When I texted my grandmother in southern Virginia last week to make sure she got out and voted “No” on the state’s redistricting referendum, and implored her to get her nursing home friends to do the same, I joked with some colleagues that I was whipping more votes than the RNC. It turns out, I was basically right. From top to bottom, the entire Republican apparatus was too inept to even flail as Democrats gerrymandered themselves 91% of the Congressional seats in a 55-45 state, at best. It was entirely asleep at the wheel. There are nights when the electorate fails the country, certainly, but last night the movement failed the voters. Let’s start with the RNC, which I’ll use as a stand-in for the national Republican apparatus writ-large, including the D.C. power-levers and donor class. National Republicans simply did not put anything into this race. They reached a consensus early on that this battle would be lost after Abigail Spanberger beat Winsome Sears by 15 points, so they didn’t bother trying. Almost no money was spent by national Republicans — a reality made worse by the fact that flacks for the RNC and NRCC were fellating themselves the day before for how much more money they were raising than Democrats. FEC: CASH ON HAND