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      RuPaul Is Sending a Rainbow Bus to Give Away Books Targeted by Bans

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      The star, whose show “RuPaul’s Drag Race” has an international following, is one of the founders of a new online bookstore promoting underrepresented authors. The giveaways are part of its outreach.At a time of book bans and efforts by state legislatures to ban drag shows, the performer and television producer who is arguably the country’s most famous drag star, RuPaul, is the co-founder of a new online bookstore that will be sending a rainbow school bus from the West Coast to the South to distribute the very books targeted by those bans.He announced on Monday that he was one of three business partners behind the bookstore, Allstora, which will promote underrepresented authors and provide writers with a greater share of profits than other online booksellers do.RuPaul said that this sort of book website would fill an important gap, especially in “these strange days, we’re living in,” to support the ideas of people “who are willing to push the conversation forward.”In recent years, there has been a sharp rise in efforts to restrict access to books at libraries in the United States, and most of the challenged books are by or about L.G.B.T.Q. people or people of color, according to library and free speech organizations. Some libraries have received bomb threats, and others have faced closure over efforts to remove books. At the same time, states have tried to ban drag shows and restrict access to health care for transgender people.RuPaul with Eric Cervini, left, co-founder and chief executive of Allstora, and Adam Powell, co-founder and director of the Rainbow Book Bus.AllstoraEnter RuPaul. Drag has been in popular culture for decades, but his reality competition show “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” which is airing its sixteenth season and has more than a dozen international editions, has brought the work of hundreds, if not thousands, of drag performers to home audiences.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      A far-right US youth group is ramping up its movement to back election deniers

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      Turning Point USA, a far-right youth group known for its fundraising prowess and for promoting election-conspiracy theories, is mounting a multimillion-dollar mobilization drive via its advocacy arm in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin.Arizona-based TPUSA, a non-profit co-founded in 2012 by then 18-year-old Charlie Kirk that’s become a key ally in Donald Trump’s Maga ecosystem, has launched the drive through Turning Point Action, which has raised tens of millions of dollars and is hiring hundreds of full-time employees in the three states, according to its spokesperson, Andrew Kolvet.While its current fundraising drive is to support the voter-outreach efforts, TP Action is likely to help finance other political advocacy initiatives, including ousting some key Arizona election officials who disputed claims of election fraud in 2020.Dubbed “chase the vote”, the drive is being supplemented by another get-out-the-vote campaign that TP Action is starting with the Christian nationalist and televangelist Lance Wallnau.Together with Wallnau and some other Maga allies like Moms for America, TP Action is planning a “courage tour” in the same three swing states to enlist pastors and their churches in the voter-mobilization drive, which will include booths in churches to register voters.TP Action’s fledgling campaign is aimed at identifying and registering “patriotic” voters, encouraging early voting and getting voters to the polls in November, according to its website. Billed as the “first and most robust conservative ballot-chasing operation”, TP Action’s drive could benefit Trump and Maga-allied candidates in the three states.The new political advocacy drives come after TPUSA and TP Action sparked strong criticism from veteran Republicans, watchdog groups and analysts for backing several hard-right candidates in Arizona who were defeated in 2022, and pushing conspiracies about election fraud, Covid-19 and other issues.“TPUSA has a radicalized worldview that they use as a litmus test” in backing candidates, said Kathy Petsas, a GOP district leader in Phoenix. “When it comes to the general elections that matter, their ROI is lousy.”Notably, four top Arizona candidates in 2022 who were backed by TP Action lost to Democrats, including ex-Fox News anchor Kari Lake in her race for governor, and Mark Finchem in his bid to become secretary of state.“Virtually every major race they touched they lost in the general election in Arizona,” the former Arizona congressman Matt Salmon said. “Everyone Trump endorses they get behind. It’s not clear if it’s the tail wagging the dog, or vice versa.”Kolvet pushed back on criticism of the group’s 2022 results, noting that TP Action only spent $500,000 in total in several states in 2022, but that this year it intends to mount a much better-financed and robust effort, hiring hundreds of full-time employees for its “chase the vote” drive and seeking to raise an eye-popping $108m dollars.View image in fullscreenTP Action’s aggressive fundraising could prove useful in other election-related projects this year that the group is likely to get involved with.Austin Smith, a state legislator and TP Action’s enterprise director, in a tweet this week signaled an effort to oust several key election officials in the state’s largest county, Maricopa, in primaries this July.Smith said “[we] need to clean house in Maricopa county” and cited, among other officers, the county recorder, the Republican lawyer Stephen Richer, who rejected unsubstantiated claims of voting fraud in 2020 and 2022.Kolvet said TP Action to date hasn’t joined the effort, but added that “it’s more likely than not we’ll get involved in some of these races. We’re going to get behind conservative candidates.”One key example: TP Action in February endorsed Trump loyalist Kari Lake’s 2024 Arizona senate campaign.Kirk and TPUSA’s strong fundraising talents could prove helpful to TP Action’s current drive. TPUSA’s annual revenues have soared in recent years with help from leading rightwing donors including the Bradley Impact Fund, which chipped in $7.8m in 2022, the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation and dark-money behemoth Donors Trust.TPUSA has also benefited mightily from hosting several gaudy gatherings at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and in tony Arizona venues that have drawn some big donors and conservative stars like the representatives Marjorie Taylor Green and Matt Gaetz, and Don Trump Jr.These events and mega-donor checks have helped make TPUSA a fundraising goliath: the group’s revenues soared from $39.8m dollars in 2020 to $55.8m in 2021 and $80.6m in 2022, according to public records.TPUSA now employs 450 people and has broadened its focus from fighting left and “woke” influence on campuses to other culture war fronts by setting up a Turning Point Faith unit that’s hosted large gatherings at churches featuring Wallnau and other Christian nationalist figures.Notwithstanding TPUSA’s fundraising successes, the organization and Kirk have been buffeted by criticism on multiple fronts. Late last year, Kirk ignited a political firestorm in mainstream GOP circles by using his eponymous radio show and an Arizona bash to make incendiary attacks on the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, which recycled old and unverified slurs about King, and disparaged Black airline pilots.During a major TPUSA event in Arizona in December, Kirk opined that “MLK was awful. He’s not a good person. He said one good thing he actually didn’t believe.”“Kirk’s cheapening of Martin Luther King’s legacy and disparaging remarks about Black pilots hurt our cause, and don’t help it,” Salmon of Arizona said, adding that Kirk is “one of the strongest voices for factionalism in the party”.Other GOP veterans also voiced harsh critiques.“Kirk chases conspiracies that animate his followers and generate funds,” the long-time GOP consultant Tyler Montague said. “Kirk has used this method to push conspiracies about election fraud, Christian nationalism, anti-immigrant xenophobia, and now he’s opened a new front in racism with his Martin Luther King attacks.”Montague’s comments are in keeping with earlier criticism of Kirk for promoting Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of election fraud in 2020.Kirk and TP Action collaborated with about a dozen other groups to bring busloads of Trump allies to DC to attend Trump’s 6 January March to Save America rally that preceded the mob attack on the Capitol.View image in fullscreenPrior to the rally, Kirk predicted in a tweet it “would likely be one of the largest and most consequential in American history”, but he quickly deleted the tweet after the day’s violence.Independent analysts who study misinformation criticize Kirk’s penchant for pushing conspiracies and false narratives on the Charlie Kirk Show, which runs daily on the evangelical Salem Radio Network.“The Charlie Kirk Show consistently ranks high in the top 100 shows on Apple podcasts, and has been a leader in spreading false and unverified claims,” said Valerie Wirtschafter, a Brookings Institution fellow in AI and emerging technologies.Kirk’s dubious claims range “from the idea that the Covid-19 vaccine was poison, to the belief that the election was stolen in 2020 with fraudulent ballots, to claims that purported Ukrainian bioweapons facilities are somehow linked to Anthony Fauci,” she added.Kirk had company in backing Trump’s election fraud claims, which could pose legal risks to a top TP Action official: Tyler Bowyer, the COO, who also had that title with TPUSA, and who was one of Arizona’s 11 fake electors for Trump in 2020. He and the other fake electors are facing a state attorney general probe.The 11 fake electors filmed themselves signing documents stating they were legitimate electors, even though the then GOP governor, Doug Ducey, had certified Biden’s win by more than 10,000 votes.Bowyer, an Arizona GOP national committeeman who signed paperwork falsely claiming that Trump had won, introduced a resolution at a Republican National Committee meeting that began in late January seeking to get the RNC to indemnify RNC members in multiple states who had been fake electors and who face legal bills due to state probes.Bowyer justified his resolution by writing on X that “we need to send a clear signal that the RNC will defend those who serve as electors against Democratic radicals trying to criminalize civic engagement and process”.The resolution didn’t pass, but to appease Trump backers the RNC pledged to “vocally” back individuals who “lawfully” served as Trump electors in states that Biden actually won.Prosecutors in three states have brought charges against fake electors for sending certificates to Congress falsely stating Trump had won their states, and the justice department has probed fake elector schemes in multiple states in its wide-ranging inquiry into efforts by Trump and his allies to thwart Biden’s election.Serendipitously, right before the RNC meeting, TP Action hosted a two-day summit dubbed Restoring National Confidence, which drew several big-name election deniers including My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, ex-Trump senior White House strategist Steve Bannon and Don Jr.In a tweet, Don Jr wrote: “It was great speaking to all my friends at the Turning Point Restoring National Confidence Summit earlier this week.”The tight ties between TPUSA and Don Jr were underscored in 2020 when TPUSA paid a company owned by Don Jr $333,000 to buy copies of one of his books, which TPUSA gave away as part of a fundraising drive, according to the Associated Press.But watchdog groups are alarmed by TPUSA and TP Action’s record of promoting the ex-president’s bogus claims of election fraud, and candidates in Arizona in 2022 who espoused similar election falsehoods. They’re bracing for more in another heated election year.“They’ve backed conspiracy theorists for high office, mobilized activists around the ‘big lie’ and hired one of Arizona’s fake electors to help run their campaign arm,” said Heather Sawyer, the president of the watchdog group American Oversight.“Since January 6, TPUSA has become an animating force behind the election-denial movement.” More

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      Meghan McCain ‘repulsed’ by Arizona Republican who condemned late father

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      In her quest to win an election, the Arizona Republican US Senate candidate Kari Lake is trying to win back the voters she alienated in her last run, when she lost the 2022 gubernatorial race to a Democrat.And Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late Arizona senator John McCain, whose name is near-synonymous with the state’s political history, is not letting Lake off the hook.Lake’s attempt to win back voters includes reaching out to the family and allies of John McCain, who held the Senate seat in Arizona for decades and left an indelible mark on the state’s politics.When Lake ran for governor, she said her win in the Republican primary in 2022 had driven a “stake through the heart of the McCain machine” – a nod to the political apparatus McCain built up over his time in office.She also condemned the more moderate branch of the party, the McCain Republicans, and told them to “get the hell out”. She walked back the comment during a radio interview on Monday, where she said she was joking and that John McCain “would have laughed” about it.McCain’s daughter, Meghan McCain, hit back hard at Lake after the interview, calling out the attempt to walk back the attack.“Guess she realized she can’t become a Senator without us,” Meghan McCain wrote on X. “No peace, bitch. We see you for who you are – and are repulsed by it.”Lake then came back to Meghan McCain with a long entreaty, calling to mind her own father’s death from cancer and the fact that the two women are both mothers.“Our movement to save Arizona & America is growing, and it’s Mama Bears like us who are leading the charge – ALL Moms want the same thing: to leave our children a better America than the one we had,” Lake wrote to Meghan McCain on X.Lake invited Meghan McCain for a beer, coffee or lunch so that she could “pick [her] brain about how we can work together to strengthen our state” and said her team would be reaching out with Lake’s contact information. “If you’re willing to meet, it would mean a lot to me,” Lake concluded.“NO PEACE, BITCH!” Meghan McCain reiterated in a response to Lake’s offer to meet.The online spat speaks to a larger problem Lake faces in her return to the campaign trail: she swung too far right for the state’s purpling electorate, and she now is attempting to look more moderate.A Lake campaign account responded to the brush-off with a note that “All Kari can do is extend the olive branch” and that the Republican candidate would keep trying. “If you refuse to take it, that’s your call,” the Lake war room account wrote. “This kind of blind anger is not conducive to bringing Arizona together.”“I breathe fire for my family and never forgive those who have trashed any of us – particularly my Dad in death,” Meghan McCain wrote in a follow-up post on X. “Never.” More

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      in Elections

      Top Maricopa county official quits as election looms: ‘All I do is play defense’

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      For Clint Hickman, an official who helped lead Arizona’s largest country through some of the most difficult moments of the pandemic and the 2020 election, the current moment in American life feels like the right one to quit.Amid yet more tumult and tense division in American public life, the Maricopa county supervisor announced this week that he’s not running again, choosing instead to prioritize his family – and get rid of the endless harassment that’s been a feature of his job the last few years and put him more than once in the national spotlight.“After the election in 2020, it’s gotten worse and worse,” he said. “I started to feel like all I get to do is play defense in this job any more … I thought I was looking way too much in the rearview mirror.”Hickman, a Republican, voted to certify Maricopa’s elections in 2020 despite an aggressive campaign from former president Donald Trump and his allies to reject the results and throw the state toward the Republican candidate over Joe Biden, the Democrat who narrowly won there.The threats arrived at Hickman’s door at one point, with people protesting outside his home while his wife and three kids, now teenagers, were there. “This is poor behavior brought to my doorstep, and I would like to think it hasn’t impacted my kids,” he said.Hickman, just shy of 60 years old, said his upcoming milestone birthday made him reflect on what he wants out of life now, and that’s more time with his family. But the threats he faced at work and the punishing environment in his role as a supervisor played a role in his decision to exit.He faced credible death threats, one of which resulted in a two and a half year prison sentence for an Iowa man. The threats amped up both in response to elections and in response to the county’s decision to institute a mask mandate during the pandemic, a fault line for conservatives in the purpling county.“Those [threats] didn’t just arrive to myself. It arrived to county workers, county elections workers, people in the county clerk’s office. During the pandemic, people were making threats to anybody wearing Maricopa county badge when it came to the mask mandate.”He’s still receptive to the idea of running for office someday again, but for now, he wants to get his kids away from the vitriol he’s faced. Hickman’s family is one of the Phoenix area’s biggest business families, running a giant egg farming operation. For now, it’s back to the eggs for Hickman.Maricopa county became a national flashpoint in 2020, then again in 2022. Errors like printing problems or the use of certain pens became the subject of endless speculation and conspiracies that still linger today. And 2024 will undoubtedly bring more, as the county is a critical piece of a swing state, one that both Trump and Biden will want to win to complete their electoral map.Part of his effort to move forward is getting out of the race to remain in office. He doesn’t want his name on the ballot this year, that way “no one can say that I have my thumb on an election that I’m going to rig for either myself or my friends”.The seat could, theoretically, go to someone who wouldn’t uphold the county’s elections – that’s up to the district’s voters, he said. He doesn’t think they’d go for it, but the seat belongs to the citizens there, not him.He joins a too-long line of public servants who have left their roles in the face of ongoing harassment over elections. A study of 11 states in the US west, including Arizona, by Issue One showed that more than 160 chief local election officials had left their roles since the 2020 election, leaving half of the 76 million Americans living in those states with a new top election official.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHickman called it “shocking” to see elections officials run out of their jobs, often whipped up by misunderstandings and distortions. “It is saddening to see so much of a brain drain in this space leaving due to harassment techniques by people that want to do people harm,” he said.He’s one of few officials who have seen the person who threatened them prosecuted. Mark Rissi, of Iowa, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison over threats he made to Hickman and to the state’s attorney general. In the voicemail Rissi left for Hickman in September 2021, he said he was going to “lynch” the supervisor. “You’re gonna die, you piece of [expletive]. We’re going to hang you. We’re going to hang you.”At the sentencing hearing, Hickman testified – and Rissi didn’t even recognize him, Hickman said. Rissi was supposed to enter prison on 8 January, but has so far delayed his sentence because of health issues.“I’m looking forward to the day I can stop looking over my shoulder for this guy,” Hickman said.Hickman said he isn’t sure what to do to address this kind of threatening behavior and how to stop it. Catching the people making threats and holding them accountable is part of it, but there seems to be a lot more going on – maybe the pandemic, maybe the people running for office – driving more people to conflict and chaos, he said.“I can certainly play the blame game all day long,” he said. “But we need some solutions. And I don’t know what those solutions are at this short moment. How about this? Maybe everybody needs to start watching Mr Rogers again and start treating people nicer.” More

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      in US Politics

      Arizona Republican who resisted pro-Trump pressure in 2020 to stand down

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      A Republican elected official in Arizona who protected the vote and withstood a barrage of pressure and threats in 2020 from within his own party to sway the election toward Trump announced on Thursday that he will not seek re-election.Clint Hickman, a supervisor in Maricopa county, the state’s largest county that includes Phoenix, faced death threats for doing his job to confirm the county’s vote totals in 2020, when the state narrowly chose Joe Biden. State Republicans then initiated a sham “audit” of the county’s results, a costly hand count that took months only to conclude that Biden did indeed win.In a statement on Thursday, Hickman cited his family and the desire to spend more time with them as a reason for not running again, the Washington Post first reported.“My family has been gracious and unselfish in supporting me as I’ve campaigned, served, held town halls and breakfasts with constituents, been part of early morning and late-night meetings about county business, made decisions that brought significant attention and had profound impact – all things that come with public service,” he wrote. “I’m proud of this period of my life, but I want more time with my family.”Hickman, who first took office in 2013, will still be in office when the county canvasses the 2024 vote, with his term ending in early 2025. The Maricopa board is dominated by Republicans, with four of the five members affiliated with the GOP.One of the people who threatened Hickman, an Iowa man named Mark Rissi, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison over a threat he made to Hickman and to the state’s attorney general.Rissi had left a voicemail for Hickman in September 2021, telling the supervisor: “When we come to lynch your stupid lying Commie [expletive], you’ll remember that you lied on the [expletive] Bible, you piece of [expletive]. You’re gonna die, you piece of [expletive]. We’re going to hang you. We’re going to hang you.”During a sentencing hearing for Rissi, Hickman shared how protesters came to his house in 2020, while his wife and children were home, Votebeat reported.Elections officials across the country have seen ongoing threats and harassment since the 2020 election. Many of them have left their jobs or been run out by those who believe the election was stolen.In Maricopa county, the threats have not subsided since 2020. In the 2022 midterms, election workers received daily messages that called them names and alluded to their demise. Other county officials have seen their families threatened, with the lead election attorney arming himself and getting body armor for his family after a threat against his children. Bill Gates, another Republican supervisor who said the endless threats gave him post-traumatic stress, is also not running for re-election. More

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      in Elections

      Older Americans React to Special Counsel Report on Biden

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      President Biden’s age has once again become a talking point in national politics. Many older Americans agree that it’s an issue; others feel it’s insulting. Bill Murphy, an 80-year-old retired veterinarian in suburban Phoenix, sometimes blanks on names he could once summon with ease, so he has empathy for 81-year-old President Biden. But he winced when he watched Mr. Biden defend his mental sharpness at a news conference, only to mix up the presidents of Egypt and Mexico. Mr. Murphy, a Republican, believes Mr. Biden is not up to another term.Mary Meyer, an 83-year-old avid hiker and traveler who lives in the high desert north of Phoenix, took issue with a special counsel’s report that characterized him as elderly and forgetful — a similar assumption that strangers at the supermarket sometimes make about her capabilities. “I look at him as a peer,” said Ms. Meyer, who plans to vote for Mr. Biden. “I know what he’s capable of. I know it’s not as bad as everybody thinks.”To voters in their 70s and 80s, the renewed questions swirling around Mr. Biden’s age and fitness resonated in deeply personal ways. The special counsel report cleared him of criminal charges in his handling of classified documents but described him as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”Some of Mr. Biden’s generational peers and supporters insisted the characterization was nothing more than a calculated political ploy to undercut his campaign, and play on perceived weakness. Many noted their own vibrant and busy lives, filled with mental and physical activity.The criticism of Mr. Biden as forgetful and incapable of serving echoed slights and discrimination they had felt. Others thought of their own struggles as they hit their 80s, and questioned any 80-year-old’s ability to lead the nation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      The unprecedented situation at the US-Mexico border – visualized

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      Record levels of migration are straining an immigration system left nearly broken by decades of congressional inaction.Republicans have spent years amplifying scenes of turmoil and tragedy at the southern border, but Democratic leaders are also worried now, particularly big-city mayors and blue state governors who are demanding more federal resources to shelter and feed an influx of migrants.With many voters now saying immigration is a top priority, what exactly is happening at the US border to make so many people concerned?There has been a surge of encounters at the US borderSince the pandemic there has been a spike in global migration, coinciding with Joe Biden’s presidency. Across the globe, people are fleeing war, political insecurity, violence, poverty and natural disasters. Many of those in Latin America, in particular, travel to the US in search of safety.View image in fullscreenIn the last three years, the number of people attempting to cross the US’s southern border into the country has risen to unprecedented levels.In the month of December 2023 alone, border patrol agents recorded 302,000 encounters (these include apprehensions and immediate expulsions), a new high. The monthly average from 2013 to 2019 was 39,000.Arrivals are coming from more countriesThe collapse of Venezuela, political instability in Haiti, violence in Ecuador, a crackdown in Nicaragua, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, repression in China and other conflicts have fueled a historic shift in migration patterns.Mexico was the single most common origin country for US border encounters in 2023, but Mexican nationals made up less than 30% of the total share, compared with more than 60% a decade ago.Their journey is more perilousNearly 9,000 people attempting to reach the US from the south have been recorded missing or dead in the Americas in the past 10 years, according to the Missing Migrants Project.Some never make it through the notorious Darién Gap at the southern end of Central America, where a US deal with Panama and Colombia to stop migrants in their tracks has caused an outcry.The vast majority of recorded fatalities (5,145), however, occur at the US-Mexico border crossing, according to the project’s data.Many of the deaths occurred in southern Arizona when people attempted to cross open desert, miles from any roads.Fatalities are also concentrated along the treacherous stretch of south-western Texas where the Rio Grande river becomes the borderline. Further inland, hundreds of deaths have been recorded in the sparse, humid scrubland around Falfurrias.View image in fullscreenTheir cases languish in courtsThe border rules are complicated: some people apprehended at the border will face expedited deportation, but others will enter formal deportation proceedings and qualify for temporary release into the US, with a date to appear before a judge.Resolving those immigration cases and asylum claims can take years. The backlog of immigration cases has grown steadily – there were an astounding 3.3m cases pending as of December 2023, but just 682 immigration judges. That means the average caseload is more than 4,500 per judge.In the meantime …People arriving often find themselves in unofficial camps all along the US border. Some are waiting to cross, others have been met by US border patrol, yet others have been turned away. Some border states such as Texas have put tens of thousands of people awaiting their asylum claims on buses and sent them to other states, including California and New York, without their knowledge or permission.As for Congress, it continues to argue over clamping down on unlawful border crossings and alleviating the deepening humanitarian crisis – an increasingly irreconcilable divide between those who want to expand the immigration system and those who want to restrict it.View image in fullscreen More

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      Arizona Republican says state lawmakers, not voters, should pick president

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      A proposal from an Arizona lawmaker calls for the state legislature to decide on presidential electors instead of adhering to a popular vote.The state senator Anthony Kern, a Republican, served as a fake elector in 2020, falsely asserting that Donald Trump won the state. Those involved in the fake electors schemes in several states have been charged. In Arizona, the fake electors are under investigation by the Democratic attorney general, her office has confirmed. Kern also attended the 6 January 2021 rally at the US Capitol.The senate concurrent resolution says that the “sole authority to appoint presidential electors” should fall to the legislature. It calls on the legislature to stay in session during presidential election years for this purpose. As a concurrent resolution, the proposal does not require the governor’s signature and does not have the force of law; it functions more to state the legislative body’s position on an issue.Such a change would be a dramatic departure from today’s democratic process, where voters elect a candidate for president and states allocate electors according to whoever won the popular vote in their state as part of the electoral college process.As a key swing state, Arizona’s elections will again take center stage in 2024. The state’s Republicans have remained gripped by election fervor, with prominent lawmakers and candidates insisting the 2020 election was stolen and seeking changes to laws that could limit voters’ power. More