The 'big lie' on voter fraud is still with us

[DonViejo]

Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf, CNN

Updated 8:00 AM ET, Sat February 20, 2021

(CNN) - There's a war over voting.

Set all these things aside:

the blatant hypocrisy of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's vacation after he criticized others

the mealy mouthed effort to claim he was just trying to be a good dad

his abrupt about-face and apology

and the uncomfortable fact that someone on his wife's text chain outed their supposed friend as the Cancun ringleader.

What makes the Cruz vacation scandal most interesting is that while he's four years from reelection, this silliness could help make him among the most vulnerable incumbents if he runs for reelection in 2024.

That's no bold prediction even though we're years away in part because of Texas, where Cruz is a symptom of a much larger issue for Republicans: that the state is changing, becoming more friendly to Democrats and will, at some point, be the key US political battleground.

Republicans are also learning from the gains Democrats made in 2020 and there's an effort afoot -- specifically in Texas, Georgia and a number of places still controlled by Republicans at the state level -- to make it more difficult to vote.

Not just Georgia. This is all part of a larger, coordinated Republican strategy to curb, restrict and more closely monitor voting practices like mail-in ballots that, along with distaste for now-former President Donald Trump and frustration with his policies, fueled record turnout in 2020.
A group of Republican state legislators and secretaries of state announced the formation of a commission to look at election laws.

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https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/20/politics/what-matters-february-19/index.html