RIGHT ON Q

MAGA Governor Candidate Busted Hanging Out With QAnon’s Biggest Nut

Something is happening in New York which is surely not a coincidence, our must-read newsletter The Swamp reveals.

Donald Trump wants to crush The Swamp. The leaks, the sneaks, and the secrets are all there. Our writers, David Gardner, Farrah Tomazin, Sarah Ewall-Wice, and Laura Esposito, are sifting through the ooze so you don’t have to. Don’t miss out.

Welcome to Midterms Meltdown, a special pop-up newsletter from The Swamp—bringing you up to the minute with the secrets the politicians don’t want you to know about the race to November 3.

It is the most consequential election campaign since 2024, and the nooze will be oozing around the nation to shape D.C. for the next two years and beyond. Our Farrah Tomazin and Sarah Ewall-Wice are getting down and dirty with the inside stories from the battlefields every Monday and Friday.

Melting down in The Swamp today are: Bruce Blakeman, Victor Marx, Jon Ossoff, Mike Collins, Abdul El-Sayed, Susan Collins, Myron Lizer, Eli Crane, Jonathan Nez, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

No Coincidences When It Comes to MAGA’s NY Governor Hopeful

Donald Trump has headed to New York late Friday, to campaign for his MAGA gubernatorial hopeful Bruce Blakeman. Blakeman’s only claim to fame, until now, was being the ex-husband of Nancy Shevell, now married to Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney.

But The Swamp has learnt that Blakeman has another connection that could prove somewhat less useful on the campaign trail: QAnon, the crackpot conspiracy which has long animated the outer fringes of MAGA—and in particular, how he keeps being at events with its most notorious booster.

It turns out the 73-year-old, currently the county executive of Nassau County, on Long Island, repeatedly crossed paths with the QAnon orbit. He has amplified content posted by conspiracy theory accounts, and campaigned alongside figures who have promoted the movement’s bizarre—and often antisemitic—claims.

The most recent post, which hit out at Democratic rival Kathy Hochul, came from the QAnon-promoting account @Qrightscopee, a social media user who has promoted conspiracy theories about a secret “deep state” cabal abusing children and plotting against America, using slogans and coded phrases associated with the movement.

Among them: “The Great Awakening,” “WWG1WGA,” “The Storm,” “Adrenochrome” and “Tunnel Children”—all popular QAnon phrases. “Adrenochrome” is a particularly vile crank claim that the rich and famous kill babies to harvest their blood in an attempt to stay young.

The account (which mysteriously switched its handle this week to @Look_DeeperHQ) has also pushed openly antisemitic conspiracy theories about 9/11, compared immigrants to “insects,” and claimed “the Rothschilds” control the weather—alongside promoting Blakeman’s own campaign posts.

But this is not the only overlap between the MAGA candidate and the QAnon movement. Alexandra Fasulo, a campaign surrogate featured in one of his ads, has declared that “Q was right.” Blakeman’s name also appears on the website of Stay Awake America, a radical organization affiliated with QAnon figures including disgraced former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Then in March, he delivered the keynote address at a Queens Village Republican Club dinner “honoring” the former 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan, who has become—somewhat tragically—a prominent promoter of QAnon conspiracy theories. “There’s a lot going on behind the scenes that we don’t know, and Lara gives us a peek at some of it,” the Queens Village Republican Club breathlessly blogged.

And amazingly, that’s not even the only time they have hung out. He was photographed with her again in May, this time at another Republican dinner, in Albany, NY.

The dinner conversation could have included some of Logan’s recent insights: That Americans can legally stop paying federal income taxes; that Satanic billionaires rape and torture babies; and that Susan Rice, the former aide to Barack Obama and Joe Biden, should be charged with treason and sedition.)

“‘100% MAGA’ Bruce Blakeman’s closing message to New Yorkers is one of his most extreme yet: sharing videos from QAnon accounts, filming campaign ads with an extremist who thinks ‘Q is right,’ and campaigning with and endorsing other far-right crazies,” said New York State Democratic Party spokesperson Addison Dick. “He’s more focused on the QAnon cohort than lowering costs and making our communities safer.”

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The Swamp has reached out to Blakeman, whose rival, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, is leading him by nine points in a recent Siena poll, prompting Trump to go to Syracuse, NY, to rally for Blakeman. But whether the president is a help or hindrance is open to debate given the same poll found Trump’s approval rating at just 34 percent among New York voters.

Looks like Blakeman might not achieve his Great Awakening.

Meanwhile, in News of MAGA’s Would-Be Governors…

Victor Marx, the GOP’s embattled candidate in Colorado, sure knows how to double down. After spending weeks in damage control over the Daily Beast’s revelations that he slammed his wife into a door, the martial arts enthusiast now has a new defense: “I’d do it again.”

“People have called us the real Mr and Mrs Smith,” he said in a video this week, referencing the Hollywood blockbuster in which Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play married assassins secretly assigned to kill each other. “How many wives actually grab a backpack, put in a tomahawk, night vision, put a grenade in their coat pocket? We’re not normal! ”It seems not, but Coloradans need not worry, given the latest polls project Democrat Phil Weiser will win the race by about six to eight points.

RFK Jr. Prompts Pro-Vax Ads in Battlegrounds

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may not be on the ballot on November 3, but the vaccine skeptic’s agenda is getting a midterm reckoning of its own. 314 Action, a grassroots group dedicated to electing Democrats with science and medical backgrounds, says it has raised more than $25 million this cycle, with over $20 million invested in pro-vax candidates — the biggest spending spree in its 10-year history.

In an October memo, the group detailed another $5 million pumped into six competitive House races, targeting Republicans with TV and digital ads and direct mail. The candidates include pediatrician Richard Pan in California, emergency physician Amish Shah in Arizona, former Rep. Elaine Luria in Virginia. It’s also backing Christina Bohannan in Iowa, whose 2024 race was decided by just 799 votes. The group is betting that the backlash against Kennedy’s anti-vaccine crusade and attacks on science can help Democrats claw back the House.

Republicans Manage to Mix Up Two Native Americans

Just in time for Indigenous Peoples’ Day on Monday, a super PAC aligned with Donald Trump mixed up a Democratic House candidate with the Navajo politician who has worked with Republicans. The No Going Back PAC, which is associated with MAGA Inc., dropped an ad in the Arizona 2nd congressional district race blasting Democratic candidate Jonathan Nez. The problem is the ad ended up using an image of Myron Lizer, the vice president of Navajo Nation who served under Nez.

Not only that but Lizer gave a speech for the Republican National Convention in 2020, in which he touted Trump’s work with Indian country. But it’s now Lizer’s face plastered on the screen as accusations are made. The actual Democratic candidate’s image does show up seconds later in the ad, but it then goes back to Lizer again as the narrator says “Arizona can’t afford Jonathan Nez.” The 30-second spot was from the PAC’s more than $650,000 buy in the district that includes the northeast part of the state. Republicans are trying to help GOP Rep. Eli Crane hold his seat in a district Trump won by 15 points less than two years ago. The poll this summer showed that race tightening but it’s still rated “Likely Republican” by Cook Political Report.

THE BIGGEST POLL LOSER: Vivek Ramaswamy

The latest CNN polls shows Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton beating MAGA Republican Vivek Ramaswamy by eight points in Ohio, 50 percent to 42 percent. The Democrat was up among both men and women in the state Trump won by more than 11 points.

WHAT TRUMP IS SAYING:

“This guy, I call him Mohammed El-Fayed,” the president said, referencing Michigan’s Democratic Senate Abdul El-Sayed. “Some people call him Abdul. I call him Mohammed. Somebody said, ‘why?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I feel like it’.” The real Mohamed Al Fayed was a billionaire serial rapist and sex trafficker whose son Dodi Fayed died with Diana, Princess of Wales. Kind of a weird name to think of, surely?

WHAT REPUBLICAN SUSAN COLLINS IS SAYING:

“No, I don’t think there should be, I think that’s what you have elections for,” the Maine senator said about term limits this week after vowing to only serve two terms before she was first elected back in 1996.

WHAT DEMOCRAT JON OSSOFF IS SAYING:

“If John Lewis were marching today from Selma to Montgomery, Mike Collins would be grabbing a billy club.”

AND FINALLY…PLACE YOUR BETS:

Who will win the Iowa Senate race?

What they’re saying on Kalshi:

Ashley Hinson 56%

Josh Turek 44%

What they’re saying on Polymarket:

Ashley Hinson 56%

Josh Turek 44%

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