November 4, 2020

Devin Nunes, Who Sued a Twitter Cow, Keeps His Seat

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)Yara Nardi/AP

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President Donald Trump’s Mini-Me in California’s Central Valley, Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, will be going back to Congress for a 10th term in January. Voters in California’s 22nd District reelected Nunes over Democratic challenger Phil Arballo, according to the Associated Press and the Modesto Bee.

Over the past four years, Nunes has built a reputation as a bombastic sycophant of the president, using his position as chair of the House Intelligence Committee in 2017 and 2018 to lead the Republican response to investigations into Trump’s ties to Russia. The “Nunes Memo” released in 2018 questioned the justification for FBI surveillance of a former Trump campaign advisor, angering Democrats who claimed it was released solely to undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. 

That year, Nunes faced his first serious challenge from Andrew Janz, who took aim at Nunes’ lack of attention to voters in his district. Nunes defeated Janz’ bid by 5 points largely by excoriating the media, including the Fresno Bee, which had supported him in every previous reelection campaign but turned against him over his Trump-Russia antics. Since his 2018 win, Nunes has filed at least seven lawsuits against media organizations, politicos, and online critics including anonymous parody Twitter accounts known as Devin Nunes’ Cow and Devin Nunes’ Mom. None of his suits have been particularly successful. 

This year, Arballo made many of the same arguments as Janz while emphasizing issues like health care access and COVID-19. Meanwhile, Nunes doubled down on Trumpism, demonizing Arballo and other Democrats as socialists, claiming that conservatives are under attack from the so-called Deep State, and pushing rumors about Hunter Biden. He remained one of the Republican Party’s strongest House fundraisers, pulling in over $10 million for his reelection, including $200,000 raised in the two days after he announced a lawsuit against the Washington Post in March. 

Like Janz, Arballo didn’t do badly; he got nearly 47 percent of the vote. But Nunes isn’t going anywhere soon. And neither, it seems, are the trolls who made him have a cow:

WE CAME UP SHORT.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

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