PHOENIX — Voters in Maricopa County have expressed frustration about long lines at polling locations on Election Day that were caused by tabulators rejecting ballots. The machine problems likely had an outsized impact on Republican voters, who disproportionately cast their ballots on Election Day over early voting or mail-in voting.

With only about 17,000 votes separating Democrat Katie Hobbs, who was declared the winner in the gubernatorial race, and her Republican opponent Kari Lake, the 247,000-some ballots cast by Maricopa County voters on Election Day could have conceivably swung the election.

WASHINGTON — One of the many frustrations that President Donald Trump had over his presidency was constantly being bested by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after the Democrats took over Congress. Speaking about her departure from the Democratic leadership, colleague Rep. Ami Bera (D-CA) said that one of the best things about Pelosi is that she knew how to handle someone like Trump.

Speaking to Raw Story, Bera described Pelosi as "strong" both in leadership and as an individual member.

WASHINGTON — Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina was one of just four GOP officials on the House floor while Speaker Nancy Pelosi was announcing that she would retire from her leadership position.

Pelosi had indicated that she wanted to leave years ago so she could spend more time with her grandchildren. Major political events kept getting in the way, however. According to MSNBC reporters speaking to Andrea Mitchell this afternoon following Pelosi's speech, Donald Trump's rise was one of the many barriers to her partial retirement. After her husband was attacked by a right-wing activist, however, many suspected she would step down, if not announce it would be her final term in office.

WASHINGTON — House Republicans claimed in a press conference on Thursday that President Joe Biden was actively involved in overseas business dealings that involved his son Hunter. But a Democratic lawmaker characterized their claims as "fraudulent."

"Was Joe Biden directly involved with Hunter Biden's business deals, and is he compromised? That's our investigation," Rep. James Comer (R-KY) told reporters.

The Republican Party’s engulfed in a civil war of Trump’s making

WASHINGTON—Traditionally both political parties lay down their weapons after a bloody election. This year, in the wake of their embarrassing midterm performance, Republicans are still engaged in battle. Only this time, they’re warring amongst themselves.

Diehard Trump Republicans inside and outside of Arizona who cannot fathom that Kari Lake is projected to lose Arizona’s 2022 governor’s race are frantically trying to assemble a lawsuit to block the certification of the victory by Katie Hobbs, a Democrat and Arizona’s current secretary of state.

“We need 3-5 Attorneys. Please call any you think might be interested and see if they are willing to support the cause without the retainers,” said the top item on a Tuesday email sent by the Gila County Election Integrity Team. “The suit will be prepared by experienced legal writers.”

WASHINGTON — Some Republican senators want to hold back the vote for their minority leader until after the runoff election in Georgia.

Speaking to Raw Story on Wednesday morning, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) spoke out against what he called "too many chiefs and not enough Indians," a reference to Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) opposing Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in the Senate. "It's like herding cats and we don't need too many irons in the fire."

WASHINGTON — Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) spoke with reporters after members returned to the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday following the election. When asked about his thoughts on what is believed to be Donald Trump's announcement of a 2024 campaign, Raskin said there are few options to stop him.

"He has a right to run unless it is determined that he doesn't have a right to run due to the ban in Section III of the 14th Amendment on people who participate in an insurrection against the Union," said Raskin. "At this point, it's a problem for the Republican Party. If 43 Republican Senators had done what seven Republican Senators did, he would have been convicted and presumably disqualified. I told Republican Senators that conviction was something they needed to do for the Constitution and the country, but it's also something they needed to do for their own party because he would come to destroy their party. And I think that they have a very serious problem because they've taught everyone to follow Donald Trump's orders, and now they've made their bed."

WASHINGTON — Texas Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar is regarded as one of the most conservative members of the party, but he revealed on Tuesday that Republicans were trying to take advantage of that.

Speaking to the press, he mentioned that he was approached by "one member, a couple of folks on K Street, [and a] former member from" who tried to get him to flip to the GOP. "K Street" is a reference to a lobbyist, as many of the lobbying offices and firms are located on K Street in Washington, D.C.

PHOENIX — The small crowd assembled outside the Maricopa County election center — a remnant of the louder and more numerous legions that sprung up in defiance of COVID restrictions and the presidential election outcome two years ago — kept vigil as election workers continued to count ballots on Monday afternoon, and as their candidate Kari Lake’s hope for becoming the next governor of Arizona gradually slipped away.

They blew shofars outside the Maricopa County Tabulation & Election Center, commonly known as MCTEC, which was surrounded by security fencing, with sheriff’s deputies patrolling the parking lot and others scanning the crowd from the rooftop of the facility.

Kari Lake, the Republican candidate in the unresolved race for governor in Arizona, has issued a steady drumbeat of accusations that the Maricopa County elections office is "slow-rolling" the ballot count since Election Day.

Lake and her allies are also weaving in a claim that local election administrators are somehow manipulating the count to front-load Democratic ballots to make her campaign look bad. The claim ignores the fact that since Donald Trump attacked mail-in voting in 2020, Republican voters have traditionally favored voting in person on Election Day — a pattern reinforced by supporters like Steve Bannon who urged “game-day” voting — and that other MAGA boosters have encouraged Republican voters to drop off their mail-in ballots at polling places in the last few hours on Election Day.

Two years after the weeks of post-election turmoil that culminated in the Jan. 6 insurrection, the far right has displayed a much more muted response to the outcome, which again hinges on closely contested results still being tallied days after Election Day in Arizona.

The tone was set by Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who has taken a combative stance against election officials, while stopping short of directly accusing them of fraud in an election that she stands a chance of winning, after all, once all the ballots are counted.