Even before the polls opened in Virginia on Tuesday, Republican pundits lined up to assure their base that any election resulting in a Democratic victory was supposedly «stolen.» This is now their go-to play in advance of every election—especially consequential ones with a national audience. Sure, Republicans haven't won the popular vote in a presidential contest since 2004 (as GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger notes). And now more than ever, they relish catering to their base voters to the exclusion of absolutely everyone else. So even as Republicans place their bets on a 50-minus-1 strategy in most elections, they groom their base to believe their views have majority support and they are the victims of disenfranchisement—which couldn’t be further from the truth. Read more