Demography of the 2020 Presidential Election: What Do We Want to Learn from the New Yorker and the U.S. Senate? Some Current Challenges to American Democracy
To demonstrate his conclusion, Nate mapped the 2020 presidential vote onto the 2022 House map, created after the recent census. When he did, he found that 226 of the current districts voted for Joe Biden in 2020, and only 209 voted for Trump.
The New Yorker recently reported on the problem of germandering in the drawing of state legislature districts. North Carolina is likely to redrawn its congressional maps before 2030, in case the Supreme Court limits the authority of state courts. Still, if you were going to rank the biggest current threats to American democracy, gerrymandering would not be at the top of the list.
The movement inside the Republican Party to refuse to accept defeat in an election would be No. 1. The influence that the Senate has on residents of small states and the winner take-all nature of the Electoral College are the first things that would happen after that.
The November Surprise of Herschel Walker: A Reappraisal of a Candidate Republican Governor and a Disgraced Snoozer
Editor’s Note: Geoff Duncan, a Republican, is the 12th Lieutenant Governor of Georgia. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has more opinion articles.
The October surprise involving Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee in Georgia’s US Senate race, has upended the political landscape, throwing one of the nation’s closest midterm races into turmoil five weeks before Election Day, but it never had to be this way. Just as there should not be two Democrats representing a center-right state like Georgia in the US Senate, the Republican Party should not have found its chance of regaining a Senate majority hanging on an untested and unproven first-time candidate.
Walker won the primary because of who he was, not policy proposals. He trounced his opponents because of his performance on the football field 40 years ago and his friendship with former President Donald Trump – neither of which are guaranteed tickets to victory anymore.
Everyone in America deserves due process, and Walker vehemently denied the Daily Beast report suggesting he had paid for a woman’s abortion in 2009 after the two conceived a child while they were dating. Walker is opposed to abortion rights. He went so far as to threaten legal action against the publication as a recourse. The impact in the court of public opinion was immediate and intense. Even influential conservative personality Erick Erickson described it as “probably a KO.”
The GOP needs Walker to weather the storm and people must hold their breath. Walker has faced serious allegations including domestic abuse, an exaggerated business career and an erratic personality. So far, he has had a Trump-esque Teflon quality of surviving scandals that would sink mere mortals. Walker’s latest test is his most serious, not just by its nature, but in its October timing.
Meanwhile, the Georgia governor’s race offers Republicans a better path forward as a party. What was billed as a blockbuster re-match between the incumbent GOP Governor Brian Kemp and Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams has turned into a relative snoozer. In the year since she raised nearly $28 million and became a national celebrity, she has yet to recreate the magic of her previous campaign.
She didn’t have the same enthusiasm for her candidacy this time around. It is sad but she lost by such a big margin.
Yet Kemp is breathing easier this year for factors that extend beyond Abrams’ flaws. One of the things he has done is fall back on his own record. Georgia has been named the best state for business every year for the last nine years. In a decision that has aged well over time, Kemp re-opened our state from the pandemic faster than many others, angering even then-President Trump. As more people and businesses have re-located to our state for our business-friendly climate, Georgia has taken meaningful strides toward becoming the technology capital of the East Coast.
Predictions for the 2022 Midterm Election: Where will we go? Where do we stand, what will we do next? Where are we going? What do we need to know?
There is a steady lead that the incumbent Democrat Senator Raphael Warnock has over his opponent. He has done so despite voting more than 96% of the time with President Joe Biden in a state where just 44% of voters approve of the President, compared to 53% who disapprove, according to a recent Quinnipiac University survey.
Those numbers do not lie. Our Senate race should be a referendum on Warnock’s blind rubber-stamping of Biden’s agenda. In an evenly divided upper chamber, Warnock could have stopped every piece of flawed legislation that passed along party line votes, including the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act and the $750 billion Inflation Reduction Act, both often cited by conservatives as some of the culprits for inflation rates at four-decade highs.
If we want the American public to be serious about us, we need to start by nominating candidates they should take seriously. That process goes beyond celebrity or fame. It requires leaders who can win elections with a conservative vision for governing.
The GOP has considerable momentum in its bid to win back the House of Representatives while the destiny of the Democratic-run Senate will come down to a handful of knife-edge races. A Republican triumph in either chamber would severely curtail Biden’s domestic presidency and set up an acrimonious two years of political standoffs ahead of the 2024 White House race.
The results of the 2022 midterm election have not been fully tallied and the crucial question – who will control Congress? – has not been answered. On this day after, we can make some initial conclusions.
Democrats had a golden summer. The Dobbs decision led to a surge of voter registrations. Voters handed Democrats a string of sweet victories in unlikely places — Alaska and Kansas, and good news in upstate New York.
Over the past month or so, there’s been a rumbling across the land, and the news is not good for Team Blue. In the latest New York Times/Siena College poll 49 percent of likely voters said they planned to vote for a Republican for Congress, and 45 percent said they planned to vote for a Democrat. The Democrats held a one-point lead.
The poll contained some eye-popping numbers. Democrats were hoping that the issue of abortion rights would get them support among female voters. It doesn’t seem to be working. The gender gap is no longer favored by Democrats over the past month. In September, women who identified as independent voters favored Democrats by 14 points. Republicans have gained 18 percentage points in favor of them.
To understand how the parties think the campaign is going, look at where they are spending their money. The Washington Post’s HenryOlsen said last week that the Democrats are putting more money into House districts where they lost in 2020 to Joe Biden. The races in Oregon’s Sixth District and California’s 13th District are toss ups. He won those areas two years ago by a margin of 14 and 11 points.
The house ethics committee is chaired by Charlie Dent who was a member of the congress from Pennsylvania and chair of the appropriations subcommittee. He is a political commentator for CNN. His views are not reflected in this commentary. View more opinion on CNN.
Pennsylvania has two statewide, open seat races, with US Sen. Pat Toomey retiring and Gov. Tom Wolf finishing the second of his two terms. It is not common in the commonwealth.
In Pennsylvania, Attorney General Josh Shapiro trounced Doug Mastriano, who played an active role in trying to overturn the 2020 election and ran a campaign rife with antisemitic innuendo against his Jewish opponent. Trump’s far-right election-denying allies lost in Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maryland, and many other contests.
The radio has 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884. What’s more, during an interview last week on the Real America’s Voice network, Mastriano falsely claimed the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia “is grabbing homeless kids and kids in foster care, apparently, and experimenting on them with gender transitioning, something that is irreversible.”
Oz vs. Fetterman: Is the US Senate Race Torss-Up? An Update on Dr. Oz and Lt. Gov. John Fucherman
The US Senate race, on the other hand, is a toss-up between Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz and Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. Oz and Fetterman will debate on Tuesday for the first and only time, and the stakes couldn’t be higher for Fetterman, who suffered a near fatal stroke days before the primary election in May.
Fetterman had a stroke and had problems with his hearing, which raised questions about his ability to perform his duties as a senator. There is a lot of interest on Fetterman, who will use closed captioned during the debate. Some people with hearing or hearing-related issues use closed caption.
The polls remain tight. Oz’s unfavorable ratings rose high among Republicans as well as Democrats and independents when he emerged from the GOP primary. Republican voters have returned to Oz.
Fetterman is being lectured on inflation, taxes, and the Green New Deal by the man and his allies. Fetterman, an early supporter of US Sen. Bernie Sanders, has been attacked as a radical socialist.
With a record homicide rate in Philadelphia in 2021, Fetterman’s opponents have interpreted this “modern direction” as a mass release of convicted criminals, including pardons for convicted murderers. In fact, Republicans are contrasting Shapiro’s votes on the pardons board with Fetterman’s in an effort to capture voters like me who reject Mastriano and question Fetterman’s stance on public safety.
As expected, Fetterman has hammered Oz on abortion rights, especially in the Philadelphia media market where the issue resonates most heavily in the four suburban collar counties. Fetterman tried to tie Oz to Mastriano, as well as the baggage with him.
The Failure of Mastriano in Trying to Win the November Midterm Elections: The Case against Donald J. Biden and Inflation
Republicans are increasingly bullish on winning big in Tuesday’s midterm elections, as they slam Democrats over raging inflation and crime while President Joe Biden seeks a late reprieve by warning that GOP election deniers could destroy democracy.
As I noted last month, if you were looking to choose the single most important race in the country in the coming midterm elections, you could do worse than pick the one for Pennsylvania governor.
Combine that with the fact that the governor of the Pennsylvania has wide latitude when it comes to election oversight – the governor appoints the state’s top election official – and you can begin to grasp why controlling this seat matters a whole lot.
“As he tours the Commonwealth, Mastriano has essentially walled himself off from the general public, traveling within a bubble of security guards and jittery aides who aim to not only keep him safe, but ensure he only comes into contact with true believers. …
“… Republican leaders around the state had hoped that Mastriano’s unorthodox campaign would evolve over the summer and begin reaching out to undecided voters. Instead, the opposite has happened. Labor Day came and went.”
Things haven’t gotten any better since. Mastriano is not going to engage with the mainstream media. And he is getting absolutely crushed on TV, too. Since Labor Day, Democrats have spent more than four times as much on ads in the race as Republicans, according to figures tabulated by CNN’s David Wright.
Mastriano had the endorsement of the former President as well as the Trump candidacy, which is why he was running for the Presidency in the Republican primary.
Meaning that beating him was no easy task. But national Republicans – perhaps unnerved by getting sideways with Trump – did very little to try to sway primary voters away from Mastriano, even as it was clear that there were major doubts about his willingness and ability to reach out beyond the hardcore GOP base in a general election.
A New Look at Fetterman’s High-Stakes Debate Performance: A New Perspective on the Problem of Abortion Rights in Pennsylvania
Schumer expressed some concern about the situation in Georgia, but he was hopeful about Pennsylvania after seeing their nominee perform in a debate.
Of Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s high-stakes debate performance against Republican Mehmet Oz, Schumer said: “It looks like the debate didn’t hurt us too much in Pennsylvania … so that’s good.”
The overheard comments came during a conversation among Schumer, President Joe Biden and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on the tarmac of Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, New York. Biden gave a speech in the state Thursday as part of his closing message, which he painted Republicans as a threat to Americans pocketbooks.
On a frenetic final weekend of campaigning, Biden and Obama tried to push Democratic nominee John Fetterman over the line in a Pennsylvania Senate race that represents the party’s best chance to pick up a GOP-held Senate seat. But Democrats are under fierce pressure in states like Arizona and Nevada that could flip the chamber to the GOP. Republicans need a net gain of just one seat to win the majority.
Catherine Cortez Masto is a vulnerable incumbent in Nevada according to the Democratic leader.
Abortion rights have been a flashpoint not only in Georgia, but in Pennsylvania, where Fetterman has looked to turn voters’ attention to Oz’s comments about the procedure in this week’s debate. Local politicians should contribute to women’s medical decisions, according to the Republican.
Fetterman said that Oz was correct when he said “you can’t afford to give a clown a vote on the issue of abortion.”
But while Democrats immediately seized on Oz’s comments in their paid advertising, most of the post-debate attention was focused on the effects of Fetterman’s stroke.
It was important for us to be there and we wanted to be there. And we showed up,” the Democrat told Reid. “And getting knocked down, I always got back up. And, to me, that’s really at the essence of our campaign, is that we’re running for any Pennsylvanian that ever got knocked down that has to get back up. And that’s really what we’re running on.”
The 2020 Democratic Primary: How Secretary of State Chris Biden and the State Sen. Karamo will be running for a new secretary of state
Millions of dollars in political money have been spent this year on low-profile secretary of state contests, which have drawn national attention as several Republican nominees doubt the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.
In 27 states, voters will vote for secretaries of state in the upcoming elections. Fourteen of those seats currently are held by Republicans and 13 by Democrats.
Voting rights advocates are concerned about the presence of election deniers on general election ballots in key battlegrounds because of the role these offices will play in affirming the outcome of future elections.
There was a clear “red shift” in Arizona in 2020. Former President Donald Trump gained ground as more batches of votes were tallied after Election Night, but Trump never overtook Biden, who carried the state by roughly 10,000 ballots, or just about 0.3% of the vote.
Georgia: The Georgia contest features one of the country’s best-known election chiefs – Republican Brad Raffensperger, who refused Trump’s request to “find” the votes needed to overturn his loss in the Peach State. A special grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia is looking into the campaign by Trump and his allies.
All eyes in Michigan will be on the state’s gubernatorial race as Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer faces conservative commentator Tudor Dixon, who’s hoping her Trump endorsement will help turn the state back towards Republicans. The right to abortion will also be on the ballot. Democrats hope the issue will help boost turnout among their base voters. Voting and elections will be important issues for Michigan, as they will decide on a ballot measure to expand access to the ballot, and a new secretary of state. She has supported Trump and the lies that were told about the 2020 election. In order to keep the blue color of Michigan, Democrats have to do well in Detroit-area counties as well as run up the score in more Democratic-friendly parts of the state. The western and northern parts of the state will probably vote for Republicans in the upcoming election, though they will try to get more support in Grand Rapids, where the area has become more Democratic in recent years.
Karamo, a community college professor who secured an endorsement from Trump last year, has said he won the election, and she signed on to an unsuccessful Supreme Court lawsuit that challenged Biden’s victory in four states.
When Postal Voting Changes: What Happens When More People Become More Disliked about Elections: The Case of Biden and McSally
Democrats who were more enthusiastic about postal voting were more likely to cast the earliest mail ballot that was reported on Election Night. Later waves of results will come from in-person polling places or mail ballots that arrived on Election Day – which will likely skew Republican, as they did in 2020.
Biden and the two Democratic nominees for Senate all prevailed in very close races. (Biden’s victory came in November, while the Senate candidates won runoffs in January 2021.) They all padded their numbers as more ballots were counted over time, overcoming the “red mirage” from the early results.
This happens because of varying state-by-state rules for how people can vote, how and when election officials tally the votes, and how often new results are posted. It’s also exacerbated by recent trends in voter preferences, with Democrats much more likely to vote-by-mail or use ballot dropboxes, while Republicans disproportionally favor going to the polls in-person on Election Day.
These quirks of the US election system are normal and somewhat predictable. They aren’t indicative of fraud or wrongdoing despite what many Republicans have said.
When more people vote-by-mail or vote early, these “shifts” or “mirages” can become even more exaggerated. More than 100 million votes have been cast this year before Election Day.
The Senate race in Utah and a new House race in Montana are interesting but all eyes are on Nevada, one of the toughest Senate races in the country.
The Grand Canyon State has a long and bipartisan history of mail-in voting. But that trend started changing in 2020, with some Republicans eschewing the method because of Trump’s false claims of fraud. Now, mail-in voting is more popular among Democrats, making the early results look “bluer.”
Shifts can be unpredictable. The late wave results helped to defeat Martha McSally in the Senate race. The race was called six days after Election Day.
In 2020 this played out in dramatic fashion. Trump was ahead by nearly 700,000 votes on Election Night, but over four painstaking days, his lead evaporated as mail-in votes were tallied in the major population centers of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Biden won the Keystone State by about 63,000 votes, and his projected victory there, on the Saturday after Election Day, was when he clinched the White House.
The state gave grants for counties to count votes continuously after the polls close, instead of going back to their homes in the middle of the night. Only four counties did not take advantage of the deal. The count should be faster with the new policy.
The shift might not be as sharp this time. Georgians are more likely to vote by mail in 2022 due to the cessation of the Covid-19 epidemic. The quicker the mail-in vote count can be, the better. These and other factors will likely blunt the impact of the “blue shift.”
Georgia is a state that is in a second round of voting. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, a runoff election will be held next month.
Election officials in the state have not given many details about the vote-counting process, such as which kinds of ballots will be reported first. This is essential to figure out how the early vote compares to the later figures.
Furthermore, this is the first midterm election in Nevada with universal mail-in voting. The state decided to adopt this system in 2020, after the Covid-19 Pandemic hit.
The ballots that are postmarked by Election Day arrive at the election offices after the polls close. Some people call them late-arriving ballots. If they arrive by November 12 they will be counted and still legal votes in Nevada.
It is a relatively small state and the vote-count tends to go quickly. Most of the counting on election night is done by the local clerks in Wisconsin.
The law allows many localities to process mail in ballots before Election Day. While many clerks aren’t taking advantage of the extra processing time, some of the largest cities in the state are — including Detroit and Grand Rapids, the two biggest cities.
The 2020 Pennsylvania Campaign: Why the Bidens Counted, the Barack Obama Counts, and the Senator J.D. Vance
Democrats excelled in Pennsylvania. They ran as well as Mr. Biden did. They swept all of the seats in the House. John Fetterman beat Mr. Biden by a wide margin in the race for the US Senate. Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee for governor, won in a landslide.
Kevin McCarthy, the potential next Speaker of the House, talked about his plans for power in an interview with CNN. He promised broad investigations against the Biden administration on the Afghanistan withdrawal, the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic and how the administration has dealt with parents and school board meetings. He was open to the possibility of impeaching Biden.
In a sign of the critical stakes and the growing angst among Democrats, four presidents – Biden, Donald Trump, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton – all took to the campaign trail over the weekend.
Ex-President Trump, edging ever closer to announcing a 2024 White House bid, will wrap up a campaign he used to show his enduring magnetism among grassroots Republicans, in Ohio, with a rally for Senate nominee J.D. Vance on Monday. In a speech that concluded in pouring rain for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on Sunday, Trump predicted voters would “elect an incredible slate of true MAGA warriors to Congress.”
Biden warned about the country’s core values being in danger from Republicans who denied the truth about the Capitol insurrection and after the brutal attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul.
“Democracy is literally on the ballot. This is an important time for the nation. Everyone has to speak with one voice regardless of party. There’s no place in America for political violence,” Biden said.
The president will end his effort to stave off a rebuke from voters at a Democratic event in Maryland. He’s not going to try to help a lawmaker on the final night in a race that could make or break him, which shows his diminished standing in an election that has reverted to a popularity contest.
Corrupt Republican Candidate Ronna McDaniel During a CNN interview: “What Have we learned about the last election?” said Biden
Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel predicted on CNN’s “State of the Union” that her party would win both the House and the Senate and accused Biden of being oblivious to the economic anxiety among Americans with his repeated warnings about democracy.
But the president warned in a speech in Pittsburgh on Saturday night alongside Obama that Republican concern over the economy was a ruse and claimed that the GOP would cut Social Security and Medicare if they won majorities.
They are all about the wealthier getting wealthy. And the wealthy with more money. The middle class gets stiffed. Under their policy the poor get poorer, Biden said.
There are fears that some Republican candidates may try to defy the will of voters if they don’t win the election, because of the chaos and violence that occurred after Trump refused to accept the results of the last election. Ron Johnson raised concern about the vote.
On Sunday, a staffer at the headquarters of the pro-Trump candidate for Arizona governor opened a letter with suspicious white powder. Lake’s opponent, current Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, condemned the incident as “incredibly concerning.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/07/politics/election-eve-campaigning/index.html
The Biden Effect After the 2004 GOP Seiberg-Witten Pandemic: The Case for a Democratic Reionization of the White House
The first major fights of the GOP nomination contest in four years went down in Florida with Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis going at each other. The man who may prove to be the toughest primary opponent for the ex-president in the White House race is now known as Ron DeSanctimonious.
But the Florida governor chose not to engage, turning his ire instead on Biden and calling his Democratic opponent, Charlie Crist, “a donkey” while taking credit for defying Washington officials and experts during the pandemic.
Trump teased the likelihood of a presidential run after he made a mockery of Rickards on Sunday, but did not repeat it on Monday. In another sign the next presidential race is starting to heat up, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton decided not to run in the Republican primary.
Clinton was in New York Saturday to campaign for Gov. Kathy Hochul. The Empire state should be safe for the party but Hochul’s campaign against Zeldin is a sign of the national environment for Democrats.
“I know the average election rally is just ‘whoop dee doo do vote for me,’ but your life is on the line. For young people in the audience, Clinton said, their lives are on the line.
With the US struggling under the high cost of living, Democrats have failed to head off a referendum on Biden’s economic management and presidency, and most polls predict that the Republicans will make this a classic midterm election rebuke.
Biden does not speak effectively or personally to Americans who want to get back to normal after the swine flu or to those who want to know if he understands the pain that rising prices in a 40-year high inflation explosion will cause.
If Republicans win back the House, they can impose a vise on Biden’s legislative program and set up a series of perilous political showdowns on spending and raising the debt-ceiling. They will conduct a number of hearings and investigations into everything from the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the surge in migrants across the southern border to Biden’s son.
A GOP majority could be used to hurt the president, because many candidates in the group are seen as being in Trump’s kind of image. After four years ofTrump nominating conservative judges, a Republican Senate would frustrate Biden’s hopes of balancing out the judiciary.
These states all have multiple critical races that will determine control of the Senate, the House and state governments. What happens in these states will affect issues of abortion rights, economic policy, education and the climate crisis across the country.
CNN’s Election Center uses race ratings by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales, which provides nonpartisan analysis of campaigns for Senate, House and governor.
To control the US House of Representatives, a party must hold 218 out of 435 seats. Republicans are currently favored to win 216 seats, while Democrats are favored to win 199 seats. The seats are rated as toss-ups.
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin in 2020: After Biden Flipped Pennsylvania Back to the Democrats in 2016 Elections, Governor Steve Sisolak, and the Deputy Attorney General
Since Jimmy Carter was on the ballot, no Democratic presidential candidate has won the state of Georgia since Bill Clinton, but that all changed in the 2020 election, when Biden won the state with the electoral college votes.
As Nevada tries to recover from a pandemic downturn that hit the tourism industry especially hard, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Gov. Steve Sisolak are among the Democratic party’s most vulnerable incumbents. Adam Laxalt, the former state Attorney General, won the governor’s race in 2014; he lost a bid for governor last year. Sisolak is running for sheriff of the state’s largest county. Democracy is also on the ballot, as Republican Jim Marchant, who has cast doubt on the 2020 election, seeks to run Nevada’s elections as secretary of state. Republican candidates ordinarily run best in the state’s more sparsely populated rural counties. Statewide races are won or lost in Democratic-leaning Las Vegas and surrounding communities of Clark County.
In 2020, Biden flipped Pennsylvania back to the Democrats. The state had voted for the Democrats in six consecutive presidential elections until Trump narrowly defeated them in the 2016 election.
One of the most closely divided states in the country is Wisconsin, and both Ron Johnson, the GOP Sen. and Tony Evers, the Democratic Gov. face very competitive reelection campaigns. The lieutenant governor is faced with the risk of removing police funding, which Johnson had supported in the past. The candidates for the Republican nomination for president are trying to amplify Donald Trump’s 2020 election lies. The capital of Madison and Milwaukee support the Democrats more than any other city. The GOP base is located in the affluent north and western suburbs of Milwaukee as well as less populated counties in central Wisconsin.
The Road to a National Majority: What Will he Do if he Wins the 2024 General Election? An Observation of Ron DeSantis
Expect a poll-close call in favor of Republican John Boozman to be re-elected to the Senate – and, yes, for Sarah Huckabee Sanders to be governor of Arkansas. Sanders, the former Trump White House press secretary, is set to follow in her father’s (Mike Huckabee) footsteps as governor of the state. Sanders underwent surgery last month after a biopsy revealed she had thyroid cancer. She said after her surgery that she was “cancer-free.”
The races are on Long Island and in the north of New York City. There are seven House races to watch in New York, and for the last 15 years or so, these moderate areas have been some of the strongest bellwethers of which way the wind is blowing for control of the House.
Expect poll-close calls in favor of California Sen. Alex Padilla, who would be elected for the first time – he was appointed to replace Kamala Harris in 2021; for Gov. Gavin Newsom, Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo and Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sent a clear message to every Republican voter Tuesday night: My way is the path to a national majority, and former President Donald Trump’s way is the path to future disappointments and continued suffering.
DeSantis made a convincing case that he, rather than Trump, gives Republicans the best chance to defeat Biden (or some other Democrat) in 2024. With Trump about to announce his reelection candidacy, there’s a lot to think about and a solid foundation for a challenge to the former President.
Meanwhile, many of the candidates Trump endorsed in 2022 struggled, and it was clear from CNN exit polls that the former President – with his 37% favorability rating – would be a serious underdog in the 2024 general election should he win the Republican presidential nomination for a third time.
My friend Patrick Ruffini of Echelon Insights tweeted a key observation: DeSantis commanded huge support among Latinos in 2022 compared to Trump in 2020.
In 2020, Biden won Osceola County by nearly 14 points. This time, DeSantis secured the county by nearly seven points, marking a whopping 21-point swing.
Let it Go: What do young people want from their next election? The case of Maryland, Massachusetts, whose first black governor was Wes Moore
Bush’s former special assistant is a CNN contributor, as is a McConnell campaign adviser. He is a partner at RunSwitch Public Relations in Louisville, Kentucky. He can be followed on a social media platform, “#ScottJenningsKY.”
Let it go. After election night, I know I said it before, but we can all stop believing every election is about Donald Trump. Instead, when asked in exit polls across the country, younger people, women and other voters in key demographics said their top concerns were inflation, abortion rights, crime and other quality of life issues.
It is a relief. It feels like a majority of voters want to move politics away from the divisive rhetoric of the past few years.
Maryland voters, meanwhile, elected Democrat Wes Moore as their state’s first Black governor. Massachusetts became the first New England state to have a female governor. She is the first out lesbian to win a governorship in the US.
In four states, voters abolished slavery in the name of unfinished business. Louisiana’s constitution does not mention the slavery clause.
Despite efforts to limit voting rights across the nation, voters in Alabama approved a measure requiring that any change to state election law goes into effect at least six months before a general election. The amendment that would have removed abortion rights protections in the Kentucky constitution was narrowly defeated by voters.
It was heartening to see that so many voters of younger generations turned out. John Della Volpe, the pollster for the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School, told me that this was the third straight national election – 2018, 2020 and now 2022 – in which the youth vote has surged. And their votes mattered: Drawing upon exit polls, Volpe estimates that voters over 40 were likely to vote for Republican candidates while voters under 40 went for Democrats – and those under 40 were the determining factor.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/opinions/outcome-us-2022-midterm-election-roundup/index.html
The Donald Trump Legacy: Running, Not to Run? The Case for a Repulsive, Honest, Black Athlete
Roxanne Jones has been an editor, reporter, and producer for The New York Daily News and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Jones co-authored Say it Loud: AnIllustrated History of the Black Athlete. She talks about sports, politics and culture on 900AMWURD.
Donald Trump was the victim of voters on Tuesday. Despite his efforts, many of his favorites not only lost but denied the GOP the usual out-party wave of wins that come in midterm elections. This leaves a diminished Trump with the challenge of deciding what to do next.
In the short term, the man who so often returns to his well-worn playbook resumed his years-long effort to ruin Americans’ confidence in any election his team loses. Before the polls closed, he told his followers to protest. In a sign of his declining power, no mass protests ensued.
False claims of election fraud are likely to be a major theme of his campaign if he runs for president a second time in four years.
One of the main questions now is, “to run or not to run.” It’s not an easy choice. George H.W Bush and Jimmy Carter retreated from politics and devoted themselves to new interests, just like other one-term presidents have done. However, he has other options. He could revive his television career – Fox News? – or return to his businesses. He could potentially make a new role for himself as leader of an organization that can exploit his resources to get more attention, and give him enough time to play golf.
He has lawyers who could do the same thing, even if he ran. Fox News is unlikely to pay enough, and his businesses are now being watched by a court-appointed overseer. He has a combination of easy work and easy money with his favorite pastimes: fame, money and fun. What are you not fond of?
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/opinions/outcome-us-2022-midterm-election-roundup/index.html
The Good News of Tuesday’s Midterm Election: Donald Trump, the Pursuit of Success, and the Giant Victories of Joe Biden
Michael D’Antonio is the author of “Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success” and co-author of “High Crimes: The Corruption, Impunity, and Impeachment of Donald Trump.”
Many Americans were hopeful after Tuesday’s election, worried about the future of our democracy. There was an orderly process of voting. So far, the streets have been free of violence, the courts are not clogged with petitions to overthrow the results and many election deniers have been cast aside. Overall, this was an election that rejected the extremists and rallied the friends of democracy. Whatever your political leanings, that is very good news.
This was also an election, of course, that will go down in history as a huge surprise. President Joe Biden pulled it off despite his poor approval ratings. Now the question is whether he can translate his success (and that of other Democrats) into greater progress in governing. He was smart to contact Republican leaders within hours because of his opponents’ stubbornness.
For the first time in recent memory, Americans can exhale a sigh of relief that there are still people in the public arena who want to bring us together again.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/opinions/outcome-us-2022-midterm-election-roundup/index.html
Defending Democracy in the 21st Century: The New York Campaign for Truth, Justice, Democracy, and the Promise of Freedom for the Future
David Gergen has been a White House adviser to four presidents of both parties and is a senior political analyst at CNN. He is a professor of public service at the Harvard Kennedy School and also co-founded the Center for Public Leadership.
Republicans won big in New York. Their candidates for Congress fared far better than Mr. Trump had in 2020 — sometimes by as much as 20 points. The Republicans won all seven congressional districts in the state. In a traditionally blue state, Kathy Hochul held off Lee Zeldin to win the governor’s race.
The National rifle Association endorsed Zeldin when he was in Congress. He voted against certification of the 2020 election in Congress, after texting with a former White House staff person and reportedly planning to contest the results of the 2020 election before they were even in.
The polls were not perfect. New York is determined to defend its ethnic and sexual diversity and not cowed by overblown claims of crime.
Hochul is trying to address voter concerns and stand up for New York values of openness, decency, and freedom for all. Because that’s what New Yorkers did today: The majority of us didn’t cast our ballots from a place of fear and reaction, but from the last dregs of hope and optimism. We voted based on what we wanted. We want the governor to deliver.
The Outcomes of US-2022 Midterm Election Roundup: Budd Budd, Douglas Heye, and Eric Cantor
The journalist and author of the book “OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind” is based in New York. There is a way to follow her on social media.
Two candidates were vying for the seat being left by Richard Burr, a retiring Republican. In spite of being seen as a red state, North Carolina has elected Democrats as five of the last six governors and two of the last six senators.
There were multiple polls which had the candidates separated by a few percentage points.
Perhaps more than in any other Senate campaign, the issue of crime loomed large in North Carolina, with Budd claiming in his speeches that it had become much more dangerous to walk the streets in the state. That talking point, along with his focus on inflation, appeared to help propel him to victory in Tuesday’s vote.
Her main focus was on abortion and she would stand up for the rights of women not just for reproductive rights, but workplace protections and equal pay.
A GOP strategist and CNN political commentator, Douglas Heye is the ex-deputy chief of staff to Eric Cantor, who was the House Majority Leader. Follow him on Twitter @dougheye.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/opinions/outcome-us-2022-midterm-election-roundup/index.html
The Bad, the Ugly: The Pain of Black Women in the Mid-South after a Democrat-Circumstantial Loss
We were sure that Val Demings would have a difficult time ousting Marco Rubio in the race for Florida senator, and we were not surprised when she lost. With 98% of the vote counted, Rubio won easily, garnering 57.8% of the vote to Demings’ 41.1%.
As it turns out, Tuesday was a tough night all around for Black women running statewide. Judge Beasley narrowly lost her Senate bid in North Carolina.
Had Abrams succeeded, she would have been the first Black woman to become the governor of a US state. After her second straight electoral loss, America is still waiting for that breakthrough.
It is hard for a Democrat to win statewide in the deep South. It is very difficult for a Black woman to win statewide in the region: In fact, it has never been done.
At the end of the day, these women have nothing to be upset about. They ran great campaigns and created great platforms for themselves. And they each put one more crack in the glass ceiling facing candidates for the US Senate and governors’ mansions.
It showed how race and gender still affect the opinions of male voters, as well as power brokers of my generation and older. For Black women, a double burden of both race and gender at play. It is the nagging story of our lives.
Reflections on the morning after Election Day can be a little fuzzy: Chalk it up to a late night, incomplete data and a still-forming narrative. As a long time Pennsylvania election-watcher, I see three clear conclusions.
The most obvious differences appeared to be the abortion and democracy issues that were at stake, state by state. In Pennsylvania, Republicans nominated a candidate for governor, Doug Mastriano, who was central to efforts to overturn the states’s 2020 presidential election results. Democrats feared that a Mastriano victory could risk a constitutional crisis and a threat to democratic government. It might have threatened the other long-held right of Mr. Mastriano, who was a strident opponent of abortion.
2) “You’re not from here and I am” and “Stick it to the man” proved to be sufficiently powerful messages for alt-Democrat John Fetterman to win his Senate race, albeit by a much smaller margin.
The two simple themes spoke to the quirky authenticity that is a longstanding strand of Pennsylvania’s political DNA, and was amplified by more than $300 million in campaign spending.
3) In the home of Independence Hall, independent voters made a significant difference. Since the start of the marquee races, every poll showed that the two party candidates had lock-in margins with members of their own party.
Most polls showed that Fetterman and Shapiro had huge leads. They may not have been the same voters, since Fetterman could have been a young voter with an abortion rights issue and the indy backers could have been disaffected GOP voters.
The University of Michigan Campus Campus Voting: David Thornburgh, Ed. D. J. Thornbergh and Isabelle Schindler
David Thornburgh has been a civic leader in Pennsylvania. The former CEO of the Committee of Seventy is now the chairman of the Ballot PA initiative that repeals closed primaries. He is the second son of former GOP Governor and US Attorney General Dick Thornburgh.
The line of students registering to vote on Election Day stretched across the University of Michigan campus, with students waiting for over four hours. There was a sense of excitement surrounding the election on the campus. For many young people, especially young women, there was one motivating issue that drove their participation: abortion rights.
One of the most important and contentious issues on the ballot in Michigan was Proposal 3 (commonly known as Prop 3), which codifies the right to abortion and other reproductive freedoms, such as birth control, into the Michigan state constitution. The 1931 law that banned abortion even in cases of rape or incest and contained felonies for abortion providers was repealed after the Supreme Court’s decision in Wade v. Wade.
Isabelle Schindler is a senior at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy. She is a field director for College Democrats on her campus and has worked as a UMICH Votes Fellow to promote voting.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/opinions/outcome-us-2022-midterm-election-roundup/index.html
Tim Ryan, a moderate Republican, and the outcome of his first statewide office election: The midterm election scenario in Ohio with two senators on the ballot
It was, perhaps, a predictable ending for a candidate who threw away the traditional approach of rallying your base and instead courted the almost non-existent, moderate Trump voter. It is a shame. Ohio would have had two senators if Ryan had won. The last time that happened was almost 30 years ago, when Howard Metzenbaum and John Glenn represented our state.
Republicans also swept every statewide office in Ohio, including the elections for justices on the Ohio Supreme Court who, for the first time, had their political party listed next to their names on the ballot. This will give the Republicans a dependable majority on state’s highest court, which is significant since there is an ongoing unresolved legal battle over the drawing of state and federal legislative districts.
The Republicans had to decide whether they could keep these voters if Trump weren’t on the ballot. The Democrats recruited Rep. Tim Ryan to run for the Senate because he was from Northeast Ohio, having grown up just north of Youngstown. They hoped that Ryan could win back the working-class voters who had abandoned him, and he made his campaign around economic interests of the middle class. Once the votes were counted, however, Ryan performed only slightly better than Biden had in Northeast Ohio. In fact, he even lost Trumbull County, the place where he grew up and whose voters he represented in Washington for two decades.
A Senate seat held by a Democrat, that will be on the ballot, will put another test on the Democrats in Ohio. The Republicans will have no problem recruiting a quality candidate to run for the seat that they currently hold because of last night’s result.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/opinions/outcome-us-2022-midterm-election-roundup/index.html
Outcome Us-2022: Midterm Election Roundup for a Democrat Candidate who isn’t Even Afraid of Oz
Paul Sracic is a professor of politics and international relations at Youngstown State University and the coauthor of “Ohio Politics and Government” (Congressional Quarterly Press, 2015). Follow him on Twitter at @pasracic.
Trump proved to be a two-time loser in the commonwealth this election cycle, despite stirring up his base with screaming rallies for Republican candidates Dr. Mehmet Oz, Doug Mastriano and Rep. Scott Perry.
Oprah did not support John Fetterman in the Senate race, but her endorsement of him seems to have more weight than that of Trump.
All of this should compel some serious soul-searching among Republican leadership in Pennsylvania. What could have they been thinking to place all their marbles on someone so outside of the mainstream as Mastriano? Did they assume Pennsylvanians wouldn’t check Oz’s address? Will they rethink their hardline stance on abortion?
When the party candidate for the congressional race decided to quit the race, Shamaine Daniels, a city councilman in Harrisburg, stepped into the void and tried to oust the incumbent. But her lack of name recognition and inexperience on the state or national stage impacted her ability to establish a base of her own. The incumbent who played a role in trying to change the election will return to Washington with a clipped wing.
Joyce M. Davis is an outreach and opinion editor at PennLive. She is a veteran journalist and author who has lived and worked around the globe, including for National Public Radio, Knight Ridder Newspapers in Washington, DC, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/opinions/outcome-us-2022-midterm-election-roundup/index.html
What Will Lindsey & Biden Tell Us About the Problem of Gun Control in the US Senate During the November 2000 Elections?
Both of these strategies were strong enough to get them into a runoff, but which strategy will work in that arena? The answer could affect the control of the US Senate, if other races continue to produce strong results. Stay tuned while Georgians enjoy having the two candidates for Thanksgiving dinner and into the holiday season.
Edward Lindsey is a former Republican member of the Georgia House of Representatives and its majority whip. He is a lawyer in Atlanta focusing on public policy and political law.
The approach was most apparent in his ads. In a campaign spot in which he is shown tossing a football at various computer screens showing messages he disapproves of, he hurls the ball at one emblazoned with the words “Defund the Police” and dismisses what he disdainfully calls “the culture wars.”
The words “not too bad for a Democrat” appeared on the screen in an ad that showed Ryan hitting his mark at target practice. To imply you’re pro-gun rights when majority of Americans support gun control legislation – and when your party explicitly embraces a pro-gun control stance is bewildering. Ryan began to parrot the anti-China rhetoric that Republicans had taken up. Ryan opposed the student debt plan when it was announced by President Biden as an attempt to get young people to vote for the Democrats.
I would like to see him make an appearance with African American members of the Ohio congressional delegation, because I am a Black woman living in a metropolitan area. But I would have settled for one ad addressing the economic or social concerns of people who don’t live in the Rust Belt.
Brianna N. Mack is an assistant professor of politics and government at Ohio Wesleyan University whose coursework is centered on American political behavior. Her research interests center on the political behavior of minorities. She tweets at @Mack_Musings.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/opinions/outcome-us-2022-midterm-election-roundup/index.html
What Do We Know about Eric Johnson, Wisconsin Attorney General, and When Did Michels Become a Champion of the Civil Rights Movement in Wisconsin?
In late February, Johnson, who Democrats hoped might be a beatable incumbent, was viewed favorably by only 33% of Wisconsin’s voters, according to the Marquette University Law School poll. He was viewed unfavorably by 45% of the electorate with 21% saying they didn’t know what to think of him or hadn’t heard enough about him. He finished the election cycle still seen unfavorably by 46% with 43% of the voters holding a favorable view of him.
The overturning of Roe v. Wade meant Wisconsin’s abortion ban from 1849 went back into effect. Michels supported the no-exceptions law but then flip-flopped and said he could support exceptions for rape and incest. Johnson was able to distract the issue by saying that he wanted the law to go to referendum.
Another issue that may have soured women voters on Michels was the allegation of a culture of sexual harassment within his company. Evers’ campaign unsurprisingly jumped at the opportunity to argue that “the culture comes from the top.” The training and culture of the company is not reflected in the allegations. It should not have been acceptable, nor condoned under theMichels Corporation leadership. The primary fight between Rebecca Kleefisch, the former lieutenant Gov. of Wisconsin and Michels was divisive and it didn’t help his appeal to women voters.
James Wigderson is the former editor of RightWisconsin.com, a conservative-leaning news website, and the author of a twice-weekly newsletter, “Life, Under Construction.”
A former CNN producer and correspondent namedfridaghitis is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. The opinions expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.
The GOP did not win a big victory in 2022: Why did Donald Trump and his fellow Democrats lose? What did the media tell us about the loss of the Republican presidential nomination?
First, there was no red wave, much less a red tsunami. There was no huge Republican victory at the polls. The election was a huge disappointment for the GOP. It was a disastrous day for Donald Trump, who hoped the Republican landslide would put him on a path to become their presidential candidate in four years.
The movement spearheaded by Trump and his election deniers performed worse than expected. Even some of the most dramatic Republican victories looked like a rebuke of Trump and his band of anti-democratic activists.
In exit polls, 28% of voters said they chose their House vote “to oppose Donald Trump.” Only 37% of people had a favorable view of the former president, who is now the front-runner for the GOP nomination. It should alarm the party.
Trump thinks if Republicans win he should get all the credit. I should not be blamed if they lose. But the evidence strongly suggests he deserves much of the blame.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/opinions/trump-biden-house-midterm-elections-2022-ghitis/index.html
The Great Adventures of Donald Trump and the Democratic Party: Using Hollywood to Make Sense of the (Pelosi, Oz) Candidates
They may well do it. Nancy Pelosi may lose her job as Speaker of the House, but the Democrats are still doing an amazing job. The party in power under Biden had the best performance since 2002, the year after 9/11.
The football star Herschel Walker could still win the runoff in December. He should not have been on the ballot, regardless of what anyone heard or learned. Trump apparently thought fame would do the trick, just as it did for him. So, he also backed TV star Mehmet Oz for the Pennsylvania seat. A key skill for a political candidate is verbal prowess, and that of John Fetterman wasstrued after a stroke.
Within hours of Trump’s mob-style tactics, all that happened was the revelation of “things” about the man if he runs. The former president hinted darkly, “I know more about him than anybody, except perhaps his wife.”
David Perdue was persuaded by Trump to run against Kemp in the primary. It was humiliation for Perdue and Trump when they voted in the primary.
Trump is about to declare his candidacy. Most Democrats find the prospect hard to stomach, but most Republicans would also like him to just focus on his golf game. He is seen as a threat to the party by the voters.
The Winners: What Happened Last Week in House and Senate Races? A Comparative Analysis of the Top Ten Democratic Congressional Candidates
There are exceptions, of course — like Democratic strength in Colorado or Republican durability in Texas. But most of each party’s most impressive showings fit well.
There’s the Republican landslide in Florida, where the stop-the-steal movement never sought to overturn an election result and where Gov. Ron DeSantis refused to go further than a 15-week abortion ban. There are the Democratic successes in Kansas and Michigan, where abortion referendums were on the ballot at different points this year, and where Democrats swept the most competitive House districts.
The pattern also helps explain some outliers in particular states. In Ohio, Representative Marcy Kaptur trounced her Republican opponent, J.R. Majewski, who had rallied at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and misrepresented his military service. She won by 13 points in the same district that Mr. Trump won in 2020. Almost every other Republican in House races in Ohio performed better than Mr. Trump had.