HOW TO WIN A REPUBLICAN RUNOFF BY LYING

Troy Nehls, the sheriff of Fort Bend County in Texas, is running for the congressional seat of fellow Republican Pete Olson, who's not seeking reelection. There'll be a runoff in mid-July to determine the GOP candidate for this seat -- in the primary, Nehls won 40.5% of the vote, while his challenger, Kathaleen Wall, won 19.4%.

That margin suggests that Nehls is in a good position to win the runoff, as do his endorsements from the Houston Chronicle and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And if he wins the runoff, he has a good shot of becoming a congressman. The district is less GOP than it was when Tom DeLay held this seat, but the Republican won in 2018, a Democratic wave year.

But Nehls is clearly looking for a little something extra to put him over the top.

And so...

The sheriff of Ft. Bend County, Texas is accusing a US postal worker of throwing his campaign mailers in the dumpster.

Sheriff Troy Nehls is a republican candidate running for Texas’ 22nd Congressional District. He said the postal worker was caught on video throwing a stack of his campaign mailers in the trash.

“Some patriots nearby heard a noise when she tossed them in & went to investigate,” Nehls tweeted. “They found a stack of them and called me. No wonder people are skeptical of mail in voting.”

A US Postal worker was just caught on video throwing a stack of my campaign mailers in a dumpster. Some patriots nearby heard a noise when she tossed them in & went to investigate. They found a stack of them and called me. No wonder people are skeptical of mail in voting. pic.twitter.com/I28SBydg2N

— Sheriff Troy Nehls (@SheriffTNehls) June 26, 2020

As the news story notes, "The video is not close enough to the incident to confirm the sheriff’s accusation." That's putting it mildly. It's impossible to tell what's happening in the video.

But not to fear:

The sheriff shared a picture of his fliers in the dumpster:

pic.twitter.com/C7sp6ITgKE

— Sheriff Troy Nehls (@SheriffTNehls) June 26, 2020

Well, the sheriff shared a picture of his fliers in a dumpster. We have no idea if it's the same dumpster. We have no idea whether the fliers were found there or placed there by Nehls or one his campaign workers. Conveniently, they're face-up.

But ... but ... mail-in ballot fraud!

This story has shown up at a number of right-wing sites -- Red State Nation (not to be confused with RedState), Free Republic, Canada's Post Millennial, Reddit's r/Conservative. Nehls's original tweet has been retweeted or liked more than 39,000 times.

This will be believed without the slightest skepticism by people who think every New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN news story is "fake news."



All those deeply reported stories? Completely made up. This? Gospel truth.