Beginning Thursday, June 9, the Jan. 6 committee will host televised hearings regarding the riot that took place on Capitol Hill on the day the Electoral College was to be certified. The committee is made up of select members, including Republicans Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). The committee has worked on its investigation for ten months, and they’ve seen more than a few arrests. The most recent arrest is Peter Navarro, who was an advisor to President Trump at one time.
The committee says it has new information about the incident. CNN points out that the committee has teased the hearings – televised on major networks during primetime hours, a departure from the norm – will show evidence of direct interference by President Trump to prevent the “peaceful transfer of power” from his administration to the Biden Administration.
Til now, the committee has held that it was Trump’s push of what they deem a false claim that the election was “stolen” from him. They also state that Donald Trump was “obsessed” with his election loss.
The hearings, televised at night for prime viewership, comes about a month after the release of the documentary by Dinesh D’Souza, “2000 Mules.” Ironically, a recent Rassmussen poll shows that of 1,000 likely voters the polling company surveyed, a whopping 77 percent of those who participated said, “the movie strengthened their conviction that there was systematic and widespread election fraud in the 2020 election.” Of the voters who have seen the movie, 68 percent of Democrats said the movie strengthened their opinion on whether there was election fraud during the 2020 election.
While Liz Cheney, an outspoken Republican critic of President Trump, has made the round of major television networks touting the upcoming hearings, there are those who believe the hearings are political suicide – at least for Kinzinger and Cheney.
Americans are split on their opinion regarding the 2020 elections. There are those who believe the election was stolen, and no amount of evidence will convince them otherwise. There are just as many who believe that there were no irregularities in the pandemic voting cycle. Still others want to simply make sure that voting is secure in the upcoming mid-terms and in future general elections.
Ironically, there are Democrats who aren’t hinging their mid-term campaigns on the findings of the Jan. 6 committee.
Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) says that a Republican-controlled Congress after the mid-terms could “fuel further extremism in politics.”
Malinowski has repeatedly called his likely Republican opponent for a seat in the U.S. House a “coward” because the state Senator Tom Kean, Jr. has never publicly commented on the Republican National Committee’s statement on the incident. Malinowski has said he intends to use the lack of a comment as a focal point of his campaign, provided Kean is his opponent (New Jersey is holding a primary on June 7).
Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) says that she is still unsure of whether she’ll utilize the incident in her campaign. While she said that currently she doesn’t plan to do so, she didn’t totally discount the idea.
Polling has shown that most voters are more concerned about their wallets. With gas prices at an all time high and groceries exponentially higher than just a year ago, Americans are most plagued by economic woes than they are concerned about the Jan. 6 hearings.
Some legislators are hoping the airing of the hearings will reinvigorate some voters. However, that might not be a lucrative campaign strategy.
The gubernatorial election in Virginia is a prime example of Democrats using the strategy on to have it backfire come decision time. Glenn Youngkin was seen as a long shot; in fact, only after former governor Terry McAuliffe said that parents had no business in the classroom did the tide turn for the entrepreneur-turned-politician.
McAuliffe had also tried to tie Republicans to the issue of violence at the Capitol, but an issue voters were more concerned with – the perceived discrimination of parents at school board meetings and the teaching of CRT in classrooms. Glenn Youngkin would easily win against the experienced former governor.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is already planning to air commercials targeting Republicans they say did not denounce – or even may have somehow participated – in the Jan. 6 riots.
