This is squarely at the feet of McConnell. They were about to pass the $2000 amount (bipartisan) when McConnell suddenly announced that he wouldn’t do it and he had his own plan. This was just a couple of days before the election.
Needless to say, the Dems took to the air in Georgia and flooded the state with messages that said “Vote Dem, get $2000.”
So of course that’s what people did. The GOP candidates were actually a little ahead before that.
This is not to debate the merits of the $2000 payment, but the time had passed for that, it was a done deal, and McConnell (intentionally, I think) sabotaged it and the GOP was blamed. He had to have known what the result would be.
He spent months negotiating a package that included the $600 payment, then immediately came out publicly -- within 24 hours, as I remember it -- and complained that it wasn't enough.
What kind of "Art of the Deal" nonsense what that? You begin demanding terms for a new deal AFTER you've given up all the leverage you had while negotiating the old one?
If I had to guess, I would say Turtle did that just to screw PDJT.
The thing about working in DC is that pay doesn’t go down. So Mcconnell will continue to get the same pay he did while majority as minority. He’s probably glad to sit back.
Another factor besides bribing the electorate ... was reported was lower turnout in blue areas, reportedly because the election was fixed (e.g. Ruby video). Mitch is angry with Trump over this, instead of the GOP state officials who rank and file believed certified a false election. Why bother spend the time if the outcome is already determined. I also think there was a continuation of the Stacey’s stuffing the ballot boxes with illegal votes.
PS - The people who would vote for the $2000 bribe generally wouldn’t vote GOP anyway. No matter what $$$ amount of public money a GOP candidate would bribe a voter, the demonkkkraps will always out-bribe them. And when the demonkkkraps don’t deliver on their bribes, no problem, the dupes will continue to vote for them. Many people love to be lied to because the alternative -accept the truth would require work and personal change.