Democrats Have a ‘Passion’ for Stealing Elections: Newt Gingrich

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich speaks during the America First Agenda Summit, at the Marriott Marquis Hotel, in Washington, on July 26, 2022. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) has accused Democrats of having a “passion” for stealing elections, and advised Republicans to win by big margins.

During a Fox News show on Sunday, anchor Maria Bartiromo asked Gingrich whether Republicans were doing enough to ensure free and fair elections in 2024. “Well, I think it’s probably almost impossible under current law to ensure an accurate election,” Gingrich said. “And I think the only Republican strategy in the long run is to pick issues and win by margins so big that they can’t steal it. If you have a very close election, Democrats have a passion for stealing them.”

Gingrich also pointed to the issue of ballot harvesting—a process whereby political operatives collect absentee ballots from voters and drop them off at a polling location or election office.

“When you have the local union, which takes care of people in the nursing home, going into vote for people who literally don’t cognitively know what they’re doing, you know that that union is going to vote every single one of them for a Democrat no matter what their personal beliefs were,” Gingrich said, while also highlighting the issue of potentially weak election laws in Democrat states.

“We’re gradually, in the Republican states, beginning to tighten up the election law. But in states dominated by Democrats, like New York, Illinois, California, you just have to assume that the machine will steal as much as it can.”

Stolen Election

The issue of elections being potentially stolen has been a hot topic following the 2020 presidential race. Former president Donald Trump had accused the election to be stolen, and insisted that voter fraud had taken place.

Many GOP members have also supported such assessments. Former Arizona gubernatorial GOP candidate Kari Lake, for example, refused to accept the results of her election, and launched multiple lawsuits, with most of these challenges getting dismissed.

After her latest legal challenge regardin signature verification rules in Maricopa County was dismissed, officials from the county sought to sanction Lake. However, Maricopa County judge Peter Thompson rejected the sanctions request, pointing out that “even if her argument did not prevail, Lake, through her witness, presented facts consistent with and in support of her legal argument.”

YouTube has also done a U-turn on claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Since December 2020, YouTube has removed tens of thousands of videos making such claims. Recently, the streamer announced that it will no longer delete posts that question the results of the 2020 elections.

“In the current environment, we find that while removing this content does curb some misinformation, it could also have the unintended effect of curtailing political speech without meaningfully reducing the risk of violence or other real-world harm,” YouTube stated in a June 2 blog post.

Advantage Trump

During his interview on Fox, Gingrich also talked about the GOP primaries, highlighting the massive support which Trump currently enjoys. “The story of the last three months is that no matter what happens, Trump supporters are for Trump. And he’s above 50 percent,” Gingrich said.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis had a shot at consolidating the non-Trump voting base, which led to the GOP primaries becoming a “race between two people.” However, DeSantis has “totally failed to do that.”

“That’s why you’re seeing all these new candidates. And that means instead of being one or two, DeSantis is now one of many … It’s like they’re fishing in a small lake, and there’s this huge lake next door called Trump, and they can’t break into that lake. If it continues this way, Trump would be the nominee by the end of March” 2024, he said.

According to May 31 data from Morning Consult, Trump has 56 percent support in the 2024 Republican primary, which gives him a 34-point lead over DeSantis, who has garnered the support of 22 percent of the voting base. All the remaining candidates have 5 percent or less support.