Democratic voters tend to vote by mail more often than Republicans, who tend to vote in person on Election Day, in part because Trump has built a political brand out of claiming that mailed-in ballots are subject to fraud.
In 2020, Trump watched as late-counted ballots shifted his election night lead in a handful of swing states, leading Trump to believe that the counting was somehow rigged.
The trends create an effect where in recent elections it has appeared that Republicans are doing better early on on election night before things like mail-in ballots are tallied.
Senate Republicans keep showing Trump their defiant moods can be brief and fleeting. They dodged an opportunity to make sure another issue on which they profess to oppose him — his fantastically corrupt $1.8 billion slush fund to reward his allies — does not again rear its head.
There are two threads of developments to unspool today regarding President Trump’s surreally corrupt “anti-weaponization fund,” which has even some of the more spineless members of the Republican congressional conference raising concerns.
Add into the mix the fact that California allows voters to vote-by-mail more extensively than other states — & has millions of votes to count — and you’ve got a normal situation ripe to be seized on by Trump and his allies looking for a reason to begin spreading lies about midterms “fraud.”