‘I would have beat him!’ Andy Caldwell floats election fraud theories, then backpedals
Santa Maria radio host and Republican congressional candidate Andy Caldwell is floating far-fetched ideas on social media about his anticipated loss to Democratic incumbent Rep. Salud Carbajal.
In his most recent posts on his campaign and personal Facebook pages, Caldwell echoed theories espoused by a former member of President Donald Trump’s legal team that Dominion Voting Systems machines flipped votes to Democratic Party candidates in the 2020 general election.
The state and federally certified Dominion ballot-tabulating systems have been used across the country, including in San Luis Obispo County, where they’ve processed about 153,000 vote-by-mail ballots and about 8,300 in-person ballots, according to county Clerk-Recorder Tommy Gong.
As of Tuesday, the California Secretary of State reported that Carbajal handily beat Caldwell 58.7% to 41.3% — or by nearly 62,000 votes.
The three counties that make up the 24th Congressional District — San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura — reported a total of only 10,147 outstanding vote-by-mail and provisional ballots left to count. Only a sliver of northern Ventura County lies within the district.
Caldwell has yet to formally concede the race and did not respond to a question Tuesday about whether he plans to, or whether he’s had any communication with Carbajal’s campaign.
‘A threat to democracy in America’
Meanwhile, Caldwell’s been plenty active on social media.
“Sidney Powell believes that up to 35,000 votes may have been added to democratic candidate vote totals by way of the Dominion voting machines,” Caldwell wrote Nov. 23, referring to the former prosecutor who was a member of Trump’s legal team before being disavowed following a controversial news conference with the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
“What would that mean for my race against Salud? I would have beat him!” Caldwell wrote.
He continued: “IF there was fraud, you would expect that there be a noticeable ‘bump’ over past years?
“Well, Salud received 166,000 votes in BOTH 2016 and 2018 General election, but this year, he received 208,000! Of the overall increase in voter turnout from the last four years, he received 96% of the increase!!! What do you think about that?”
The comment on Caldwell’s two pages had attracted nearly 200 reactions and 130 comments — mostly supportive — as of late Tuesday.
“We need an audit and need to see if Dominion switched your votes and gave them to Salud,” wrote Rosalie Kack-Hardoin. “Seems very possible that’s what happened!”
“I totally agree,” wrote Juliana Keulen. “Our whole area in SLO County only had a few Salud signs and LOTS of your signs. What can we do about this?”
“California is corrupt,” Ingrid Syversrud-vangelos wrote. “Many races reversed course after the night of the election. Especially OC. Mail in ballots are a problem.” Actually, California Republicans flipped a Democratic-held congressional seat in Orange County.
Mannal Haddad, spokeswoman for Carbajal’s re-election campaign, said Tuesday that election officials across the district “did a commendable job conducting a safe, fair and accurate election in the midst of a pandemic.”
“We are confident in the results of this election, which clearly showed Congressman Carbajal is the winner,” Haddad wrote in an email. “Andy’s suggestion that this election was fraudulent is simply a bad-faith effort to undermine the overwhelming support Salud received from the electorate and sow distrust in our democratic process.”
Cory Bantilan, chief of staff for conservative northern Santa Barbara County Supervisor Steve Lavagnino, also took Caldwell to task on Caldwell’s post on his personal page, calling the radio hosts’ comments “dangerous, divisive, and a threat to democracy in America.”
“I think you are purposely and desperately spreading a conspiracy theory to try and explain why you performed so poorly,” Bantilan wrote. “I would lay out the real reasons your election turned out the way it did, but you don’t seem to want to listen to facts, reason, or even simple math.”
Caldwell wrote back: “Actually I don’t care what you think Cory you helped Das Williams but you wouldn’t help me.”
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‘What part of the word IF do you not understand?’
Responding to questions from The Tribune Tuesday, Caldwell wrote, “I don’t believe there was any local fraud as it affected my race.”
“I don’t know if Sidney Powell is on to something as it relates to Dominion. Time will tell,” he wrote. “I do believe that Salud’s numbers were off the charts so to speak, considering the fact that UCSB dorms were shuttered back in March.”
Asked why he threw out the idea if he didn’t believe it, Caldwell wrote: “What part of the word IF do you not understand?”
He later clarified that he wrote the post in response to “daily emails and phone calls to investigate fraud here locally.”
“I said i don’t believe there was LOCAL fraud that affected my race ... but I am not ruling out Dominion IF IF IF Powell actually comes up with something,” Caldwell wrote.
In response to questions about Dominion, Gong said Tuesday that the company’s voting systems are both state and federally certified; counties are only allowed to use voting systems that are both federally and state certified.
He said that in addition to the tabulation system, counties are required to have three ballot-marking devices primarily designed for voters with disabilities at each voting center, though any voter may chose to use them.
There has been no credible evidence of any widespread election or voting fraud in the 2020 general election, including from Dominion voting systems.
It’s not the first time Caldwell — who has been a mainstay on local conservative talk radio for decades — has promoted far-right ideas and conspiracy theories.
Asked whether he agreed with allegations of election fraud ahead of a pro-Trump #StopTheSteal rally days after the election, Caldwell told The Tribune: “I believe there is some fraud going on. How much I don’t know.”
In a lengthy Facebook post Nov. 13 titled “Nothing Adds Up for a Biden Win,” Caldwell called for an investigation to “figure out exactly how many dead people voted, how many nursing homes were ballot-harvested illegally, and how many ballots delivered by the ‘vote fairy’ came with a suspect signature.”
Official results in the 24th Congressional District race will be certified by the Secretary of State’s Office by Dec. 11.
