In election years past, we've come to associate the term "rigged" with Republican candidates such as Donald Trump, who has established a pattern of attributing losses to this, that and the other, as the word is conveniently nebulous. But Democrats can lean on that crutch too.
In a recent analysis from The Washington Post, they illustrate this using Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) as an example. After losing her bid for the U.S. Senate in Tuesday’s primary elections — coming in third (by a lot) behind Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and former baseball star Steve Garvey (R) — she issued a statement to X (formerly Twitter) singing a familiar tune:
Thank you to everyone who supported our campaign and voted to shake up the status quo in Washington. Because of you, we had the establishment running scared — withstanding 3 to 1 in TV spending and an onslaught of billionaires spending millions to rig this election.
When criticized for her use of the word "rigged," she issued a follow-up, defining the word in a way that best-suits her original sentiment which, as The Washington Post points out, is what makes the word so handy in situations such as these. It's harder to disprove than downright "stolen.”
“‘Rigged’ means manipulated by dishonest means,” Porter writes. “A few billionaires spent $10 million+ on attack ads against me, including an ad rated ‘false’ by an independent fact checker. That is dishonest means to manipulate an outcome. I said ‘rigged by billionaires’ and our politics are — in fact — manipulated by big dark money.”
Katie Porter puts out a statement explaining that she wasn’t undermining the vote count or election process.
— Christopher Cadelago (@ccadelago) March 7, 2024
But she stands by calling the election “rigged” and points the finger at cryptocurrency billionaire investors who spent big against her campaign. pic.twitter.com/wf0tJ70Y7t
"What happened in California was not some nefarious force that was surreptitiously rigging electoral outcomes. For better or worse, it’s just how politics works," writes columnist Philip Bump.
"The loud rebuke of Katie Porter’s 'rigged' claim shows that the pro-democracy crowd isn’t putting up with that crap no matter which party it comes from. And that’s a good sign for our country," co-signs Mark Jacob, Ex-editor at Chicago Tribune & Sun-Times, in a tweet on the topic.
The loud rebuke of Katie Porter’s “rigged” claim shows that the pro-democracy crowd isn’t putting up with that crap no matter which party it comes from. And that’s a good sign for our country.
— Mark Jacob (@MarkJacob16) March 7, 2024
