Robson's two-step on the 2020 election may suppress her own vote

Playing footsie with the Big Lie doesn't motivate part of her natural coalition to turn out

Karrin Taylor Robson’s two-step on the 2020 presidential election – casting doubt on its legitimacy without fully embracing the Big Lie that Donald Trump actually won – is intellectually and morally indefensible.

Doubling down on it in the final days of the primary may also be a significant political miscalculation. Robson may be suppressing her own vote.

The claims about significant irregularities in the 2020 election, in Arizona and other states, have all been chased to ground and debunked. Robson has either familiarized herself with the evidence, which has been neatly put together by a squad of conservative election experts, or she hasn’t. If she has, then her comments casting doubt about the election’s integrity are disingenuous. If she hasn’t, then they are irresponsible.

Robson is also throwing under the bus local Republicans who have bravely, and at considerable political risk and cost, told the truth about the 2020 election here in Maricopa County against an avalanche of lies. In particular, county Supervisors Bill Gates and Jack Sellers and County Recorder Stephen Richer. 

The Robson campaign had appeared to have moved beyond this catering to the Big Lie. Gov. Doug Ducey, speaking in favor of Robson’s candidacy, was even chiding Kari Lake for perpetuating misrepresentations about the 2020 election.

Then, as the final campaign arguments were being made, Robson went on television and refused to acknowledge that Joe Biden was legitimately elected or to say that she would have certified Arizona’s results.

Now, Lake has locked in the Trump cult voters. Those whose primary issue is support for Trump, or belief that the 2020 election was stolen, are solidly behind her. Attempts to wean them away with the “Fake Lake” attacks haven’t dislodged them.

But that’s all Lake has going for her. Her only claim to the gubernatorial nomination is Trump’s endorsement and her blind fealty to him. Her campaign begins and ends with Trump.

Robson’s potential coalition was Republicans who weren’t single-issue Trump supporters, Republicans who wanted to move the party beyond Trump, and independents who wanted to stop a Trump clone from reaching the general election ballot. 

Robson’s approach to the last two elements of this potential coalition has been cynical. She has assumed that she would get the anti-Trump vote by default. She didn’t have to earn it. So, she could play footsie with the Big Lie without a political cost. Her history as a traditional establishment Republican would be enough to convince anti-Trump voters that she didn’t really mean it. And, after her campaign chased Matt Salmon out of the race, they didn’t have any other place to go. 

She may have booted an opportunity to affect the primary turnout. That’s one of the most difficult things to do in politics, but this race made it a possibility, at least at the margins.

In the 2020 election, a large number of people voted Republican down-ballot but didn’t vote for Trump. Some of them undoubtedly are regular primary election voters, but a hunk of them probably are not.

Trump is a big turnoff for independents. As of this writing, they are 12% of returned GOP ballots this election. In a close primary election, if they tilt considerably one way, they could make the difference. 

Robson hasn’t made a case to Republicans who want to move beyond Trump or independents wanting to stop a Trump clone from reaching the general election ballot. Some of them will vote for her anyway, as the candidate not endorsed by Trump. But some of them will sit out a race they might have been motivated to participate in. 

To provide that motivation, Robson didn’t have to go on the attack against Trump. Just don’t play footsie with the Big Lie. Have a ballot security platform without casting shade on the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Don’t throw the Gates, Sellers, and Richers under the bus.

If Robson loses narrowly, she might find that she had the political equation exactly backwards. Playing footsie with the Big Lie gained her nothing, while costing her the opportunity to modestly, but consequentially, expand turnout among voters more naturally part of her coalition.

Reach Robb at robtrobb@gmail.com.