implied House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the likely incoming speaker if Republicans win a majority on Tuesday, was a “MAGA Republican.” He has been reluctant in the past to so designate GOP officials beyond former President Donald Trump, particularly when it involved lawmakers with whom he might have to deal in leadership roles, and said MAGA is a “minority of that party.”

A review of White House transcripts of Biden’s remarks finds that he has used some variation of “Kevin McCarthy and his fellow MAGA Republicans” six times, usually in the context of saying they would jeopardize the economy to force cuts to Social Security.

After a renewed focus on the economic issues that most polls say are dominant in this campaign, Biden delivered another prime-time address on the threats to democracy posed by the MAGA movement. This time, he highlighted what he saw as commonalities between the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol by hardcore Trump supporters and the attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

Biden was in New Mexico to boost the reelection of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, the Democratic incumbent. The heavy campaign schedule in blue states and return to messaging designed to rally the progressive base suggested uncertainty about turnout among the party faithful, though it could also reflect Biden’s low approval ratings in purer battleground states.

“That governor of yours, she’s something else, isn’t she? She talks about being the shortest governor — she’s the tallest governor I know,” Biden said at a joint rally in Albuquerque. “She’s the real deal. She’s really the real deal. … No one’s going to fight harder for this state. It’s in her DNA.”

In remarks to an overflow crowd outside the rally earlier, Biden called her “the best governor in America.”

“And you got to reelect her,” he said, repeating a version of a line that has become a staple of his stump speeches: “Remember, this is not a referendum; this a choice. And the choice is stark between who we are, who she is, and who her opponent is. So let’s get going.”

Biden’s Wednesday night democracy speech in Washington, D.C., was heavy with references to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election. But he also referred to a present danger that Republicans would repeat that denial this year, despite being heavily favored in many races, and pleaded for patience as mail-in ballots are counted.

“As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in America — for governor, Congress, attorney general, secretary of state — who won’t commit. They will not commit to accepting the results of elections that they’re running in,” he declared.

Biden has vacillated between attaching the MAGA label to the GOP brand as a whole and suggesting he is only talking about specific, if disproportionately influential, people beyond Trump himself. And he has said he has no quarrel with rank-and-file Republican voters while also saying “democracy is on the ballot.”

The White House in August identified five MAGA Republicans by name, three House backbenchers plus Trump and DeSantis. It has subsequently declined to be that specific.

Biden has frequently trained stump speech attacks on Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), who chairs the Senate GOP campaign arm, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who is up for reelection this year, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a onetime friend of the president who sponsored a federal 15-week abortion ban after Roe v. Wade was overturned.