MAGA Republicans get the vapors as Stephen Richer says he'll vote for Biden

Haul out the fainting couches. Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer has said he’ll vote for Joe Biden in November.

Richer told CBS 5 News/3 TV’s Dennis Welch early last week that though he voted for Trump in 2020, he would vote for Biden this year.

This, of course, has led to a run on paper bags in grocery stores across the state as scandalized MAGA Republicans race to get their breathing under control.

Naturally, Rep. Justin Heap, one of two Republicans hoping to knock off Richer in the July 30 primary, is in full-blown hyperventilation — heavy emphasis on the hype part.

Funny that Justin Heap, of all people, is outraged

“DID YOU KNOW that the current fake-Republican County Recorder, Stephen Richer, has admitted he’s voting for Joe Biden?” Heap wrote in a Friday post to social media, complete with the inevitable emoji to convey his shock.

“That’s right … the same Joe Biden that’s caused the border invasion, skyrocketing inflation, a fentanyl epidemic, and world wars ... that’s who Stephen Richer has publicly endorsed for President.”

It’s worth noting that just a year ago, Heap insisted he was not a Trump supporter, that he found the ex-president “too polarizing.”

These days, however, acting in his role as mega-MAGA man, Heap can’t possibly understand why an elected official who has spent the last three and a half years defending democracy might not support the former president who has gleefully taken a pickax to democracy.

MAGA has targeted their wrath at Richer for a while

Richer, a lifelong Republican, has been flamed by his own party because he dared to deal in facts.

Because he has defended Maricopa County’s elections from the conspiracy kooks and political opportunists whose screams are full of sound and fury but scandalously short of any actual evidence.

For that, he’s been threatened with death, called a “fake Christian” and told to “get your Mormon a-- back to Utah.”

Even Shelby Busch, who will lead Arizona’s delegation to the Republican convention later this month, recently said she’d like to lynch him.

Funny, I don’t recall Heap condemning her comments.

His Biden vote inflames the far-right even more

But Richer saying he’ll vote for Biden?

Where oh where is my nebulizer?

To be fair, Heap is not the only Republican to come down with a case of the vapors after learning that Richer is putting what he believes is best for the country before what’s best for the party.

“‘REPUBLICAN’ MARICOPA COUNTY RECORDER STEPHEN RICHER SAYS HE’S VOTING FOR DEMOCRAT JOE BIDEN IN 2024,” the Maricopa County Republican Committee proclaimed on social media.

“We can't trust a Recorder who thinks this is somehow okay,” Jeremiah Cota, an Arizona delegate to the Republican National Convention, wrote.

For some, politics is religion and Trump the savior

“Piece of dirt @stephen_richer stating he is voting for Biden in 2024,” wrote Lois Shugarr, a state GOP committeewoman whose profile on X, formerly Twitter, proclaims “JESUS is my One and True Savior; Trump is my one and true President."

Fortunately for Trump, Shugarr and her fellow Christian “patriots” blindly proclaim that he is The Way.

That includes people like Kari Lake, who blasts her Senate opponent, Rep. Ruben Gallego, for leaving his pregnant wife, yet kneels at the altar of a guy who cheated on his pregnant wife with a porn star.

Kari Lake wouldn't debate Mark Lamb: Now I know why

People like Abe Hamadeh, who vows to work with Trump in Congress to “restore the America we love.” Never mind that that America would have seen his own parents deported and his own citizenship, bestowed as a result of being born here, denied.

People like the millions upon millions of Christians who idolize a candidate whose closest brush with the Lord, I suspect, was that time he stood for a photo op in front a church he doesn’t attend, holding up a Bible he likely never opens.

These days, he’s selling his own God Bless the USA Bible. You can pick the limited-edition version — the one with Trump’s picture inside — at Barnes and Noble for the low, low price of $125.95.

No word on whether the Holy book he hawks includes that part that teaches us to “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.”

Richer is not alone in rejecting election denier in chief

As for Richer, he didn’t respond on Sunday to a question about why he’s supporting Biden over Trump, though really, it’s not all that hard to figure out.

If you want to know what it’s been like these last three and a half years to be Richer — or, I suspect, any election official in the land — consider just this one response (one of many) when Richer dared to suggest in August 2022 that primary election voters use a certain type of fast-drying pen to mark their ballots at polling places, so as not to gum up the tabulation machines:

“Shove your Sharpies up your a--, you DIRTY, FILTHY, STINKING, LYING CHEAT. May karma slap you in the face like the little oath breaking criminal b---- that you are, you contemptible sack of s---. May your nefarious plans be thwarted and fall to the ground. May nothing you touch prosper. A curse on your filthy plans.”

Now Richer has decided it might be best to vote for the guy who hasn’t bamboozled Republicans into believing that after 30 years of Republican rule, Arizona’s elections are suddenly rife with fraud and corruption.

Where’s a paper bag when you need one?

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at @LaurieRoberts.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Stephen Richer won't vote for Trump. And MAGA loses their mind again