thank you! that worked.
I have one other switch where I want to do the same thing. on this one, there is one red wire that is stripped and looped around the top terminal and a black wire on the bottom terminal. do I just put a wire nut around the black and exposed portion of the red wire?

Cut it at the loop, Discard the short piece between the switch and the wire nut. Take the black and longer red wire from the switch along with the longer redwire now going to the wirenut where the short piece was and connect them all together.

Effectively, you are connecting the wires on the switch all together (discarding the little redundant stub between the switch and the wirenut).

there was no wire nut inside this box. I ended up just "unhooking" the red wire and black wire and tied them all up in a wire nut. now the half-hot receptacle has two live outlets. things seem to be working as I intended. any harm/danger with that I did? thanks for the tips.

I can see the wire nut. Move the black wire and red wire to that nut with the existing red wire. (see yellow arrows). Delete the piece I had the orange squiggles on.

my two photos are actually from two different switches.
for the first post/photo (also the one you screenshot), I removed the loop from the top terminal and covered it with electric tape. I then removed the black wire from the bottom terminal and threw it into the wire nut with the red wire.
for the second photo/switch, I removed the red loop and black wire and threw them into a new wire nut.

thanks for your help.

"I removed the loop from the top terminal and covered it with electric tape "

You needed to cut off that little bit from the red wire, not tape the bare area. Tape will work itself loose over time as the adhesive fails. And that's a metal box. In the second case, it is debatable as to whether you should cut the red wire at the bare spot and put the 3 ends under the wire nut (now 2 reds and one black).

" Delete the piece I had the orange squiggles on. "

" You needed to cut off that little bit from the red wire, not tape the bare area. Tape will work itself loose over time as the adhesive fails. And that's a metal box. "

Now I get it. Makes sense. I've made the adjustments to that first switch. Thanks