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  • Desperate for heart surgery for their baby, a family feels the effects of pediatric hospital shortages | CNN

    Desperate for heart surgery for their baby, a family feels the effects of pediatric hospital shortages | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Even before their daughter was born in June, Aaron and Helen Chavez knew she would need heart surgery. Doctors expected her to have an operation around 6 months of age.

    When it became apparent in September that it would have to happen much sooner than expected, the Chavezes said, they endured an agonizing monthlong wait for a bed to open at their local children’s hospital so baby MJ could have the procedure she needed.

    “They said, ‘Well, we would love to get her in as soon as possible. However, right now, we don’t have beds,’ ” Aaron said.

    Space for children in hospitals is at a premium across the country. Data reported to the US government shows that as of Friday, more than three-quarters of pediatric hospital beds and 80% of intensive care beds for kids are full. That’s up from an average of about two-thirds full over the past two years.

    Federal data shows that the strain on hospital beds for kids began in August and September, which is right around the start of the school year in many areas.

    Hospitals are seeing higher than normal numbers of sick infants and children due to a particularly early and severe season for respiratory infections in kids, including respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, and influenza.

    As of Friday, Golisano Children’s Hospital in Rochester, New York, the facility that treated the Chavezes’ daughter, was over capacity. Federal data shows that it has been consistently more full than the national average over the past few months. Golisano went from having 85% of its beds occupied in August to over 100% now.

    Like many other hospitals across the country, Golisano has seen a sharp increase in children who are severely ill with RSV. Dr. Tim Stevens, the chief clinical officer, said 35% of the hospital’s current patients – excluding those in the neonatal intensive care unit – have RSV.

    A lack of available beds means patients are sometimes held in the emergency department to wait for a bed to open so they can be admitted, Stevens says.

    It may also mean children who have chronic conditions and need procedures or hospital care, but whose conditions are stable, may have to wait.

    MJ was born in June with a ventricular septal birth defect – a hole between the pumping chambers of her heart. It’s a relatively common problem affecting about 1 in every 240 infants in the United States, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Doctors could see the defect on prenatal ultrasounds, but because MJ was never in the right position to get a good image, they weren’t sure of its size.

    If they’re small enough, these holes usually close on their own soon after birth. But the hole in MJ’s heart was not small.

    It caused the oxygen-rich blood coming from her lungs to mix with oxygen-poor blood returning from the rest of her body. Too much blood got squeezed back into her tiny lungs with each heartbeat, straining her respiratory system.

    Everything exhausted her, even nursing or drinking from a bottle. “She would stop eating before she was full and before she got the calories that she needed,” Aaron said.

    Typically, babies will take a bottle for 15 to 20 minutes at a time, but MJ would doze off after six or seven minutes, her mother recalls.

    They didn’t worry, Helen says, because they were trying hard not to be anxious newbies. “All those websites, they say sometimes you just have a sleepy baby, and it’s OK,” she said.

    Other signs that MJ might be hungry could be explained away, too. They mistook her constant fussing for colic. Her scalp started to get dry and flaky, and they thought it might be a common skin condition called cradle cap.

    As first-time parents, the Chavezes didn’t realize at first that MJ wasn’t eating enough. Doctors didn’t immediately catch it, either. MJ got three checkups during her first month, one within a few days of coming home from the hospital, the other at two weeks and another at one month.

    It’s normal for babies to lose weight after birth, especially if Mom got IV fluids during labor and delivery. They typically return to their birth weights by 2 to 3 weeks of age. And at first, MJ did regain weight, climbing back to her birth weight by 2 weeks old.

    But babies with heart conditions like hers can have faster-than-normal metabolisms, and it was between weeks two and four that her parents say the feeding issues really began to cause problems.

    “We were frustrated and we were scared, because she looked like she was losing weight, not gaining weight. She was very thin for a baby,” Aaron said.

    The doctors had advised them to count the number of wet and dirty diapers she was having each day as a way to judge whether she was eating enough. Her parents didn’t know it was not as much as she should have been.

    “One day, I was holding her, sitting in our recliner. I looked down at her and I was like, ‘this baby looks puny. Like, she does not look like she feels good,’ ” Helen said.

    She called their pediatrician, who saw them the same day. The pediatrician immediately notified their cardiologist, who arranged for a feeding tube to help MJ get more nutrition.

    Helen says they had been told MJ would need surgery to repair the hole in her heart around 6 months of age.

    “Once the feeding issues started, though, that I think that we all kind of realized that, OK, she’s probably not going to hit that six-month mark,” she says.

    MJ got the feeding tube when she was around 6 weeks old, in August. Her doctors started talking about moving the operation up but advised her parents that she would need to gain some weight first.

    The feeding tube helped for a time, but by the time MJ was 3 months old, her condition had deteriorated.

    “Every breath came with a grunt,” Aaron said. “She was fairly regularly sweating, no matter the ambient temperature in the room or whether we were holding her or not.”

    Every time MJ drew a breath, the skin around her collarbone would suck in and her abdomen would pull under ribcage, a symptom known as a retraction. Retractions are a sign that someone is working very hard to breathe.

    “It looked like her chest was almost scooping under her lungs with each breath. The retractions were getting really bad. It was around that point that they told us, ‘Hey, yeah, this is accelerating faster. We’re going to need to get her in for surgery soon,’ ” Aaron said.

    Helen said their cardiologist first discussed getting MJ’s case reviewed – a key step her doctors needed to prepare for her surgery – on September 14.

    “He said, ‘it might take a couple of weeks to get her in because we’ve been really slammed with emergencies, but we’ll get her in,’ ” Helen said.

    Doctors put MJ on medications called diuretics to help drain excess fluid off her lungs and ease her breathing – but then, at the end of September, she caught a cold.

    It wasn’t a bad cold, and Helen Chavez, a pharmacist, thinks that if the baby had been healthy, she probably could have fought it off at home with no problems. But Helen was worried, so she took she MJ to the ER.

    The doctors checked her, determined she was stable and sent the family home with supportive care.

    At a follow-up doctor’s visit, Helen said, she asked again, “Where are we on the surgery?”

    Helen said the cardiologist said they had not been able to review MJ’s case.

    “And they said, ‘Well, we would love to get her in as soon as possible. However, right now we don’t have beds,’ ” Aaron said.

    “Throughout that time, she kept getting worse. More symptoms would pop up in terms of the breathing would get worse, the retractions would get worse, that kind of a thing. Like there was more and more and more piling up,” Aaron said.

    Helen said she understood that MJ’s condition was still stable, but she was worried it wouldn’t stay that way.

    “I was like, ‘I’m worried she’s going to crash and that’s how we’re going to get in for this surgery is, it’s going to take this kid crashing and burning before we can get her in,’ ” Helen told the doctor, who reassured her.

    ” ‘No, no, no, she is not going to get to that point before we get her in,’ ” she says they were told.

    On October 10, things took a turn.

    The baby slept in a bassinet beside her parents’ bed. Helen nudged Aaron awake around midnight to look at their daughter, and his first thought was to reassure his wife that yes, the doctors had told them that her breathing was going to look bad. But then he rolled over and peered at MJ, who was asleep.

    “That was the moment that I was wide awake,” Aaron said, and he was terrified.

    “It was the raggedness of her breathing and the noise. Every breath, there was a strange sound coming from her. It sounded like she was fighting for, like, struggling for every breath.”

    They raced to the hospital.

    “We were sitting in the ER, and every other kid in that pediatric ER was hacking, coughing, sneezing,” Helen said. “Clearly, respiratory viruses hit Rochester early and very hard.”

    Helen said it was clear by the end of that visit that medications had done all they could do and that MJ would continue to get worse without the operation.

    “Our understanding is, it took an extra ER visit to push the timeline,” Helen said.

    That visit prompted an emergency appointment with the cardiologist.

    “That’s where they were like, ‘OK, we’ve got her in for conference,’ ” Helen said.

    The hospital says it can’t comment on the specifics of MJ’s case.

    “The Golisano Children’s Hospital cardiology and cardiac surgery teams review the status of all pediatric patients who need heart surgery twice a week,” the hospital said in a statement to CNN. “We cannot comment on a specific case, but once surgery becomes necessary, it is scheduled as quickly as needed based on the medical condition of the child. The current high census of pediatric inpatients at our hospital has not affected our ability to schedule non-elective pediatric cardiac surgeries in a timely way.”

    Stevens, the chief clinical officer, says those decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.

    “Each of those are reviewed by our medical and surgical team to determine whether or not they’re time-sensitive,” he said. “Things that are time-sensitive or certainly urgent or emergent, they get done.”

    When it becomes clear that a child needs to be admitted, Stevens said, hospital officials find ways to open beds, and they try to do it so it doesn’t exhaust their nurses.

    Stevens says he’s hopeful the situation will improve, that infections will die down, “because this is not sustainable.”

    Aaron Chavez agrees that there was no delay once MJ’s case got the necessary review – but says that review itself kept getting put off.

    “We were essentially told that her case review was being delayed because they simply didn’t have the beds,” he said.

    The surgical team reviewed MJ’s case on October 13, and she had surgery 12 days later, according to Aaron.

    Aaron says the family has no complaints about the quality of care their daughter received, and they’re grateful to the entire team of doctors, nurses and other staff who treated their daughter.

    “Once push came to shove, they definitely got her in, but the last four weeks were really, really harrowing,” Helen said. “It was just kind of hard to watch your baby have trouble breathing and know that there’s not a whole lot you can do.”

    On the morning of October 25, the Chavezes brought MJ to the hospital, where doctors walked them through the operation. A piece of synthetic material would be sewn into her heart to patch the hole. Over time, the material would allow her own cells to grow on it and cover the defect.

    The procedure could take as long as 12 hours. But it went faster than anticipated, and MJ was finished in half that time. The surgeon came out to tell them the good news: The operation had been a success.

    “Her surgeon said that it was the biggest hole that he has seen in 2022 and one of the biggest he has ever seen,” Aaron said.

    The Chavezes then went to the pediatric intensive care unit to wait for MJ. As soon as they saw her, they could see she was better.

    Before the surgery, her skin had been pale and mottled; after, she was a healthy pink.

    “Just in that short amount of time, her skin had that pinkness and redness in places that you expect like the nose, and her fingers were proper pink,” he said. “That color you expect out of a healthy baby. It was really nice to see that.”

    She was in the hospital for six days, and her recovery amazed her care team.

    “She kind of crushed recovery milestones like it was her job,” Aaron said.

    Now back home, MJ is playing catch-up with the developmental milestones she missed while she was sick. Her muscles are weak, she can’t sit up or roll over yet, and she may never switch back from the feeding tube to a bottle. A team of occupational and physical therapists comes over to help. They expect she will eventually make up for the time she missed, but it will take some work.

    Still, Aaron says the surgery has had an amazing effect.

    Before her operation, MJ was very uncomfortable and always tired.

    “The baby that I have now, that returned from surgery, is constantly smiling at us. She’s almost laughed three different times in the last couple of days, right? She’s so close to a laugh. She seems like an entirely different baby,” Aaron said.

    The Chavezes were nervous about sharing their story, but in the end, they decided it was important to shed light on the effects of the ongoing hospital bed shortage.

    “Everybody we have told about the bed shortage, that we have told about the nurses and the staff and the doctors telling us how burnt-out and frustrated they are and how tired they are, everybody’s surprised,” Aaron said.

    “Everybody’s shocked. Everybody thinks that this is over. The pandemic is over. Our health care system’s back to normal. ‘What are you talking about? What shortages?’ “

    In the end, they felt powerless. What could they – two exhausted working parents with a sick infant – do to solve a national crisis?

    After all, after nearly three years of a viral pandemic, doesn’t everyone already know what to do? Stay home if you’re sick. Put on a mask in public places while viral illnesses are running rampant. Get vaccinated.

    “I don’t know how I’m supposed to help tell 330 million people, ‘Hey, you should care about each other,’ ” Aaron says.

    Their story is one reminder of why all those simple but effective measures are important.

    “In the end, we believe the information getting out there is better than not,” Aaron said. “Hopefully, it will help push those in power to do better.”

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  • Opinion: A really bad night for some high-profile Trump-backed candidates | CNN

    Opinion: A really bad night for some high-profile Trump-backed candidates | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    CNN Opinion contributors share their thoughts on the outcome of the 2022 midterm elections. The views expressed in this commentary are their own.

    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.

    Four years ago, DeSantis won his first gubernatorial race by less than a percentage point. His nearly 20-point win against Democratic candidate Charlie Crist on Tuesday sent the message that DeSantis, not Trump, can win over the independent voters who decide elections.

    DeSantis’ decisive victory offers a future where the Republican Party might actually win the popular vote in a presidential contest – something that hasn’t been done since George W. Bush in 2004.

    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 the heavily Latino Miami-Dade County by seven points. DeSantis flipped the county on Tuesday and ran away with an 11-point win.

    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.

    DeSantis combined his strength among Latinos with his support among working class Whites, suburban white-collar voters and rural Floridians. That’s a coalition that could win nationally, unlike Trump’s limited appeal among several traditional Republican voting segments.

    Last year, it was Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin of Virginia who scored an earthquake in a Biden state by keeping Trump at arm’s length and focusing on the issues. Tonight, it was DeSantis who ran as his own man (Trump rallied for Marco Rubio but not DeSantis at the end of the campaign) and showed what you can do when you combine the political instincts required to be a successful Republican these days with actual governing competence.

    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 plotting a reelection campaign announcement soon, DeSantis has a lot to think about and a solid springboard from which to launch a challenge to the former President.

    Scott Jennings, a CNN contributor and Republican campaign adviser, is a former special assistant to President George W. Bush and a former campaign adviser to Sen. Mitch McConnell. He is a partner at RunSwitch Public Relations in Louisville, Kentucky. Follow him on Twitter @ScottJenningsKY.

    Roxanne Jones

    Let it go. If election night confirmed anything for me it is this: We can all – voters, doomscrollers, pundits and election deniers included – stop believing every election revolves around former President 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.

    What a relief. It finally feels like a majority of voters want to re-center American politics away from the toxic, conspiracy theory-driven rhetoric we’ve experienced over the past several years.

    Yes, Republicans are still projected to take control of the House of Representatives, with a narrow (and narrowing) majority – but will that make much difference? Despite the advantage Democrats had in the chamber the past two years, President Joe Biden has still had to battle and compromise to get parts of his agenda passed. How the balance of power will settle in the Senate is unclear, with a few races in key states still undecided as of this afternoon. It will likely hinge, again, on Georgia, and a forthcoming runoff election between the incumbent, Democrat Raphael Warnock, and his GOP challenger, former football star Herschel Walker.

    No matter what party you claim, there were positive signs coming out of the midterms. My hometown, Philadelphia, and its surrounding suburbs, came up big in another election – rejecting the Trump-backed New Jersey transplant, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and helping to send Democratic candidate John Fetterman to the US Senate. Pennsylvania voters also rejected an election denier, Doug Mastriano, in the race for state governor, and made history by electing Democrat Summer Lee as the state’s first Black woman to serve in Congress.

    Maryland voters, meanwhile, elected Democrat Wes Moore as their state’s first Black governor. And in New England, Maura Healey became Massachusetts’ first female governor. She’s also the first out lesbian to win a state governorship anywhere in the US.

    Democracy, freedom and equality also won out on ballot issues.

    In unfinished business, voters tackled slavery, permanently abolishing “involuntary servitude” in four states – Vermont, Oregon, Alabama and Tennessee. (Louisiana held on to the slavery clause under its constitution, however.)

    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. And, in Kentucky, voters narrowly beat back an amendment that would have removed constitutional protections for abortion rights – one of several instances in which voters refused to accept restrictive reproductive rights measures.

    Still, the highlight of my midterms night was watching 25-year-old Maxwell Frost win a US congressional race in Florida – holding a Democratic seat in a state whose 2022 results skewed red, no less. More and more, we are seeing young people energized, voting and stepping up with fresh ideas to lead this democracy. I’m here for it.

    Roxanne Jones, a founding editor of ESPN The Magazine and former vice president at ESPN, has been a producer, reporter and editor at the New York Daily News and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Jones is co-author of “Say it Loud: An Illustrated History of the Black Athlete.” She talks politics, sports and culture weekly on Philadelphia’s 900AM WURD.

    Michael D'Antonio

    Voters made Tuesday a bad night for former President Donald Trump. 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. “Protest, protest, protest,” he told his followers, even before all the polls closed. In a sign of his declining power, no mass protests ensued.

    Nevertheless, false claims of election fraud will likely be a major theme if he follows through on his loudly voiced hints that he plans to run for the White House again in 2024.

    To run or not to run is now the main question. It’s not an easy choice. Trump could end up like other one-term presidents he has mocked, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, who retreated from politics and devoted themselves to new interests. However, he has other options. He could revive his television career – Fox News? – or return to his businesses. Or, he could develop a new role as leader of an organization that can exploit his prodigious fundraising ability, and give him a platform for grabbing attention, while leaving him plenty of time for golf.

    Running could forestall the various legal problems he faces, but he has lawyers who might accomplish the same goal. Fox News is unlikely to pay enough, and his businesses are now being watched by a court-appointed overseer. This leaves him with a combination of easy work – fundraising and pontificating – combined with his favorite pastimes: fame, money and fun. What’s not to like?

    Michael D’Antonio is the author of the book “Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success” and co-author, with Peter Eisner, of the book “High Crimes: The Corruption, Impunity, and Impeachment of Donald Trump.”

    Jill Filipovic

    Democrat Kathy Hochul won the New York State gubernatorial race, and thank goodness. Her opponent, Lee Zeldin, is not your typical moderate Republican who usually stands a chance in a blue state. Instead, he’s an abortion opponent who wanted voters to simply trust he wouldn’t mess with New York’s abortion laws.

    Zeldin was endorsed by the National Rifle Association when he was in Congress. He is a Trump acolyte who voted against certifying the 2020 election in Congress, after texting with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and reportedly planning to contest the outcome of the 2020 election before the results were even in.

    New Yorkers sent a definitive message: Our values matter, even in moments of profound uncertainty.

    Plus, Hochul made history as the first woman elected to the governor’s office in New York.

    This race was, in its final days, predicted to be closer than it actually was. Part of that was simply the usual electoral math: The minority party typically has an advantage in the midterms, and Republicans are a minority in Washington, DC, with a Democrat in the White House and a Democratic majority in Congress. And polling in New York state didn’t look as good for Hochul as it should have in a solidly blue state: Voters who talked to pollsters emphasized crime fears and the economy; abortion rights were galvanizing, but didn’t seem as definitive in an election for a governor vastly unlikely to have an abortion criminalization bill delivered to her desk.

    The polls were imperfect. It turns out that New Yorkers are, in fact, New Yorkers: Not cowed by overblown claims of crime (while I think crime is indeed a problem Democrats should address, New York City remains one of the safest places in the country); determined to defend the racial, ethnic and sexual diversity that makes our state great; and committed to standing up against the tyranny of an anti-democratic party that would force women into pregnancy and childbirth.

    However, Democrats shouldn’t take this win for granted. The issues voters raised – inflation, crime – are real concerns. And the reasons many voters turned out – abortion rights, democratic norms – remain under threat.

    Hochul’s job now is to address voter concerns, while standing up for New York values: Openness, decency, 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 for what we want. And we now want our governor to deliver.

    Jill Filipovic is a journalist based in New York and author of the book “OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind.” Follow her on Twitter.

    Douglas Heye

    North Carolina’s Senate race received less attention than contests in some other states – possibly a result of the campaign having lesser-known candidates than states like Georgia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

    In the waning weeks of the race, multiple polls had the candidates – Democratic former state Supreme Court chief justice Cheri Beasley and Republican US House Rep. Ted Budd – separated by a percentage point or less.

    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.

    Beasley, by contrast, focused much of her attention on abortion, making it a central plank of her campaign that she would stand up not just for women’s reproductive rights, but workplace protections and equal pay.

    The two candidates were vying for the seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Richard Burr. Despite being seen as a red state – albeit that is less solidly Republican than neighboring southern states – North Carolina has elected Democrats as five of the last six governors and two of the last six senators.

    Former President Barack Obama won the state in 2008 but lost it in 2012 by one of the closest margins in the nation. And while Donald Trump won the state in 2016 and 2020, he never received 50% of the vote.

    Douglas Heye is the ex-deputy chief of staff to former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a GOP strategist and a CNN political commentator. Follow him on Twitter @dougheye.

    Sophia A. Nelson

    Many of us suspected that Democratic Florida Congresswoman and former House impeachment manager Val Demings would have an uphill battle unseating incumbent Sen. Marco Rubio, and weren’t entirely surprised when she lost the race. 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. Beyond Demings’ loss, Judge Cheri Beasley narrowly lost her Senate bid in North Carolina.

    And in the big heartbreak of the night, Stacey Abrams lost the Georgia governor’s race to Gov. Brian Kemp – a repeat of her defeat to him four years ago, when the two tangled for what at the time was an open seat.

    Abrams shook up the 2018 race by expanding the electoral map, enlisting more women and people of color who turned out in record numbers – but she fell short of punching her ticket to Georgia’s governor’s mansion. And on Tuesday she lost to Kemp by a much wider margin than in 2018.

    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.

    Meanwhile, an ever bigger winner of the night was Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis, who handily defeated Democrat Charlie Crist.

    DeSantis’ big night solidifies what some feel is a compelling claim to front-runner status for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, on what turned out to be a strong election night for Republicans in the state.

    It’s hard for a Democrat to win statewide in the deep South. And as Demings, Beasley and Abrams have shown, it’s particularly tough for a Black woman to win statewide in the region: In fact, it’s never been done.

    All three women were well-qualified and well-funded stars in their party. But, when we look at the final vote tallies, it tells a familiar story. Take Demings, for example, a former law enforcement officer – she was Orlando’s police chief – and yet, she did not get the big law enforcement endorsements. Rubio did, although he never wore the blue.

    That was a big red flag for me, and it showed how much gender and race still play in the minds of male voters and 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.

    As for Abrams, I think Kemp was helped by backing away from Trump and modulating his campaign message to appeal to suburban women and independents.

    Abrams, meanwhile, just didn’t have the same support and enthusiasm this time around for her candidacy. And that is unfortunate, but for her to lose by such a big margin says much more.

    At the end of the day however, these three women have nothing to regret. They ran great campaigns, and they created great future platforms for themselves. And they each put one more crack in the glass ceiling facing candidates for the US Senate and governors’ mansions.

    Sophia A. Nelson is a journalist and author of the new book “Be the One You Need: 21 Life Lessons I Learned Taking Care of Everyone but Me.”

    David Thornburgh

    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. Still, as a longtime Pennsylvania election-watcher, I see three clear takeaways:

    1) Pennsylvanians don’t take to extreme anti-establishment candidates. The GOP candidate for governor, Doug Mastriano, broke the mold of just about any statewide candidate in the last few decades.

    The state that delivered wins to center-right and center-left candidates like my father Gov, Dick Thornburgh, Sen. Bob Casey and Gov, Tom Ridge gave establishment Democrat Josh Shapiro a wipeout double-digit victory.

    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.

    Amplified by more than $300 million in campaign spending (making PA’s the most expensive Senate race in the country), those two simple themes spoke to the quirky, stubborn authenticity that is a longstanding strand of Pennsylvania’s political DNA.

    3) In the home of Independence Hall, independent voters made a significant difference. Pretty much every poll since the beginning of both marquee races showed the two party candidates with locked in lopsided mirror-image margins among members of their own party.

    Over 90% of Democrats said they’d vote for Shapiro or Fetterman and close to 90% of Republicans said the same of Mastriano or Oz. The 20 to 30% of PA voters who consider themselves independent voters may have been more decisive than most tea-leaves readers gave them credit for.

    Most polls showed Shapiro and Fetterman with whopping leads among independent voters. They may not have been the same independent voters: Shapiro’s indy supporters could be former GOP voters disaffected by Trump, and Fetterman’s indy squad could be young voters mobilized by the abortion rights issue (about half of young voters are independents nationally).

    The growing significance of this independent vote in close elections may increase pressure on both parties to repeal closed primaries so that indy voters can vote in those elections. Both parties will want to have more time and opportunity to court them in the future.

    With Florida ripening to a deeper and deeper Red, Pennsylvania may loom larger and larger as the most contested, consequential swing state in the country: well-worth watching as we move inexorably to 2024.

    David Thornburgh is a longtime Pennsylvania civic leader. The former CEO of the Committee of Seventy, he now chairs the group’s Ballot PA initiative to repeal closed primaries. He is the second son of former GOP Governor and US Attorney General Dick Thornburgh.

    Isabelle Schindler

    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 palpable sense of excitement and urgency around the election on 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. Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, many Michiganders have feared the return of a 1931 law that bans abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, and contains felony criminal penalties for abortion providers.

    Though the courts have prevented that old law from taking effect, voters were eager to enshrine reproductive rights in the state constitution, and overwhelmingly voted in favor of Prop 3 with over 55% of voters approving the proposal. This is a major feat given the coordinated campaign against the proposal. Both pro-life groups and the Catholic Church strongly opposed it, and many ads claimed it was “too confusing and too extreme.”

    The issue of abortion was a major focal point of the gubernatorial campaign between Gov, Gretchen Whitmer and her Republican challenger, Tudor Dixon. Pro-Whitmer groups consistently highlighted Dixon’s support of a near-total abortion ban and her past comments that having a rapist’s baby could help a victim heal. Whitmer’s resounding win in the purple state of Michigan is certainly due, in part, to backlash against Dixon’s extreme positions on the issue.

    After the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, so many young voters felt helpless and despondent about the future of abortion rights. However, instead of throwing in the towel, Michigan voters showed up and displayed their support for Whitmer and Prop 3, showing that Michiganders support bodily autonomy and the right to choose.

    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.

    Paul Sracic

    From the beginning, the US Senate race in Ohio wasn’t expected to be close. In the end, it wasn’t – with author and political newcomer J.D. Vance defeating Rep. Tim Ryan by over six percentage points.

    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.

    It is now safe to say that Ohio, for so long the quintessential swing state, is a Republican state. What happened is simple to explain: White, working-class voters have become a solid part of the Republican coalition in the Buckeye State. In 2016, then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump convinced these voters that the Democratic Party had abandoned them to progressive and internationalist interests with values they did not share. This shift was symbolized by the movement of voters in the former manufacturing hub of Northeast Ohio, once the most Democratic part of the state, to the GOP.

    The question going into 2022 was whether the Republicans could keep these voters if Trump was not 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 he could win those working-class voters back, and Ryan designed his campaign around working-class economic interests, distancing himself from Washington, DC, Democrats and even opposing President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program. 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.

    Ohio Democrats will face another test in two years, when the Democratic Senate seat held by Sherrod Brown will be on the ballot. Brown won in 2018, but given last night’s result, the Republicans will have no problem recruiting a quality candidate to run for a seat that, right now, at least leans Republican.

    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.

    Joyce M. Davis

    Pennsylvanians clearly rejected the worst of right-wing extremism on Nov. 8, sending a strong message to former President Donald Trump that his endorsement doesn’t guarantee victory in the Keystone State.

    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.

    And a lot of people are breathing a long, hard sign of relief.

    Mastriano, who CNN projects will lose the race for the state’s governor to Democrat Josh Shapiro, scared many Pennsylvanians with his brash, take-no-prisoners Trump swagger. He inflamed racial tensions, embraced Christian nationalism, and once said women who violated his proposed abortion ban should be charged with murder. On top of all that, he’s an unapologetic election denier.

    Dr. Oz, meanwhile, couldn’t shake his carpetbagger baggage, and Oprah’s rejection – on November 4, she endorsed his rival and now-victorious candidate in the Senate race, John Fetterman – seems to have carried more weight than Trump’s rallies, at least in the feedback I’ve received from readers and community members.

    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 think Pennsylvanians wouldn’t check Oz’s address? Will they rethink their hardline stance on abortion?

    In a widely-watched House race, Harrisburg City Councilwoman Shamaine Daniels made a valiant Democratic effort to unseat GOP Rep. Scott Perry, after the party’s preferred candidate pulled out of the race. But her lack of name recognition and inexperience on the state or national stage impacted her ability to establish a base of her own. So the five-term incumbent, who played a role in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, will return to Washington – though perhaps with a clipped wing.

    Many Pennsylvanians may be staunch conservatives, but we proved we’re not extremists – and we won’t embrace Trump or his candidates if they threaten the very foundations of democracy.

    Joyce M. Davis is outreach and opinion editor for PennLive and The Patriot-News. 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.

    Edward Lindsey

    In the last two years, President Joe Biden, Sen. Jon Ossoff and Sen. Raphael Warnock, all Democrats, won in the Peach State. There has been a raging debate in Georgia political circles since then as to whether these races signal a long-term left turn toward the Democratic Party, caused by shifting demographics, or whether they were merely a negative reaction to former President Donald Trump. Tuesday’s results point strongly to the latter.

    Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who had rebuffed Trump’s demand to overturn the 2020 presidential result, cruised to a convincing reelection on Tuesday with a pro-growth message by defeating the Democrats’ rising star Stacey Abrams by some 300,000 votes. His coattails also propelled other Republican state candidates to victory – including the Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger who had also defied the former President – and helped to keep the Georgia General Assembly firmly in GOP hands.

    However, before sliding Georgia from a purple political state back into the solid red state column, we still have one more contest to look forward to: a runoff for the US Senate, echoing what happened in Georgia’s last set of Senate races.

    Georgia requires candidates to win over 50% of the vote and the presence of a Libertarian on the ticket has thrown the heated race between Warnock, the incumbent senator and senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, and Georgia football great Herschel Walker into an overtime runoff campaign to be decided on December 6.

    Both Walker and Warnock survived November 8 to fight another day despite different strong headwinds facing each of them. For Warnock, it has been Biden’s low favorability rating – hovering around 40% nationwide, and only 38% in Georgia, according to Marist. For Walker, it has been the steady drumbeat of personal allegations rolled out over the past few months, some admitted to and others staunchly denied.

    Warnock has faced his challenge by emphasizing his willingness to work across the aisle on some issues and occasionally disagreeing with the President on others. Walker, who is backed by Trump, has pulled from the deep well of admiration many Georgians feel for the former college football star.

    Both of these strategies were strong enough to get them into a runoff, but which strategy will work in that arena? The answer could be crucial to determining which party controls the US Senate, depending on the result of other races that have yet to be called. 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.

    Brianna N. Mack

    In his bid to win a seat in the US Senate, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan tried to appeal to working class voters who felt abandoned by establishment Democrats. Those blue collar voters – many of them formerly members of his party – overwhelmingly supported Trump in 2016 and again in 2020.

    Unfortunately for Ryan, his strategy failed. He lost to J.D. Vance by a decisive margin, according to election projections.

    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. And it’s a shame. Had Ryan won, Ohio would have had two Democratic senators. The last time that happened was almost 30 years ago, when Howard Metzenbaum and John Glenn represented our state.

    But in wooing Republicans and right-leaning moderates, Ryan abandoned many of Ohio’s left-leaning Democrats who brought him to the dance.

    That approach was perhaps most evident 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.”

    Another ad showed Ryan, gun in hand, hitting his mark at target practice, as the words “Not too bad for a Democrat” appear on the screen. 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’s ads on the economy began to parrot the anti-China rhetoric taken up by Republicans. And when President Joe Biden announced his student debt plan in an effort to invigorate the Democratic bringing economic relief to millions of millennial voters, Ryan opposed the move.

    As a Black woman living in a metropolitan area, I would have liked to see him reach out to communities of color, perhaps by making an appearance with African American members of Ohio’s congressional delegation Rep. Joyce Beatty or Rep. Shontel Brown. But I would have settled for one ad addressing the economic or social concerns of people who don’t live in the Rust Belt.

    Ryan might have won if he’d gotten the kind of robust backing from his own party that Vance got from his – and if he’d courted his Democratic base.

    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 are the political behavior of racial and ethnic minorities. She tweets at @Mack_Musings.

    James Wigderson

    Wisconsin remains as split as ever with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers surviving a challenge from businessman Tim Michels and Republican Sen. Ron Johnson barely holding off a challenge from Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes.

    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.

    However, Democrats decided to run possibly the worst candidate if they wanted to win against Johnson. At one point in August, the relatively unknown Barnes actually led Johnson by 7%. But familiarity with Barnes didn’t help him. Crime was the third most concerning issue for Wisconsin voters this election cycle, according to the Marquette University Law School poll, and Johnson’s campaign successfully attacked Barnes for statements in support of decreasing or redirecting police funding and for reducing the prison population. In the end, Johnson came out victorious.

    So, with Republicans winning in the Senate, what saved Evers in the gubernatorial race? Perhaps it was women voters.

    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, for his part, successfully deflected the issue by saying he wanted Wisconsin’s abortion 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.” (In response to the allegations against his company, Michel said: “These unproven allegations do not reflect the training and culture at Michels Corporation. Harassment in the workplace should not be condoned, nor tolerated, nor was it under Michels Corporation leadership.”) Michels’ divisive primary fight against former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch also didn’t help his appeal to women voters, especially in Kleefisch’s home county of Waukesha, formerly a key to a Republican victory in Wisconsin.

    If Republicans are going to win in 2024, they need to figure out how to attract the support of suburban women.

    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.”

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  • Democrats confront their nightmare scenario on election eve as economic concerns overshadow abortion and democracy worries | CNN Politics

    Democrats confront their nightmare scenario on election eve as economic concerns overshadow abortion and democracy worries | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Democrats close their midterm election campaign Monday facing the nightmare scenario they always feared – with Republicans staging a gleeful referendum on Joe Biden’s struggling presidency and failure to tame inflation.

    Hopes that Democrats could use the Supreme Court’s overturning of the right to an abortion and a flurry of legislative wins to stave off the classic midterm election rout of a party in power are now a memory. Biden faces a dark political environment because of the 40-year-high in the cost of living – and his hopes of a swift rebound next year are clouded by growing fears of a recession.

    On the eve of the election, Democrats risk losing control of the House of Representatives and Republicans are increasingly hopeful of a Senate majority that would leave Biden under siege as he begins his reelection bid and with ex-President Donald Trump apparently set to announce his own campaign for a White House return within days.

    It’s too early for postmortems. Forty million Americans have already voted. And the uncertainty baked into modern polling means no one can be sure a red wave is coming. Democrats could still cling onto the Senate even if the House falls.

    But the way each side is talking on election eve, and the swathe of blue territory – from New York to Washington state – that Democrats are defending offer a clear picture of GOP momentum.

    A nation split down the middle politically, which is united only by a sense of dissatisfaction with its trajectory, is getting into a habit of repeatedly using elections to punish the party with the most power.

    That means Democrats are most exposed this time.

    If the president’s party takes a drubbing, there will be much Democratic finger-pointing over Biden’s messaging strategy on inflation – a pernicious force that has punched holes in millions of family budgets.

    Just as in last year’s losing off-year gubernatorial race in Virginia, which the president won by 10 points in 2020, Democrats are closing the campaign warning about democracy and Trump’s influence while Republicans believe they are addressing the issue voters care about most.

    “Here’s where the Democrats are: they’re inflation deniers, they are crime deniers, they’re education deniers,” Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

    Hilary Rosen, a longtime Democratic consultant, said on the same show that her party had misjudged the mood of the electorate.

    “I’m a loyal Democrat, but I am not happy. I just think that we are – we did not listen to voters in this election. And I think we’re going to have a bad night,” Rosen told CNN’s Dana Bash.

    “And this conversation is not going to have much impact on Tuesday, but I hope it has an impact going forward, because when voters tell you over and over and over again that they care mostly about the economy, listen to them. Stop talking about democracy being at stake.”

    Rosen is not the only key figure on the left uneasy with the midterm strategy. Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, urged the White House to do more to stress economic concerns in recent weeks even while acknowledging the crisis of democracy and the importance of abortion rights. In retrospect, it appears Democrats were slow to recognize that a favorable period over the summer, spurred by falling gasoline prices and a hot streak for the president in passing legislation, wouldn’t last long enough to compensate for a ruinous political environment caused by the economy.

    In effect, Biden’s stress on the threat to US political institutions posed by Trump essentially asks voters to prioritize the historic foundation of America’s political system over their own more immediate economic fears.

    It’s a message that resonates strongly in Washington, DC, where the scars of the US Capitol insurrection are keenly felt. And it is undeniably important because the survival of the world’s most important democracy is at stake. After all, Trump incited an insurrection that tried to thwart the unbroken tradition of peaceful transfers of power between presidents.

    But outside the Beltway bubble of politicians and journalists, democracy feels like a far more distant, esoteric concept than the daily struggle to feed a family and to be able to afford to commute to work. From Pennsylvania to Arizona, the return to normality after the Covid-19 nightmare that Biden promised remains elusive to many as the economic after effects of the once-in-a century health emergency linger.

    The impossibility of the political environment for Democrats was laid bare in a CNN/SSRS poll released last week. Some 51% of likely voters said the economy was the key issue in determining their vote. Only 15% named abortion – a finding that explains how the election battleground has tilted toward the GOP. Among voters for whom the economy is their top concern, 71% plan to vote Republican in their House district. And 75% of voters think the economy is already in a recession, meaning that Biden’s efforts to stress undeniably strong economic areas – including the strikingly low unemployment rate – are likely to fall on deaf ears.

    It’s too simple to say that Biden has ignored the impact of inflation, or doesn’t understand the pain it’s bringing to the country.

    The premise of his domestic presidency and his entire political career has been based on restoring the balance of the economy and restoring a measure of security to working and middle class Americans. His legislative successes could bring down the cost of health care for seniors and create a diversified green economy that shields Americans from future high energy prices amid global turmoil. But the benefits from such measures will take years to arrive. And millions of voters are hurting now and haven’t heard a viable plan from the president to quickly ease prices in the short-term.

    There is no guarantee that plans by Republicans to extend Trump-era tax cuts and mandate new energy drilling would have much impact on the inflation crisis either. And divided government would likely mean a stalemate between two dueling economic visions. But the election has turned into a vehicle for voters to stress their frustration, with no imminent hope that things will get better soon.

    Biden has resorted to highlighting bright spots of the economy – claiming to have reignited manufacturing, high job creation and a robust effort to compete with China. He’s now warning that Republicans would gut Social Security and Medicare on which many Americans rely in retirement.

    And in practice, there is not much a president can do to quickly lower inflation on their own. The Federal Reserve is in the lead and the central bank’s strategy of rising interest rates could trigger a recession that could further haunt Biden’s presidency.

    Inflation and high gas prices are also a global issue and have been worsened by factors beyond Biden’s control, including the war in Ukraine and supply chain issues brought on by the pandemic. At the same time, however, economists are debating the wisdom of Biden’s high-spending bills that sent billions of dollars into an overheating economy. And the White House’s repeated downplaying of the soaring cost of living as “transitory” badly misjudged the situation and was another thing that battered Biden’s credibility – on top of the confidence some voters lost in him during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last year.

    The Republican Party also got exactly what it wanted as Trump has delayed his expected campaign announcement until after the midterms, depriving Biden of the opportunity to shape this election as a direct clash with an insurrectionist predecessor whom he beat in 2020 and who remains broadly unpopular. Such a confrontation might have enabled the president to dampen the impact of his own low approval ratings and win over voters who still disdain the twice-impeached former president.

    Ironically, Biden’s struggles in framing a believable economic message could bring about the very crisis of democracy that he is warning about.

    Any incoming GOP majority would be dominated by pro-Trump radicals. Prospective committee chairs have already signaled they will do their best to deflect from Trump’s culpability on the January 6, 2021, insurrection and go after the Justice Department as it presses on with several criminal investigations into the ex-President’s conduct. And Tuesday’s election could usher in scores of election deniers in state offices who could end up controlling the 2024 presidential election in some key battlegrounds. GOP dominance of state legislatures could further curtail voting rights.

    High inflation has also always been a toxic force that brews political extremism and tempts some voters to be drawn to demagogues and radicals whose political creed is based on stoking resentment and stigmatizing outsiders.

    If Democrats do lose big on Tuesday night, Trump will be a beneficiary.

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  • Polling shows that most voters say economic concerns are top of mind | CNN Politics

    Polling shows that most voters say economic concerns are top of mind | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Economic issues remain a top concern for most voters ahead of the 2022 election, a review of recent polling finds, with many also worried about America’s democratic process itself. But voters’ highest priorities are divided along partisan lines, with abortion rights continuing to resonate strongly for Democrats, while Republicans remain sharply focused on inflation. Concerns about other issues, from gun policy to immigration, are often similarly polarized. And some topics that drew attention in previous elections – like the coronavirus pandemic – are relatively muted this year.

    Recent polling provides a good general sense of which issues have become the focal points of this year’s elections, and for whom. But what voters truly consider important, and how those concerns influence their decisions, is too complicated to be fully captured in a single poll question.

    As we’ve noted previously, voters tend to say they care about a lot of different issues. That, however, doesn’t necessarily mean any of those issues will be decisive in a specific race, either by motivating people to vote when they wouldn’t have otherwise, or by convincing them to vote for a different candidate than they would have otherwise.

    In practice, few campaigns revolve around a single issue, with voters left to weigh the merits of entire platforms. In a recent NBC News poll, for instance, voters were close to evenly split on whether they placed more importance on “a candidate’s position on crime, the situation at the border, and addressing the cost of living by cutting government spending,” or on “a candidate’s position on abortion, threats to democracy and voting, and addressing the cost of living by raising taxes on corporations.”

    And in some cases, voters’ primary focus may not be on the issues at all. In CNN’s recent polls of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, a majority of likely voters in both states said that candidates’ character or party control of the Senate played more of a role in their decision-making than did issue positions.

    Here’s a recap of what the polls are showing now.

    CNN’s most recent polls have examined voters’ priorities from two different angles. A survey conducted in September and early October asked voters to rate a series of different issues on a scale from “extremely important” to “not that important,” while a second survey conducted in late October asked them to select a single top priority. On both measures, the economy emerged as a top concern.

    In the first poll, nine in 10 registered voters said they considered the economy at least very important to their vote for Congress, with 59% calling it extremely important. And in the second poll, 51% of likely voters said the economy and inflation would be most important to them in their congressional vote, far outpacing any other issue.

    While economic concerns rank highly among both parties, the CNN surveys found a pronounced partisan divide. Among registered voters in the first poll, 75% of Republicans called the economy extremely important to their vote, compared with about half of independents (51%) and Democrats (50%). And in the second, 71% of Republican likely voters called the economy and inflation their top issue, while 53% of independents and 27% of Democrats said the same.

    The Republican Party also holds an advantage on economic issues. In a Fox News poll, voters said by a 13-point margin that the GOP would do a better job than the Democratic Party of handling inflation and higher prices. And in a mid-October CBS News/YouGov poll, voters were nine points likelier to say that GOP control of Congress would help the economy than to say it would hurt. Voters also said, by a 19-point margin, that Democratic economic policies during the last two years in Congress have hurt, rather than helped.

    At the same time, voters express concerns beyond pocketbook issues. In that CBS News/YouGov survey, 85% of likely voters said that their “personal rights and freedoms” will be very important in their 2022 vote, while a smaller 68% said the same of their “own household’s finances.”

    Following the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade, abortion has taken far higher precedence in this midterm than in recent past elections, particularly among Democrats.

    In CNN’s September/October poll, nearly three-quarters (72%) of registered voters called abortion at least very important to their vote, with 52% calling it extremely important. The share of voters calling abortion extremely important to their vote varied along both partisan and gender lines: 72% of Democratic women, 54% of independent women and 53% of Republican women rated it that highly, compared with fewer than half of men of any partisan affiliation.

    And in CNN’s latest poll, 15% of likely voters called abortion their top issue, placing it second – by some distance – to economic concerns. Democratic voters were about split between the two issues, with 27% prioritizing the economy and inflation, and 29% placing more importance on abortion.

    Abortion policy does stand out in some surveys as particularly likely to serve as a litmus test. In the Fox News poll, 21% of voters named abortion or women’s rights as an issue “so important to them that they must agree with a candidate on it, or they will NOT vote for them,” outpacing issues including the economy and immigration, and far greater than the 7% who named abortion when asked the same question in a 2019 survey.

    To the extent that abortion serves as a voting issue, it’s more of a factor for abortion rights supporters – something that was not necessarily the case in the past. In the mid-October CBS News/YouGov poll, just 17% of likely voters say they view their congressional vote this year as a vote to oppose abortion rights, while 45% say it’s in support of abortion rights, with the rest saying abortion is not a factor. In a recent AP-NORC survey, the Democrats hold a 23-point lead over Republicans on trust to handle abortion policy, their best showing across a range of issues; in a recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, the Democrats lead by 12 points.

    Immigration’s role as an electoral issue has grown increasingly polarized. In CNN’s September/October poll, 44% of registered voters called immigration extremely important, on par with concerns ahead of the 2018 midterms. But Republican voters were 35 percentage points likelier than Democratic voters to call immigration extremely important, up from a 17-point gap four years ago.

    That partisan dynamic also plays out in which party is more trusted to handle immigration-related topics: In the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, voters say by a 14-point margin that the GOP would do a better job than the Democratic Party on dealing with immigration. In the Fox poll, voters say by a 21-point margin that they trust the GOP over the Democrats to handle border security, making it by far the Republicans’ strongest issue by that metric.

    But with Republicans overwhelmingly focused on the economy, immigration isn’t at the forefront of many voters’ minds this year. In the latest CNN poll, just 9% of Republican voters and 4% of Democratic voters called it their top issue.

    This year also finds voters concerned about the electoral process. An 85% majority of registered voters in CNN’s September/October poll called “voting rights and election integrity” at least very important to their vote, with 61% calling those topics extremely important. Both 70% of Democrats and 64% of Republicans said the issue was extremely important, in comparison with a smaller 47% of independents. Seven in 10 registered voters in a Pew Research survey out in October said that “the future of democracy in the country” will be very important to their vote this year, with 58% saying the same about “policies about how elections and voting work in the country” – in each case, that included a majority of both voters supporting Democratic candidates and those supporting Republicans.

    But levels of concern can vary depending on how the issue is framed. In the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, 28% of registered voters, including 42% of Democrats, picked “preserving democracy” as the issue that’s top of mind for them in this election. In CNN’s latest poll, just 9% of likely voters, including 15% of Democrats, called “voting rights and election integrity” their top issue.

    The driving factors behind voters’ worries also vary significantly. In the Fox News poll, 37% of voters said they were extremely concerned about candidates and their supporters not accepting election results, while 32% were extremely concerned about voter fraud. In an October New York Times/Siena poll, about three-quarters (74%) of likely voters said they believed American democracy was currently under threat, but in a follow-up questioning asking them to summarize the threat they were envisioning, they diverged. Some cited specific politicians, most notably former President Donald Trump (10%) or President Joe Biden (6%), while others offered broad concerns about corruption or the government as a whole (13%).

    In CNN’s September/October poll, 43% of registered voters said that the phrase “working to protect democracy” better described the Democratic congressional candidates in their area, while 36% thought it better fit their local Republican candidates. In the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, voters said, 44% to 37%, that the Democratic Party would do a better job than the Republican Party of “dealing with preserving democracy.”

    Most voters in this year’s elections express concerns about guns and violent crime, but relatively few voters call either their top issue. There’s also a notable partisan divide depending on the framing, with Republicans more concerned about crime, and Democrats more attentive to gun policy.

    In a late October CBS News/YouGov poll, 65% of likely voters said crime would be very important to their vote, and 62% said gun policy would be very important. An 85% majority of Republican likely voters, compared with 47% of Democratic likely voters, called crime very important. By contrast, while 74% of Democratic likely voters called gun policy very important, a smaller 53% of Republican likely voters said the same.

    According to Gallup, voters’ prioritization of gun policy spiked this summer following a wave of high-profile mass shootings, before fading as a concern in the fall; the Pew Research Center polling found less significant changes in voters’ priorities over that time.

    Neither issue is currently widespread as a top concern. In the latest CNN poll, 7% of likely voters called gun policy their top issue, and just 3% said the same of crime.

    In an October Wall Street Journal poll, 43% of registered voters said they trusted Republicans in Congress more to handle reducing crime, compared with the 29% who said they trust Democrats in Congress. Voters who were instead asked about reducing “gun violence” gave Democrats a 7-point edge.

    The polling also reveals a few issues that aren’t receiving similarly widespread public attention this year. Among them is coronavirus, which just 27% of likely voters in the latest CBS News/YouGov poll called very important to their vote, rising to 44% among Democrats. Despite this year’s major climate change legislation, that issue ranked last among the seven issues CNN asked about in the September/October poll, with only 38% of registered voters calling it extremely important to their vote – although the issue had far more resonance among Democrats (60% of whom called it extremely important) and voters younger than age 35 (46% of whom did). And relatively few in the electorate are substantially focused on the war in Ukraine: in Fox’s polling, just 34% of registered voters said they were extremely concerned about Russia’s invasion of the country.

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  • Surprises rock the Senate races that will decide America’s future | CNN Politics

    Surprises rock the Senate races that will decide America’s future | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Late twists are rocking the tight Senate races that will decide the destiny of a chamber now narrowly run by Democrats – as well as the future direction of America itself – on Election Day in just 12 days.

    The Democrats’ best chance of snatching a Senate seat held by Republicans may have been further complicated by John Fetterman’s shaky debate performance in Pennsylvania Tuesday night, which raised more questions about the stroke survivor’s fitness to serve.

    That same question – albeit from different circumstances – is again swirling around Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker after an unnamed woman claimed at a press conference Wednesday that he pressured her to have an abortion in 1993. The college football icon branded the accusation “a lie,” but after facing similar accusations by a former girlfriend, it’s opened him up to more charges of hypocrisy since he has before called for a national ban on abortion with no exceptions.

    Meanwhile in Arizona, where the Republican Party’s march to its anti-democratic fringe is gathering steam, Senate nominee Blake Masters was shown on camera vowing to ex-President Donald Trump that he would not go “soft” on false voter fraud claims. Separately, Masters on Tuesday told supporters it was fine for them to film drop boxes to prevent “ballot harvesting” amid a controversy over “vigilante groups” allegedly conspiring to intimidate voters using the early balloting boxes.

    Listen to Trump pressure Blake Masters over election denialism

    The volatile state of all three races – each of which could be pivotal to determining Senate control – underscores the huge stakes going into the election. It explains the intensifying fight between the parties and an increasingly nasty tone that is rattling debate stages across the country. And it comes as Democrats desperately seek to stop Republican momentum in the campaign, which is rooted in voter frustration about raging inflation and high gas prices coming out of the pandemic.

    President Joe Biden’s approval ratings have been driven down to levels that could prove disastrous for Democratic candidates. GOP attack ads are also creating a dystopian vision of a nation stalked by violent crime, while Democrats are hitting Republicans over their anti-abortion positions, following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in June.

    If Republicans win the Senate – in a year in which they are favorites to win back the House – they will be able to blitz the White House with investigations and crimp Biden’s presidency. They will also be able to halt the White House’s efforts to balance out Republican success in reshaping the judiciary on deeply conservative lines.

    Pennsylvania, which is critical to Democratic hopes of holding their majority in the 50-50 chamber, could end up being the most important Senate race in the country. Republicans only need a net gain of one seat to win the majority, so winning the Keystone State could help Democrats mitigate losses in other states where they’re on defense.

    Even after suffering a stroke in May, Fetterman had the momentum for much of the summer over celebrity surgeon Mehmet Oz. But the race has tightened in recent days. The Democrat’s struggle to articulate his positions and deliver attacks on his rival in Tuesday night’s debate caused reverberations of concern in Washington.

    Fetterman had warned that he is still dealing with auditory and linguistic after-effects from his stroke but his struggle at times to find the right words on the debate stage was painful to watch. Several times, he seemed to lose his train of thought and repeated phrases. “To be honest, doing that debate wasn’t exactly easy,” Fetterman told supporters at a rally Wednesday night.

    The question now is whether undecided voters will wonder whether he is well enough to go to the Senate – even if his doctors say that he is getting better all the time. It’s possible partisan lines are so cemented by this point that his performance will not matter. Still, more than 600,000 Pennsylvanians have already cast votes in the race and Fetterman’s debate showing – effectively a job interview – came at a moment when voters are making up their minds all the time, more than a week from Election Day. If he loses, his campaign will face questions over whether he erred in agreeing to debate Oz.

    Former Republican Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania said Fetterman’s campaign had set the bar at a very low level, but not low enough for a debate that he called “disturbing on many levels.”

    “That was really an awful thing to watch. On a human level, I feel for John Fetterman,” Dent told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room” on Wednesday. “It just struck me that he is not ready. … I think it’s going to have an enormous impact on the race.”

    Still, Fetterman may win points for courage in not allowing his health to interfere with his political fight for Pennsylvanians. At his campaign events, he asks supporters whether they or their relatives have suffered a health crisis, and promises to go to Washington to secure for them the health care that he says saved his life.

    In multiple conversations with voters, CNN’s Jeff Zeleny picked up anxiety among Fetterman’s supporters about how his stumbles could hurt his chances, even if they weren’t personally backing away from him.

    But one Fetterman backer, Craig Bischof, in the central town of Bedford, said his candidate “gets healthier every day” and had “come a long way.”

    One woman, however, in the Republican-leaning town, Jan Welsch, said the Democrat’s performance was “embarrassing” and that Pennsylvania would be in deep trouble if it voted for him.

    But such comments also raise the question of how much Fetterman’s ongoing recovery would really affect his job in the Senate – a chamber known to have its fair share of elderly and ailing lawmakers. Plus, it’s not as if a single senator has the power of a president, for example, who has to make and explain critical national security decisions. Then there is also the question of whether Fetterman is being unfairly treated for what is, in essence at this stage, a disability, in a discriminatory way that may not be tolerated in another workplace.

    But Fetterman badly needs to change the subject. Oz gave him some material to work with on Tuesday night, and the Fetterman campaign quickly released an attack ad based on the Republican’s comment that “local political leaders” should have a say, alongside women and doctors, on whether someone should get an abortion. The gaffe played directly into Democratic efforts to portray Oz and his fellow Republicans as too extreme for crucial suburban voters.

    Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks during a campaign event at the Steamfitters Technology Center in Harmony, Pa., Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2022.

    Hear what Fetterman has to say after rocky debate performance

    While Pennsylvanians were digesting the debate, voters in Georgia – thousands of whom have been flocking to polling places to cast early ballots – learned of a new alleged scandal hitting Walker, who was hand-picked by Trump and is trying to unseat Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock.

    A unnamed woman who claimed she was in a yearslong romantic relationship with Walker said the Senate nominee pressured her into having an abortion in 1993. The woman, referred to as Jane Doe to protect her identity, attended the press conference virtually with her lawyer, Gloria Allred, and read her statement. Her voice was heard, but her face was not shown.

    “He has publicly taken the position that he is about life and against abortion under any circumstance when in fact he pressured me to have an abortion and personally ensured that it occurred by driving me to the clinic and paying for it,” Doe said, accusing Walker of hypocrisy.

    Allred on Wednesday provided evidence corroborating an alleged relationship between Doe and Walker, but she did not provide any details corroborating the abortion claim.

    The GOP nominee accused Democrats of orchestrating the attack.

    “I already told people this is a lie, and I’m not going to entertain, continue to carry a lie along. And I also want to let you know that I didn’t kill JFK either,” Walker said at a campaign event prior to the press conference. “I’m done with all this foolishness,” he added in a statement Wednesday evening.

    Walker has already been accused by a former girlfriend of encouraging her to have an abortion and then reimbursing her for the cost. He has denounced that claim as a “flat-out lie.” But presented with a copy of the check the first woman said was a payment for her procedure, he conceded it was his signature on the paper, although he said he did not know what the check was for. CNN has not independently confirmed the first woman’s allegations. She has remained anonymous in public reports.

    The political impact of the latest claim was not clear. It could damage Walker, who is running significantly behind popular Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who’s running for reelection in a rematch against Democrat Stacey Abrams. But national Republicans keep coming to rally around Walker, with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz hitting the trail with him on Thursday.

    The abortion issue is hardly likely to help Walker in key suburbs and might dampen support among religious conservatives. But polling in the wake of the initial allegations against him showed his position in the race little changed, narrowly trailing Warnock. And Walker’s political mentor, Trump, showed in his bargain with social conservatives that a scandal-plagued private life need not be politically disqualifying. The former President repaid their faith in him by going on to construct a conservative Supreme Court majority. Politics may have reached a point of such polarization in the US that ideology, rather than the personality of the candidate, could be the driving force in some elections.

    Lead Eva McKend LIVE_00012020.png

    A second woman claims GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker pressured her to have an abortion years ago. He denies it.


    03:41

    – Source:
    CNN

    Trump’s influence is weighing on Arizona, where Masters is locked in a close race with Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly.

    In a phone call captured in a Fox documentary, the former President is shown rebuking Masters after he said in a debate that he hadn’t seen evidence of election fraud in Arizona.

    “If you want to get across the line, you’ve got to go stronger on that one thing. That was the one thing, a lot of complaints about it,” Trump told Masters, using Arizona Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake as an example.

    “Look at Kari. Kari’s winning with very little money. And if they say, ‘How is your family?’ she says the election was rigged and stolen. You’ll lose if you go soft. You’re going to lose that base,” Trump said.

    Masters was shown telling Trump: “I’m not going soft.”

    Arizona has become a hotbed of election denialism in the wake of Trump’s 2020 loss in the state – which is reflected in the slate of Trump-backed candidates running up and down the ballot there. The elevation of such conspiracy theories has led to restrictive new voting laws across the country and fears about voter intimidation efforts.

    The Arizona chapter of the League of Women Voters, for example, filed a lawsuit in federal court late Tuesday targeting groups and individuals that they say are conspiring to intimidate voters through a coordinated effort known as “Operation Drop Box.”

    This is the second recent lawsuit filed in federal court targeting the conduct of individuals – some of whom are armed – who have been staking out and filming voters at ballot drop boxes in Arizona.

    Masters told KTAR News on Tuesday that it was alright for people to watch ballot boxes but that they should comply with the law.

    “If you are planning on watching the ballot boxes, stay whatever distance away, don’t intimidate voters, get your video camera out and record to make sure people aren’t ballot harvesting,” Masters said.

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  • 4 takeaways from the New York governor debate | CNN Politics

    4 takeaways from the New York governor debate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul squared off with Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin on Tuesday in their first and only pre-election debate, offering a series of tense and testy exchanges over crime, abortion rights, the 2020 presidential election and campaign finance ethics.

    Their one-on-one came as recent polls show a tightening race, with the Democrat’s lead having dwindled to single digits in one survey. No Republican has won statewide office in New York since 2002.

    Zeldin, a conservative backed by former President Donald Trump, has campaigned furiously on his opposition to the state’s bail reform law and criticized Hochul’s handling of crime, which has ranked high up on the list of voters’ concerns in nearly every survey of the race.

    Both candidates sought to align themselves with New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who has pushed for new and substantial rollbacks to bail law, but they predictably diverged on Trump and his successor, President Joe Biden.

    Zeldin praised Trump’s policy agenda during the debate, but, in a nod to a state that voted overwhelmingly for his opponent, did not directly say whether the former President should run again in 2024.

    Hochul, breaking from some tepid statements from fellow Democrats, was clear and concise on Biden’s future. Asked if she thought he should run again, she said, “Yes, I do.”

    Here are the four big takeaways from Tuesday night’s debate.

    Crime has emerged as the central talking point of the election and that held for large portions of the debate on Tuesday, with Zeldin criticizing Hochul for not taking more aggressive steps to combat its rise and promising to fire a controversial Democratic prosecutor in Manhattan.

    Hochul responded by talking up various initiatives but also frequently tried to turn the tables on the Republican, pointing to his opposition to gun control measures, including a bipartisan deal recently passed in Congress.

    “I’m running to take back our streets,” Zeldin said in the first volley of the debate.

    Hochul dismissed her opponent’s attacks as vague and cynical.

    “You can work on keeping people scared or on keeping people safe,” she said, adding, “There is no crime fighting plan if it doesn’t include guns.”

    Zeldin sought to pivot off the gun argument by noting that firearms didn’t play a role in many recent hate crimes or when innocent bystanders have, in recent months, been pushed on to subway tracks.

    “They tell me these stories,” Zeldin said of voters he’s met, “about having to hug a pole or grab a guardrail because they’re afraid of being pushed in front of an oncoming subway car.”

    “All you have is rhetoric,” Hochul shot back. “I have a record of getting things done.”

    The state’s bail reform law, passed in 2019 but rolled back twice since, was also a flashpoint. Even after the moderators rolled out statistics showing it’s difficult to discern whether the law, which makes it more difficult to hold suspects in pre-trial detention, led to a rise in crime, both candidates – Zeldin to a much greater degree – spoke about their desire for further changes.

    Hochul has, before and during the campaign, sought new tweaks. Zeldin wants the legislation off the books entirely – a desire in step with even some liberal New Yorkers – calling it “the will of the people.”

    In a state Biden won by nearly 2 million votes, with more than 60% of ballots cast, Zeldin’s vote in Congress against certifying the election has become a reliable cudgel for Democrats.

    On Tuesday night, Hochul wielded it early and often.

    When Zeldin talked about trying to remove Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who was elected to the job, Hochul connected it to the congressman’s actions after the 2020 presidential election.

    “In Lee Zeldin’s world,” she said, “you overturn elections you disagree with.”

    Zeldin said he had the “constitutional authority” and “constitutional duty” to try his best to unseat Bragg, who has been criticized for not more aggressively prosecuting low-level crime.

    Eventually, the moderators offered Zeldin an opportunity of sorts to disavow his past actions. Asked if he would, knowing what he does now, still vote against certifying the 2020 election, Zeldin demurred.

    “The issue still remains today,” the Republican said. “Election integrity should always matter.”

    Pressed then on whether he would accept defeat, should Hochul win in two weeks, Zeldin said he would – but his disdain for the question was obvious.

    “First off, losing is not an option,” Zeldin answered. “Secondly, playing along with your hypothetical question: Of course” he would accept the results, he said.

    The Republican also came under consistent attack over his anti-abortion policy views and celebration of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

    Zeldin has argued the issue is moot: New York state has passed strict abortion rights protections and, even if he wanted to, he could not change them.

    Still, he did not directly answer a question from the moderators asking whether he would sign off on new restrictions if Republicans took hold of the state legislature – something Zeldin insisted was immaterial because “it’s not happening.”

    Hochul returned to the issue frequently, touting the state law and promising to protect it from conservative politicians like Zeldin.

    “What we have in New York state is simply a codification of Roe v. Wade,” Hochul said, when asked if she would put any restrictions on abortion. She then added, “You know why nothing changed the day after the Dobbs decision? It’s because I’m the governor of New York and he’s not.”

    Zeldin also sought to fend off questions about a recent remark, which he has since walked back, stating he wanted to appoint an anti-abortion rights state health commissioner.

    “My litmus test,” he insisted, “is that (the health commissioner) is going to do an exceptional job.”

    Again though, on the issue of whether he would support funding for Planned Parenthood, Zeldin swerved and suggested it would be a bargaining chip with Democratic leaders in Albany.

    “I’ve heard from New Yorkers who say that they don’t want their tax dollars, for example, for people who live 1,500 miles away from here,” Zeldin said.

    The Bills have one of the best records in pro football this year, but Zeldin hopes they might be a losing issue for Hochul, at least outside Buffalo.

    The state this year approved $600 million in funds to build the team, which is owned by a billionaire, a new stadium in Buffalo. The county is also chipping in an estimated $250 million.

    Hochul defended what critics call a corporate handout as a job-creating maneuver – an argument belied by other cities’ past experiences doing the same – and claimed the Bills were “looking elsewhere,” or considering moving to another city, and said she’d heard from people that they’d been in contact with officials in other states.

    “You think about the identity of the community – like Broadway is to New York City, the Buffalo Bills are to Western New York,” said Hochul, a Buffalo native.

    Zeldin became exasperated at the suggestion the Bills were seriously considering leaving the city – “They’re not,” he snapped – and said the eleventh hour deal to secure the money was “irresponsible on process and substance.”

    Throughout the debate, Zeldin also criticized what he described as Hochul’s “pay to play” governorship, accusing her of trading state contract cash for campaign donations.

    Hochul rejected the charge, which has been reported on inconclusively by a number of local media outlets.

    “There has never been a quid pro quo, a policy change, because of a contribution,” the governor said, before pivoting to an attack on Zeldin’s outside support, specifically the more than $8 million invested in pro-Zeldin super PACs by Ronald Lauder, heir to the cosmetics giant Estée Lauder.

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  • Six takeaways from the Pennsylvania Senate debate between Fetterman and Oz | CNN Politics

    Six takeaways from the Pennsylvania Senate debate between Fetterman and Oz | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The first and only debate between Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz quickly devolved into a series of personal and biting attacks in what has become the highest stakes Senate race in the country.

    Throughout the night, Fetterman’s delivery was at times halting and repetitive, with the Democrat – who suffered a stroke in May – dropping words during answers and occasionally losing his train of thought. Much of the attention heading into the debate was on Fetterman’s ongoing recovery and how his struggle with auditory processing and speech could impact a debate against someone who rose to national prominence hosting a syndicated television show.

    But the debate also emphasized the deep policy differences between the candidates, with the two candidates sparring over energy policy, abortion and the economy.

    Oz clearly entered the debate hoping to cast Fetterman as someone too extreme to represent Pennsylvania, using the term “extreme” countless times to describe several the Democrat’s positions. And Fetterman, in an effort to quickly negate many of criticisms, used the phrase the “Oz rule” to describe his opponent’s relationship with the truth.

    Here are six takeaways from Tuesday night’s debate:

    Fetterman struggled to detail his position on fracking, given he once said he never supported the industry and “never” will.

    Oz came prepared on the issue, hitting Fetterman when asked about it.

    “He supports Biden’s desire to ban fracking on public lands, which are our lands, all of our lands together,” Oz said. “This is an extreme position on energy. If we unleashed our energy here in Pennsylvania, it would help everybody.”

    When Oz raised Fetterman’s comments about fracking, Fetterman pushed back.

    “I absolutely support fracking,” Fetterman said. “I believe that we need independence with energy and I believe I have walked that line my entire career.”

    He added, “I have always supported fracking and I always believe independence with our energy is critical.”

    But that isn’t true – Fetterman has a long history of antipathy toward the practice of injecting water into shale formations to free up deposits of oil and natural gas that were not economically accessible before.

    “I don’t support fracking at all and I never have,” Fetterman told a left-wing YouTube channel in 2018 when running for lieutenant governor. “And I’ve, I’ve signed the no fossil fuels money pledge. I have never received a dime from any natural gas or oil company whatsoever.”

    When the moderators noted that position, Fetterman appeared at a loss for words.

    “I do support fracking and I don’t, I don’t, I support fracking and I stand and I do support fracking,” Fetterman said.

    Oz has declined for weeks to give a firm answer about how he would vote on a bill proposed South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham that would ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

    And this debate was no different.

    “There should not be involvement from the federal government in how states decide their abortion decisions,” Oz said when asked about abortion, before turning the issue on Fetterman and calling him “radical” and “extreme.”

    But when directly asked how he would vote on the Graham bill, Oz declined to answer, claiming he was giving a bigger answer by saying he was “not going to support federal rules that block the ability of states to do what they wish to do.”

    The lack of an answer gave Fetterman an opening.

    “I want to look into the face of every woman in Pennsylvania,” Fetterman said. “You know, if you believe that the choice of your reproductive freedom belongs with Dr. Oz then you have a choice. But if you believe that the choice for abortion belongs with you and your doctor, that’s what I fight for. Roe v Wade for me is, should be the law.”

    Fetterman, however, went beyond that position during the primary.

    When asked by CNN whether he supported “any restrictions on abortion,” Fetterman said he did not. He took a similar position during a primary debate.

    Oz used the moment, again, to call Fetterman out, saying it was “important” for Fetterman to “at least acknowledge” that he had taken another position on abortion.

    But it was an Oz comment that Democrats, including the Fetterman campaign, have seized on after the debate.

    Oz said he thought the debate about abortion should be left to “women, doctors, local political leaders,” a continuation of his argument that states, not the federal government should decide the issue.

    Top Democrats see the comment as an opening to link Oz with Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, a state senator who introduced a 2019 bill that would require physicians to determine if a fetal heartbeat is present prior to an abortion and prohibit the procedure if a heartbeat is detected.

    Their argument: Oz thinks politicians like Mastriano – either as state senator or possibly as governor – should decide the issue.

    The Fetterman campaign announced after the debate it would put money behind an ad highlighting the Oz comment.

    The Fetterman campaign went to great lengths to avoid debating – until the criticism from editorial boards, the Oz campaign and others became too untenable to keep resisting.

    After watching the debate in Harrisburg, even though Fetterman’s speech has shown signs of considerable improvement with every passing week since his May stroke, it’s an open question whether it was a wise decision to put him on the stage with Oz. It was, at many points, difficult to watch.

    Most, if not all, Democrats will almost certainly give him the benefit of the doubt, but it’s an open question whether voters will.

    Fetterman struggled to prosecute a consistent case against Oz and to keep up with the speed of the hourlong debate. Oz, for his part, rarely talked about his rival’s recovery from a May stroke. Of course, he didn’t have to.

    If any Pennsylvania voters missed the debate, not to worry.

    There’s sure to be millions of dollars’ worth of new ads – replaying many of the uncomfortable moments – from the top Republican super PAC that doubled down on the race earlier Tuesday.

    Do debates matter? In less than two weeks, Pennsylvania voters will help answer that question. But this one will certainly reverberate for the rest of the campaign.

    In an age when politicians are being careful about how they embrace President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, that caution was not on display Tuesday night.

    When asked if he would back Trump in 2024, Oz – who received Trump’s endorsement during the contentious Republican primary in the commonwealth – said, “I will support whoever the Republican party puts up.”

    “I would support Donald Trump if he decided to run for president, but this is bigger than one candidate,” Oz said.

    And for his part, Fetterman did not run away from Biden, who has made Pennsylvania – which he flipped back to Democrats in 2020 – one of the few states he has repeatedly visited during the 2022 midterms.

    “If he does choose to run, I would absolutely support him, but ultimately, that’s ultimately only his choice,” Fetterman said. “At the end of the day, I believe Joe Biden is a good family man, and I believe he stands for the union way of life.”

    It was clear Oz was more comfortable than Fetterman on the debate stage – something Fetterman aides expected and attempted to highlight ahead of time with a pre-debate memo noting, “Dr. Oz has been a professional TV personality for the last two decades.”

    But the differences were apparent from the outset.

    Democratic Pennsylvania candidate Lt. Gov. John Fetterman participates in the Nexstar Pennsylvania Senate at WHTM abc27 in Harrisburg, Pa., on Tuesday, October 25, 2022.

    Fetterman appeared nervous on stage, drawing a sharp contrast with Oz, who was at ease, often smiling and seemingly comfortable.

    Fetterman attempted to hit back at Oz’s near constant barbs, at times interrupting while the candidate was answering – most noticeably during the closing arguments.

    “You want to cut Social Security,” Fetterman interjected as Oz was speaking about meeting seniors worried about their Social Security checks.

    Oz kept speaking, as moderator WPXI anchor Lisa Sylvester chimed in, “Mr. Fetterman, it’s his turn for his closing.”

    Oz avoided attacking Fetterman’s stroke recovery, a move that was out of step with his campaign, which at times used a mocking tone to attack the Democrat. But Oz did point out that his opponent only agreed to take the debate stage once.

    “This is the only debate I could get you to come to talk to me on, and I had to beg on my knees to get you to come in,” Oz said.

    Fetterman again declined to release more medical information beyond the two letters his primary doctors have put out. Most recently, Fetterman’s doctor wrote that the Democrat “has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office.”

    Fetterman said he deferred to his “real doctors” on whether to release more medical information, a subtle dig at Oz, and stressed his presence on the stage and activity on the campaign trail was proof enough that he was fit for the job.

    “Transparency is about showing up. I’m here today to have a debate. I have speeches in front of 3,000 people in Montgomery County, all across Pennsylvania, big, big crowds,” Fetterman said. “You know, I believe If my doctor believes that I’m fit to serve, and that’s what I believe is appropriate.”

    When pressed by moderator WHTM abc27 News anchor Dennis Owens, Fetterman replied, “My doctor believes I’m fit to be serving.”

    This story has been updated with more from the debate.

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  • Mystery robocall thanks Democrats in competitive Georgia races for supporting abortion rights of ‘birthing persons’ | CNN Politics

    Mystery robocall thanks Democrats in competitive Georgia races for supporting abortion rights of ‘birthing persons’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A political robocall made to tens of thousands of Georgians thanked a vulnerable congressional Democrat and the Democratic nominee for governor for protecting the rights of “birthing persons” to “have an abortion up until the date of birth” – targeting abortion rights tension in the competitive races.

    The calls, which used polarizing language popular with Democratic activists, are made to sound like they are in support of Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop and gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams – but Democrats involved in the races allege that the call, uncovered by CNN’s KFile, is the work of Republicans.

    The call says it is done by a group called American Values – groups operating under that name or similar ones have said they are not behind the call.

    Bishop, who has served in Congress for 30 years, faces Republican Chris West in the race for Georgia’s 2nd Congressional District, one of the only competitive House races in the state.

    The Abrams campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which supports Bishop’s race, said they did not pay for the robocall. Bishop’s campaign declined to comment on the record.

    The robocall is narrated by a woman who gives her name as Jill and her pronouns as she/her and continues to say people who identify as women are under attack in the state.

    “This is Jill, and my pronouns are she/her,” she says. “I’m sure you’ll agree with me that people that identify as women are under attack, not just in Georgia, but throughout our country. Georgia is lucky to have Stacey Abrams and Sanford Bishop fighting for our abortion rights.”

    The call goes on to say Bishop and Abrams support abortion until the moment of birth. Abrams has campaigned that she does not believe in any government restrictions on abortion, calling it a medical decision not beholden to “arbitrary” timelines. Bishop has voted in the past to ban late-term abortion procedures, indicating some support for restriction, and has said that abortion should be rare, legal and safe and available in cases of rape, incest or to protect the life or health of a woman.

    “While some elected officials are trying to limit abortion rights to six months or even five months after conception, we are so lucky to have Stacey Abrams and Sanford Bishop fighting to protect our right to have an abortion up until the date of birth,” the narrator of the call says. “Would you please take a moment to call Stacey Abrams or Sanford Bishop and thank them for standing up for women’s right to abort their babies up to the point of birth.”

    “Government needs to stay out of the reproductive rights of birthing persons,” says the narrator, Jill.

    The robocall ends by saying it was “paid for by American Values and not authorized with any candidate or candidate’s committee” – but several groups who operate under that name or similar names denied to CNN they were behind the call. And there is no political action committee registered by that name in Georgia.

    The call reached approximately 43,000 phones from Friday October 14 through Sunday October 16, according to data from the anti-robocall app Nomorobo.

    The message fails to identify who paid for the call in the introduction and give a call back number, which violates rules from the Federal Communications Commission for autodialed or prerecorded voice political campaign calls.

    The October robocall also invites listeners to press one and two to leave a message for Abrams and Bishop, respectively. If a user presses two, they are redirected to Bishop’s Albany district office. But when a user presses one, the call redirects to the private number of the chair for the local Democratic committee, Sandra Sallee. Sallee called the ploy a “dirty” trick in a phone interview and said she was subjected to harassing phone calls.

    CNN’s KFile reached out to nearly a dozen active federal PACs with “American Values” in their name. Several PACs told CNN they have never used robocalls for messaging and have no plans to; others did not respond to CNN’s comment request.

    “Robocalls are kind of a funny political tactic in so far as they have an almost perfect record of never working,” said Donald Green, a professor of political science at Columbia University.

    Green said the “fairly unanimous conclusion” is that they don’t seem to affect voter turnout or vote choice but are often used because they are very inexpensive. He suggested that the tactic could have been used to generate media attention to the race.

    “It’s pretty unusual to have something that is kind of, you know, wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing-type tactic,” said Green. “It’s not unheard of in American politics because nothing is unheard of, but it’s rare.”

    On Thursday, another mysterious robocall littered with falsehoods was made to Georgia voters with a similar modus operandi, but this time it solely targets Bishop.

    “Congressman Bishop is the only candidate with 100% rating with Planned Parenthood and will defend the right to an abortion up to nine months. Do not let Republican Chris West win,” a female narrator says.

    According to data from Nomorobo, this robocall reached 41,000 phones and there is some overlap between the recipients of this call and the one targeting Abrams and Bishop.

    The call failed to disclose who was behind it at the beginning and end of the call. When CNN tried to call the number, an automated message said that “this number is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.”

    In a statement to CNN, Abrams’ campaign spokesperson Alex Floyd said, “This disgusting and false attack is a new low for the right wing — and comes as misrepresentations and outright lies that have become a feature of the Kemp campaign. Stacey Abrams has been clear about her support for limitations on abortion in line with Roe and Casey. Now it’s time for Brian Kemp to clearly condemn this false robocall and start answering Georgians’ questions about his extreme anti-choice record.”

    Abrams, who once opposed abortion rights, said last month that abortion is “a decision that should be made between a woman and her doctor. That viability is the metric. And that if a woman’s health or life is in danger, then viability extends until the time of birth, but women do not make this choice lightly.”

    Abrams added that no one believes there should not be a limit, but that “the limit should not be made by politicians who don’t believe in basic biology or, apparently, basic morality.”

    A spokesperson from the Kemp campaign, Tate Mitchell, said they were not responsible for the robocalls.

    The Bishop campaign declined to comment to CNN.

    The DCCC said through spokesperson Monica Robinson, “This misleading robocall – paid for by a shady outside interest group – is what desperation smells like. Resorting to lies to win an election is proof that Chris West can’t win honestly or on his own merits. If West has any integrity at all, he’ll denounce these robocalls and call on his special interest backers to stop lying to Georgians.”

    Bishop, a 15-term moderate Democrat, has in the past advocated and voted for some late-term abortion restrictions, and recently reiterated his support for abortion rights. “These personal health care choices should ultimately rest with a woman, her God and her doctor—not with politicians in 50 different state legislatures,” Bishop said in a statement after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

    West’s campaign did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

    This is not the first time a robocall spouting specious claims has occurred in Georgia’s 2nd Congressional District in this election cycle.

    In June, the local newspaper the Ledger-Enquirer reported that robocalls were being sent to households in the district that appeared to be affiliated with Republican candidate Jeremy Hunt’s campaign, but the underlying message was meant to drive support away from Hunt, a Black former Army captain.

    One June robocall noted it was time to “celebrate Black independence” and “modernize” the Republican party by supporting Hunt. “We can leave the old ways of the Republican Party in the past and build our party back better,” the narrator said, a nod to Biden’s “Build Back Better” slogan. “No more attacks on our capital, no more divisive language from a former President.”

    That robocall also did not identify who paid for it, and both Hunt and West accused the other’s campaign and the super PACs supporting them of sending the call.

    One PAC that supported Hunt in that primary is called “American Values First,” a name partially invoked in the October robocall targeting Bishop and Abrams.

    American Values First is one of the PACs CNN reached out for comment to ask if they are responsible for the October robocall. The treasurer and spokesperson for the PAC, Joel Riter, said that the PAC had nothing to do with the robocalls and has not spent any money in the race for the general election.

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  • ‘People are just hitting their heads against the wall’: Democrats fret another Johnson win | CNN Politics

    ‘People are just hitting their heads against the wall’: Democrats fret another Johnson win | CNN Politics

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    Rhinelander, Wisconsin
    CNN
     — 

    Tom Nelson can hardly believe it.

    In just a matter of two months, Democrats went from expecting to knock off the unpopular GOP incumbent, US Sen. Ron Johnson, to seeing their party’s nominee, Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, scrambling to catch up.

    Already, the finger pointing has begun.

    “The national party did him a grave disservice by not closing the gap, by not being a stopgap measure in August and September to hit Johnson hard on good, effective negative ads, at the same time building up Mandela,” Nelson, a local county executive from central Wisconsin and former Senate Democratic candidate, told CNN. “The national party has totally failed us, and so it’s gonna come down to Wisconsin Democrats.”

    Of possibly seeing Johnson, 67, win a third Senate race, Nelson said, “People are just hitting their heads against the wall. How do we let this happen?”

    Over the summer, Barnes’ top Democratic opponents dropped out, clearing the way for him to win the primary and fully shift to attacking Johnson. Yet Barnes’ slim lead collapsed in September, when Republicans spent nearly $6 million more than Democrats on the air slamming Barnes primarily on crime. In August, a Marquette Law School poll of likely voters showed Barnes leading Johnson 52-45. By early October, those numbers reversed.

    What’s happening in Wisconsin resembles Democratic struggles across the country. They’ve seen their leads evaporate in key House and Senate races as outside money floods in to hammer Democrats over crime and inflation, while they’ve tried to rail against Republicans over their opposition to abortion rights. In several key battleground states – Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Florida – GOP candidates and groups spent roughly $25 million more than their Democratic counterparts on air in September alone, according to data from AdImpact, which tracks ad spending.

    In states like Wisconsin, the outside money has forced Barnes to go on defense, and air several ads accusing Johnson of lying in the attack ads.

    Many of his supporters believe that is not enough.

    “Oh, I’m terrified,” said Mary Hildebrand, a voter here in this small northern Wisconsin town. “His campaign seems to be faltering,” she said of Barnes.

    In an interview, Barnes dismissed the polls showing him down in the race. Democrats are heartened that the same Marquette pollster tested a larger universe of voters – registered voters – and found the race there essentially a dead heat.

    “Polls go up, polls go down,” Barnes, 35, told CNN. “The reality is we’re showing up, talking to everybody.”

    “All they can do is try to distort my record and try to make people live in fear,” he added, rejecting the notion that he was caught flat-footed. “But that’s not what this is about. It’s about making sure that people know better is possible.”

    Democrats have already reserved $2 million more in ads than Republicans in the final three weeks of the campaign, according to AdImpact. And officials with Democratic outside groups – namely the Senate Majority PAC and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee – reject the criticism that their ad campaigns have been ineffective.

    “Wisconsin is one of the top Senate battlegrounds because voters in the state are tired of Ron Johnson looking out for himself at their expense,” said Amanda Sherman Baity, a spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has ramped up its spending since the August 9 primary and has spent over $4.8 million in the race so far, including a $1 million ad buy coordinated with the Barnes campaign.

    Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC aligned with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, and its affiliated group have been on the air since May, having dropped $22 million in the state, with $6.2 million planned in the final three weeks.

    “We have just under three weeks left to defeat Johnson and defend our Democratic Senate majority—that’s what we’re focusing on, and we strongly encourage our fellow Democrats to do the same,” said Senate Majority PAC spokesperson Veronica Yoo.

    On the air, Republicans have had a near singular focus, hammering Barnes for violent crime and for previously advocating for shifting police funding to other social services in the community. Outside groups like Wisconsin Truth PAC and the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, have said he supports “defunding” the police, a slogan he rejects.

    Of the GOP attacks, Marilyn Norden, a voter in northern Wisconsin, said: “They seem to be working. Yes, I’m very concerned.”

    After a speech at a packed diner here in Oneida County, Barnes defended himself, telling reporters that the issue is personal for him since he’s lost friends to gun violence. He said he wants “fully funded” schools and “good-paying jobs,” and to prevent “dangerous weapons” from getting in the hands of criminals. He said that Johnson “is only playing politics with our safety.”

    “Nobody is asking about interviews from six years ago, people are asking why Ron Johnson continues to leave them behind,” he told CNN when asked about recent reports he spoke out against police brutality on RT, a Kremlin-backed network, in 2015 and 2016.

    Barnes is attempting to be the first Black person to become a US senator from Wisconsin, and his supporters see a racial component to the attacks.

    “These ads have gone from crime ads to just blatant racism,” Nelson said. “This is something that Wisconsin has never seen before.”

    Barnes’ attacks have mostly focused on the accusations that Johnson enriched himself while in office, an accusation the GOP senator rejects, and over his support for banning abortion.

    Sen. Ron Johnson greets people during a campaign stop at the Moose Lodge Octoberfest celebration earlier this month in Muskego, Wisconsin.

    Asked why he hasn’t focused on other issues during his paid media campaign – namely Johnson’s downplaying of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, and sowing doubt over the Covid-19 vaccine – Barnes said there was plenty of controversy to choose from.

    “We actually have focused on January 6th to an extent, but the reality is there are many different fronts to address Ron Johnson’s failures,” Barnes told CNN. “And it’s important for us to highlight where Ron Johnson has failed people right at home and at the dinner table.”

    Johnson has remained behind closed doors this week. His campaign refused to disclose his campaign schedule this week or make him available for an interview. But he has appeared on Fox this week, including pleading for donations during an appearance on Sean Hannity’s show Tuesday night. The Barnes and Johnson campaigns have each spent over $23 million so far on the race, but the lieutenant governor outraised the senator last quarter, $19.5 million to $11.6 million.

    “I think so many people think this is won,” Johnson said to Hannity. “My fundraising is weaker. I rely on your audience.”

    There are signs that Democrats are broadening their attacks. The Senate Majority PAC and End Citizens United launched Wednesday a new ad featuring a retired Madison police officer calling out Johnson for describing the January 6 attack on the Capitol as largely a “peaceful protest.” On Tuesday, SMP aired another ad attacking Johnson on China, for working to sweeten a tax break for companies connected to his donors and himself, and for his anti-abortion rights position.

    At a speech here on Tuesday, Barnes attacked Johnson for not supporting federal legislation to codify same-sex marriage, for at one point facilitating an effort to contest the 2020 election and for later downplaying the January 6 riot.

    Johnson’s supporters in the ultimate swing state have twice sent him to the Senate, drawn to his brash attitude, businessman background and conservative values. The Wisconsin Republican has also benefited from running in election cycles when the political environment favored his party, first in the 2010 tea party wave, then in 2016 as Donald Trump stunned the world and narrowly took Wisconsin on his way to the White House, and now in 2022, when inflation and a deteriorating economy threatens Democrats’ control of Congress.

    Andy Loduha, Republican party chairman here in Oneida County, said Barnes doesn’t understand the economic issues that have come to the forefront of the race.

    “I think abortion is another example of how the Democrats don’t really have anything to run on,” said Loduha. “They’re running on emotional issues like abortion, but they don’t want to try to touch inflation, crime, drugs.”

    Wisconsin Democratic strategist Joe Zepecki is frustrated with the Democratic bedwetting, even though he said recognized the “tough national political environment.”

    “I just think there’s too many Democrats wringing their hands and thinking this thing is like gone or on its way to being gone,” Zepecki said. “Guys, run through the tape. You’re right there, despite the f***ing onslaught that Barnes had to weather … And he’s still right there.”

    Asked if she believed Barnes would win, Wisconsin Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, who ran against Barnes before dropping out, told CNN, “If there’s one thing we know about Wisconsin, it’s we live by close elections, and we never press our luck.”

    To get there, Barnes will be campaigning next week in Milwaukee with former President Barack Obama, in a bid to energize voters. But there are no plans yet to campaign with the current President, Joe Biden, whose unpopularity remains a liability here.

    Asked if Biden should run for reelection, Barnes told CNN: “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. We still gotta get through November 8, 2022.”

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  • Four takeaways from Utah’s only Senate debate | CNN Politics

    Four takeaways from Utah’s only Senate debate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Evan McMullin, the independent challenging Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, said in their only debate Monday night that Lee’s actions around the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol were “a betrayal of the American republic.”

    Lee, meanwhile, said he accepted that President Joe Biden in 2020 had won the presidency in the “only election that matters – the election held by the Electoral College.” The senator defended his actions that day, pointing to his votes to certify states’ Electoral College results.

    Their clash came on the day elections officials in Utah began mailing ballots to voters.

    McMullin describes himself as conservative but has said he would caucus with neither party if he defeats Lee. He is attempting to unite a coalition of Democrats, independents and anti-Donald Trump Republicans – and he got an assist this spring when Utah Democrats opted to endorse him rather than field their own candidate. But in Utah, even that coalition might not be enough. Trump won 58% of the vote there in 2020.

    McMullin’s entrance into politics came in an effort to serve as an antidote to Trump. He ran for president as an independent against Trump in 2016. He drew 22% of the vote in Utah, well behind Trump’s 46% and Hillary Clinton’s 27%. Among those who voted for McMullin in 2016 was Lee, who said at the time that it “was a protest vote.”

    Here are four takeaways from their Monday night debate:

    McMullin’s sharpest attacks on Lee came after a moderator raised the topic of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

    “You were there to stand up for our Constitution. But when the barbarians were at the gate, you were happy to let them in,” McMullin said.

    Lee pointed out that ultimately, he accepted the Electoral College vote.

    “Yes, there were people who behaved very badly on that day. I was not one of them. I was one of the people who tried to dismantle that situation,” Lee said.

    McMullin, meanwhile, said Lee only voted to accept states’ electoral votes after no other plan to keep Trump in office materialized.

    “You voted to certify the election in the last moment,” McMullin said. “In the same way that someone knows that a plot that’s not quite working out ought to abandon it, that’s what you did.”

    McMullin repeatedly cited text messages reported by CNN in April between Lee and Trump’s then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in which the two communicated about efforts to overturn Biden’s victory for weeks.

    In early December 2020, Lee began texting Meadows about the idea that states could submit alternate slates of pro-Trump electors to Congress on January 6. Lee ultimately voted to certify states’ electoral votes.

    McMullin said Lee was working “to keep a president who had been voted out of office, according to the will of the people, in power despite the will of the people.”

    He pointed to Lee’s November 7, 2020, texts to Meadows asking him to help Sidney Powell – one of the most prominent attorneys fronting lawsuits that supported Trump and made accusations of widespread election fraud – get access to Trump.

    He mocked the pocket Constitution that Lee carries, telling the senator that it is “not a prop for you to wave about and then when it’s convenient for your pursuit of power, to abandon without a thought. That’s what you’ve done with that.”

    Lee shot back: “I disagree with everything my opponent just said, including the words ‘but,’ ‘and’ and ‘the.’ An information-free, truth-free statement – that’s something of a record.”

    “There is absolutely nothing to the idea that I ever would have supported or ever did support a fake electors plot,” Lee said. “Nothing. Not a scintilla of evidence suggesting that. Yet you continue to suggest that with a cavalier, reckless disregard for the truth.”

    In an effort to cast Lee as extreme, McMullin invoked Utah’s other GOP senator: Mitt Romney.

    Criticizing Lee’s approach to fiscal measures, McMullin said he “routinely votes against bills that would improve water infrastructure.”

    “Meanwhile, Senator Romney has worked hard and consistently over the last three years,” McMullin said. “He works with Republicans and Democrats, Senator Lee, to deliver for Utah. And he voted in favor of the bipartisan infrastructure bill that you voted against. And now tens of millions of dollars have already been directed to Utah to improve our water infrastructure.”

    Lee responded: “Yeah, I voted against that bill – a bill that spent well over a trillion dollars more than we have on all sorts of things that weren’t appropriately federal.”

    Romney has stayed out of the race.

    Lee, in an appearance last week on Fox, made a plea directed at Romney: “Please get on board. Help me win reelection,” he said. The move seemed designed less to win over Romney than to rile up Lee’s conservative base.

    Trump followed Lee’s pleas to Romney with a statement in which he called McMullin “McMuffin” and said that Lee was being “abused, in an unprecedented way” by Romney.

    Lee said he was “thrilled” with the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had made abortion legal nationwide. He said he believes states should decide how to regulate abortion.

    “This is where it should remain, because it’s within the states that we can achieve the most consensus and protect the most babies,” Lee said.

    McMullin, meanwhile, sought to find a middle ground on abortion rights, saying that he opposes “abortion on demand” but also opposes state legislation to force young rape victims to carry their pregnancies to term.

    “Some of these bills that I see being passed around the country are extreme,” McMullin said.

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  • Four takeaways from the Georgia governor’s debate | CNN Politics

    Four takeaways from the Georgia governor’s debate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams sparred over health care, crime and punishment, and voting rights in a Monday debate as they made their closing arguments to voters in a reprise of their fiercely contested 2018 race for the same job.

    The stakes for this night were arguably higher for Abrams, who has trailed in most recent polling of the race. Kemp, one of the few prominent Republicans to resist former President Donald Trump’s lies about a stolen election in 2020, has positioned himself as a more traditional, pro-business conservative – a tack that his gentle resistance to Trump reinforced with swing voters. Abrams has argued that Kemp shouldn’t get any special credit for doing his job and not breaking the law.

    Kemp and Abrams were joined by Libertarian nominee Shane Hazel, who took shots at both his opponents and plainly stated his desire to send the election to a run-off. (If no one receives a clear majority on Election Day, the top two finishers advance to a one-on-one contest.) But it was the two major party candidates, who ran tight campaigns four years ago with Kemp emerging the narrow victor, who dominated the debate stage. Their disagreements were pointed, as they were in 2018, their attacks and rebuttals well-rehearsed and, to a large degree, predictable.

    Here are the four main takeaways from the Georgia governor’s debate:

    Like Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker did in his debate with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock last week, Kemp took every opportunity – and when they weren’t there, tried anyway – to connect Abrams to Biden, who, despite winning the state in 2020, is a deeply unpopular figure there now.

    “I would remind you that Stacey Abrams campaigned to be Joe Biden’s running mate,” Kemp said, referring to the chatter around Abrams potentially being chosen as his running mate two years ago.

    During an exchange with the moderators about abortion, Kemp pivoted to the economy – and again, invoked Biden and Democrats on Capitol Hill.

    “Georgians should know that my desire is to continue to help them fight through 40-year high inflation and high gas prices and other things that our Georgia families are facing right now, quite honestly, because of bad policies in Washington, DC, from President Biden and the Democrats that have complete control,” he said.

    Abrams, unlike so many other Democrats running this year, has not sought to distance herself from the President and recently said publicly that she would welcome him in Georgia. First lady Jill Biden visited last week for an Abrams fundraiser, where she criticized Kemp over his position on abortion as well as his refusal to expand Medicaid and voting rights.

    Early on in the night, Kemp was questioned about remarks he made – taped without his knowledge – at a tailgate with University of Georgia College Republicans in which he expressed some openness to a push to ban contraceptive drugs like “Plan B.”

    Asked if he would pursue such legislation if reelected, Kemp said, “No, I would not” and that “it’s not my desire to” push further abortion restrictions, before pivoting to an attack on Biden, national Democrats and more talk about his economic record.

    Pressed on the remarks, Kemp suggested he was just humoring a group of people he didn’t know.

    On the tape, Kemp, though he didn’t seem enthusiastic, said, “You could take up pretty much everything, but you’ve got to be in legislative session to do that.”

    When asked if it was something he could do, Kemp said, “It just depends on where the legislators are,” and that he’d “have to check and see because there are a lot of legalities.”

    Georgia in 2019 passed and Kemp signed a so-called “heartbeat” bill, which bans abortions at around six weeks, and went into effect soon after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade. Before the ruling, abortion was legal in the state until 20 weeks into pregnancy.

    Abrams has promised to work to “reverse” the law, though she would face significant headwinds in the GOP-controlled state legislature, and called the state law “cruel.”

    One of the first questions posed to Abrams centered on her speech effectively – but not with the precise language – conceding the 2018 election to Kemp.

    In those remarks, Abrams made a symbolic point in arguing that she was not conceding the contest, because Kemp, as the state’s top elections official, and his allies had unfairly worked to suppress the vote. Instead, Abrams said then, she would only “acknowledge” him as the winner.

    Some Republicans have tried to make hay over the speech, in a measure of whataboutism usually attached to Trump’s refusal to accept the 2020 results. Abrams, apart from a court challenge, never tried to overturn the outcome of her race.

    Still, she was asked on Monday night whether she would accept the results of the coming election – and said yes – before again accusing Kemp of, through the state’s new restrictive voting law, SB 202, seeking to make it more difficult for people to cast ballots.

    “Brian Kemp was the secretary of state,” Abrams said, recalling her opponent’s old job. “He has assiduously denied access to the right to vote.”

    Kemp countered by pointing to high turnout numbers over the past few elections and, as he’s said before, insisted the law made it “easy to vote and hard to cheat.”

    When the candidates were given the chance to question one another, Kemp asked Abrams to name all the sheriffs who had endorsed her campaign.

    The answer, of course, was that most law enforcement groups in the state are behind the Republican – a point he returned to throughout the debate.

    “Mr. Kemp, what you are trying to do is continue the lie that you’ve told so many times I think you believe it’s true. I support law enforcement and did so for 11 years (in state government),” Abrams said. “I worked closely with the sheriff’s association.”

    Abrams also accused Kemp of cynically trying to weaponize criminal justice and public safety issues by pitting her against police. The reality, she said, was less cut-and-dry.

    “Like most Georgians, I lead a complicated life where we need access to help but we also need to know we are safe from racial violence,” she said, before turning to Kemp. “While you might not have had that experience, too many people I know, have.”

    Kemp, though, kept the message simple. “I support safety and justice,” he said, often pointing to his anti-gang initiatives – especially when he was pressed on the effect of his loosening gun laws on crime.

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  • Kari Lake doesn’t commit to accepting Arizona election result if she loses | CNN Politics

    Kari Lake doesn’t commit to accepting Arizona election result if she loses | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Arizona Republican Kari Lake would not commit Sunday to accepting the results of her upcoming election for governor if she loses.

    “I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result,” the GOP nominee told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” after being asked three times whether she would accept the election’s outcome. Lake dodged the question the first two times.

    “If you lose, will you accept that?” Bash asked, to which Lake replied again: “I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result.”

    Lake, who has the backing of former President Donald Trump, has repeatedly promoted his false claims about the 2020 election. A former news anchor at a local Fox station in Phoenix, she has said that she would not have certified President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in Arizona, repeatedly calling the election “stolen” and “corrupt.” She said Sunday that the “real issue” is that “the people don’t trust our elections.”

    Lake is currently in a close race with her Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs, who currently serves as Arizona’s secretary of state. Hobbs’ national profile rose in the aftermath of the 2020 election amid Republican efforts to sow doubt over the presidential result in Arizona.

    In a separate appearance on “State of the Union” on Sunday, directly following Lake’s interview, Hobbs said Lake’s refusal to say whether she would accept the results of their election was “disqualifying.”

    “This is somebody who will have a level of authority over our state’s elections, the ability to sign new legislation into law, the responsibility of certifying future elections. And she has not only, as you heard, refused to say if she will accept the results of this election, but also whether or not she would certify the 2024 presidential election if she’s governor,” Hobbs said.

    She continued, “This is disqualifying. This is a basic core of our democracy.”

    Hobbs on Sunday defended her refusal to debate Lake in the gubernatorial election, saying the Republican was “only interested in creating a spectacle.” Hobbs said she believed Arizonans would not base their voting decision on whether or not there was a debate between the two candidates.

    Lake had earlier slammed Hobbs’ decision not to engage in a debate, accusing her opponent of “cowardice.”

    Hobbs explains why she won’t debate Kari Lake

    Bash pressed Hobbs on her stance on abortion rights, and the Democrat declined to specify what, if any, restrictions she would support in an abortion law.

    “So just to be clear, if you become governor, you will push for a law that has absolutely no limits in any point of the pregnancy on abortion? That’s your position? That’s what you would want to be the law of the land in Arizona?” Bash asked.

    Hobbs responded: “The fact is right now that we have very limited options and that we need to get politicians out of the way and let doctors provide the care that they are trained to provide, the health care that their patients need. Politicians don’t belong in those decisions.”

    An Arizona appeals court earlier this month temporarily blocked the enforcement of a ban on nearly all abortions across the state. The ruling temporarily allows health care providers to perform abortions up to 15 weeks of pregnancy until Planned Parenthood Arizona’s appeal is resolved.

    Abortion has been a key issue in this year’s midterm elections following the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn of Roe v. Wade that held there was no longer a federal constitutional right to an abortion. A recent survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that about half of US registered voters said they were more motivated to vote in the midterm elections because of the high court’s abortion ruling.

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  • Democratic Senate nominees hold cash edge in fall home stretch but face GOP advertising onslaught | CNN Politics

    Democratic Senate nominees hold cash edge in fall home stretch but face GOP advertising onslaught | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Seven Democrats in the 10 most competitive Senate races started this month and the home stretch to Election Day with bigger cash stockpiles than their Republican rivals, newly filed campaign finance reports show.

    But even with that financial edge, Democrats face a withering advertising assault in the final weeks of the campaign from deep-pocketed outside groups.

    The stakes are enormous for both political parties: Control of the Senate – along with the ability to shape federal policy for the remainder of President Joe Biden’s first term – hinges on the results in just a handful of states.

    The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, led GOP outside groups in fundraising, taking in $111 million during the three-month period ending September 30, the new filings show. That figure rivaled its haul during the first 18 months of this election cycle as some of the GOP’s biggest donors stepped up their giving.

    “SLF is steadily closing the gap in the fight to retake the Senate majority, and our donors are fired up about slamming the brakes on Joe Biden’s disastrous left-wing agenda,” group president Steve Law said in a statement.

    In all, the fund has spent more than $200 million on advertising this cycle, including ads that have already aired and reservations booked for the final weeks of the election, according to a CNN review of data compiled by AdImpact.

    The McConnell-aligned group “has really been a life raft for Republican Senate candidates across the board that have struggled to fundraise in any great amount,” said Jacob Rubashkin, an analyst with the nonpartisan political handicapper Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales. “What we see in state after state after state is the advertising burden being borne by SLF and outside groups.”

    Here are more takeaways from the third-quarter fundraising reports filed with the Federal Election Commission:

    The reports, which were due Saturday night, show individual Democratic Senate contenders outraising their Republican rivals in a slew of competitive races – including marquee contests in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

    Democrats in all four of those states – Sens. Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Mark Kelly of Arizona; John Fetterman of Pennsylvania; and Mandela Barnes of Wisconsin – each collected more than $20 million during the quarter. That was a milestone no Republican Senate hopeful in a competitive race was able to match.

    Warnock, Kelly and Fetterman all ended September with more cash on hand than their GOP opponents. Four other states on CNN’s most recent list of the 10 Senate seats most likely to flip also saw the Democratic nominees finish with a bigger bank balance on September 30: Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Michael Bennet of Colorado and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, and North Carolina hopeful Cheri Beasley.

    Warnock, in pursuit of a full six-year term after winning a special election last year, brought in $26.4 million during the June-to-September fundraising period, to lead all Senate candidate fundraising. His haul is more than double the nearly $11.7 million raised by his Republican rival, Herschel Walker.

    Those figures, however, don’t reflect fundraising since a recent spate of developments in the Georgia contest – including a contentious debate Friday night in Savannah.

    National Republicans have rallied to Walker’s side in recent weeks, following news reports that the Republican paid for a woman’s abortion in 2009 and then asked her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later.

    Walker, who said in May that he supported a full ban on abortions, with no exceptions, has called the allegations “a lie.” CNN has not independently confirmed the woman’s allegations.

    In a statement, Walker’s aides said the campaign bought in more than $450,000 online in a single day recently – as prominent Republicans, including Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who helms the Senate GOP campaign arm – joined him on the stump in an effort to quell the controversy.

    Although Warnock has used his sizable war chest to hammer Walker on the airwaves, a CNN review of advertising buys from October 1 through Election Day tracked by AdImpact shows outside groups, led by the Senate Leadership Fund, dominating the advertising in the Peach State.

    SLF’s advertising tops the list at $25.2 million with Georgia Honor, a Democratic super PAC, in second place at just shy of $21.7 million.

    Top donors to the Senate Leadership Fund during the third quarter included some of the biggest financial backers in Republican politics. Leading the list at $10 million apiece were three billionaires: Miriam Adelson, a physician and widow of the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson; Ken Griffin, founder of the Citadel hedge fund; and Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman. The Senate Leadership Fund’s haul also included $20 million from its nonprofit arm, One Nation, which does not disclose its donors’ identities.

    SLF entered October sitting atop $85.2 million in cash reserves.

    (The Senate Majority PAC, the leading super PAC working to elect Democrats to the chamber, is slated to file a report detailing its most recent fundraising later this week. The group reported more than $65.7 million remaining in the bank at the end of August.)

    Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly is seeking a full six-year term.

    Kelly, the Democratic incumbent in Arizona, raised $23 million in the June-to-September window, more than four times the contributions collected by his Republican challenger, Blake Masters, the new filings show.

    And Kelly, who is seeking a full six-year term, started October with more than $13 million remaining in the bank – far surpassing the $2.8 million available to Masters.

    National Republican leaders have exhorted billionaire investor Peter Thiel to put more money into the Arizona race to rescue Masters, his former employee. (An initial $15 million Thiel sent to a pro-Masters super PAC, Saving Arizona, helped the first-time candidate survive a competitive primary earlier this year.)

    Saturday’s filings show Saving Arizona raised a little more than $4.4 million during the third quarter with no additional investment during that period from Thiel.

    Among the biggest donors in the three-month period: Shipping and packaging magnate Richard Uihlein, who gave $3 million. And Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the billionaire twin investors perhaps best known for their legal battle with Mark Zuckerberg over who invented Facebook, donated $500,000 apiece to the super PAC last month.

    Republican Tiffany Smiley is challenging Democratic Sen. Patty Murray in Washington state.

    A notable exception to Democrats’ fundraising dominance: Washington state, where first-time candidate Republican Tiffany Smiley raised $6 million to surpass the $3.6 million brought in by five-term Sen. Patty Murray during the three-month period.

    National Republican groups have not invested so far in trying to topple Murray, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, in this traditionally blue state. (Inside Elections rates the contest as Likely Democratic.)

    But Smiley’s late-breaking fundraising success has put a spotlight on the 39-year-old former triage nurse, who is waging her first political campaign.

    Murray entered October with the larger stockpile of available cash – roughly $3.8 million to Smiley’s nearly $2.5 million.

    Meanwhile, in Ohio – a former bellwether state that has swung to Republicans in recent cycles – Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan raised a substantial $17.2 million, with Republican J.D. Vance lagging far behind in their closer-than-expected contest.

    Ryan, who has plowed millions of his campaign dollars into advertising, started October with just $1.4 million remaining in the bank to Vance’s nearly $3.4 million. Ryan, a 10-term congressman, has implored national Democratic organizations to help, but they have prioritized other top-tier contests in states such as Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.

    SLF and, more recently, a super PAC aligned with former President Donald Trump, have hit the airwaves on Vance’s behalf in an effort to keep this open Senate seat in the Republican column.

    The current officeholder, GOP Sen. Rob Portman, is retiring.

    In the 19 House races that Inside Elections currently rates as Toss-ups, the Democratic nominees outraised their GOP opponents during the third quarter, the weekend filings show. And a dozen entered October with more cash in the bank than their Republican rivals.

    In one of the mostly closely watched contests, Alaska’s newly minted congresswoman, Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, collected nearly $4 million during the quarter – including $2.3 million raised after she won an August special election to fill the remainder of the late GOP Rep. Don Young’s term.

    Peltola is on the ballot again in November as she seeks a full, two-year term for the state’s lone House seat, and she started October with more than $2.2 million in available cash. That far exceeds the cash balances of her Republican rivals, Nick Begich and former Gov. Sarah Palin.

    Begich reported more than $547,000 in available cash and Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, had nearly $195,000.

    The three, along with a Libertarian candidate, will face off next month in a general election that will be decided by the state’s new ranked-choice voting system.

    As in Senate contests, Republican outside groups have been major players in the battle to flip the House.

    The Congressional Leadership Fund, the main super PAC focused on GOP efforts to recapture the House majority, recently announced that the group and its nonprofit arm had raised a combined $73 million in the third quarter, bringing its cycle total to $220 million.

    It has spent nearly $160 million on advertising, including future reservations for the final weeks of the campaign.

    This story has been updated with additional third-quarter fundraising information.

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  • First on CNN: Biden to zero in on abortion rights at DNC event 3 weeks from Election Day | CNN Politics

    First on CNN: Biden to zero in on abortion rights at DNC event 3 weeks from Election Day | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden will try to keep abortion rights in the spotlight when he speaks at a Democratic National Committee event in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, a Democratic official told CNN, as the White House hopes the issue will continue to galvanize voters heading into the midterm elections.

    Three weeks from Election Day, Biden will deliver remarks at a DNC event at the Howard Theatre in the nation’s capital, according to the Democratic official, who said the President will discuss “the choice that voters face this November between Republicans who want to ban abortion nationwide with criminal penalties to put doctors in jail if they violate the ban, and Democrats who want to codify (Roe v. Wade) into law to protect women’s reproductive freedom.”

    Biden and many Democrats have sought to make abortion rights a central focus of the campaign after the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which removed the federal right to an abortion.

    In both political and official White House venues, the President has zeroed in on the fight to protect abortion rights in recent weeks, pushing back on Republican-led efforts to enact abortion restrictions at the federal and state level. As his administration unveiled new steps to enhance abortion protections earlier this month, Biden said he would not “sit by and let Republicans throughout the country enact extreme policies.”

    The White House has seized on a proposal from Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina that would impose a federal ban on most abortions at 15 weeks of pregnancy. At a Democratic fundraiser in New York City last month, the President described Graham’s bill as emblematic of Republicans becoming “more extreme in their positions.”

    As the midterm elections approach, Biden has argued that voters need to elect more Democrats in order to codify the protections of Roe v. Wade into law. He’s also pledged to veto any bill that would ban abortions on the federal level if Republicans take control of Congress.

    More than a dozen states have seen abortions bans come into effect since the Dobbs ruling, affecting nearly 30 million women of reproductive age.

    While Democrats hope abortion rights will motivate voters, a recent CNN/SSRS poll found that the economy remains the central focus for voters, with 90 percent of registered voters saying it was extremely or very important to their vote. Fewer – 72 percent – said abortion was as important.

    A recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey, however, found that the issue of abortion was a key motivator for American voters this year, with 50 percent saying the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe made them more motivated to head to the polls this year.

    “Voters need to make their voices heard,” Biden said in June in the wake of the Dobbs ruling. “This fall, Roe is on the ballot. Personal freedoms are on the ballot. The right to privacy, liberty, equality, they’re all on the ballot.”

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  • Independent candidate upends Oregon race for governor and gives GOP an opening | CNN Politics

    Independent candidate upends Oregon race for governor and gives GOP an opening | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Betsy Johnson casts herself as the candidate for Oregon governor who will speak for voters who are “fed up” with homeless encampments and trash-strewn streets and tired of watching Republicans and Democrats “fight like two cats in a sack.”

    The former Democratic state senator, now running as an independent, likes to boast that she is not campaigning as “Miss Congeniality” and promises to govern from the center. Johnson argues that the policies of Democratic gubernatorial nominee Tina Kotek – the former state House speaker who is appearing at a private fundraising reception with President Joe Biden on Saturday – would leave the state “woke and broke,” while stating that her Republican opponent, Christine Drazan, a former state House minority leader, would endanger women’s reproductive rights.

    “I am the champion and the voice right now of people who feel disrespected, disenfranchised, looked down on, and they’re sick of it,” the bespectacled former helicopter pilot said in a telephone interview as Biden was headed to the state this week. “I have always been pro-choice, pro-cop, pro-change, pro-accountability and pro-alternative to the status quo. The status quo was getting us no place, and the only people that were suffering were Oregonians.”

    The resonance of that message from a moderate former Democrat with deep financial support in Oregon’s business community has upended the state’s race for governor this year – unnerving Democrats by creating a scenario under which Republicans could capture the office for the first time in 40 years.

    Two years after Portland lived through 100 nights of protests against police brutality and racial injustice – demonstrations that often led to violence – the state’s largest city is still attempting to repair its image. That recovery process was hindered by the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic that led to shuttered businesses. And the challenge for Democrats has been compounded by the financial stressors that many voters and business owners are now feeling as a result of inflation. Portland also had a record number of homicides in 2021 and is grappling with a wave of gun violence that has raised concerns about crime.

    The race between Johnson, Kotek and Drazan to replace term-limited Democratic Gov. Kate Brown was already unusual as a matchup between three women in what could be a record year for female gubernatorial hopefuls.

    But Johnson was also able to pull off a rare feat for an independent candidate by keeping pace in fundraising with the major-party nominees by drawing on her relationships with business leaders. Nike co-founder Phil Knight donated $3.75 million to Johnson’s campaign before appearing to shift his allegiances to Drazan with a $1 million contribution earlier this month.

    Johnson’s presence in the race has been an unexpected boon for Republicans, who only comprise about a quarter of the electorate. Democrats make up about 34% of the state’s voters and nonaffiliated Oregonians account for nearly 35%, according to the most recent figures from the Oregon secretary of state.

    Jim Moore, a political science professor at Pacific University, said Johnson appears to be siphoning more votes from Democrats, creating what is essentially a tie between Kotek and Drazan in a state that Biden won by 16 points in 2020.

    “Voters are growing increasingly unhappy with what the Democrats are doing, but they’re not willing to go to the Republicans who’ve gone further to the right,” said Moore. That has led to support for Johnson among disaffected Democrats and the state’s growing ranks of unaffiliated voters.

    “There’s just a frustration that life overall appears to be getting harder,” Moore added. “So many people have come to Oregon – or grew up here – and say, ‘Yes, I get paid less than other places, but the quality of life is amazing.’ And they’re seeing that quality of life drop.”

    Drazan, a social conservative and an opponent of abortion rights, has also centered her message around the idea that the state needs greater balance in government as it attempts to address the rise in homelessness, the affordability of housing and achievement gaps students are facing as a result of school closures during the pandemic. Drazan has also criticized the relaxation of certain high school graduation requirements as she argues for a parental bill of rights – echoing the message from Republicans, such as Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who will campaign with her in Oregon next week.

    “We have had single-party control for a decade, which means that we have had the legislature really, truly fail to hold the governor to account, and likewise we’ve had the governor fail to hold the legislature to account,” she said during a recent debate hosted by KOBI-TV and Southern Oregon University. “We need balance. We need commonsense solutions that are durable – with long term value.”

    Kotek counters that Drazan demonstrated obstructionist tendencies when she led a legislative walkout in 2020 to protest a climate bill. The Democrat has argued that Drazan’s move effectively killed legislation that would have advanced the state’s efforts to improve homelessness, among other issues.

    “Tina called for a homelessness state of emergency almost three years ago, but Representative Christine Drazan literally walked off the job – blocking millions of dollars for emergency homeless shelters and affordable housing construction,” Katie Wertheimer, Kotek’s communications director, said in a statement.

    “Oregonians are justifiably frustrated and want real solutions to homelessness, crime, and the cost of living,” Wertheimer added. “Tina will do what Kate Brown couldn’t or wouldn’t, and finally declare that state of emergency, and she will hire crews to clean up the trash. She is the only trusted leader in this race bringing forward real plans that will deliver results.”

    Drazan defended the rationale for the walkout at the time, saying it was not the time for cap-and-trade policies “because we cannot prevent these costs from being passed on – not to big companies, not utilities – but just straight down the line to Oregonians.”

    “Homelessness, crime, affordability, and education all dramatically worsened during her time in power,” Drazan campaign spokesperson John Burke said of Kotek. “Oregonians have had enough of her excuses and her failed agenda. That’s why they’re going to elect Christine Drazan as their next governor.”

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  • Five takeaways from the Georgia Senate debate | CNN Politics

    Five takeaways from the Georgia Senate debate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    When Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker met to debate in the already contentious Georgia Senate race, all the focus was on how personal allegations against Walker would roil the first – and likely only – debate in the campaign.

    The allegations that Walker paid for a woman to terminate her pregnancy and then, two years later, encouraged the same woman to have the procedure a second time, however, were just a blip in the hour-long contest, which instead centered on Warnock’s ties to President Joe Biden, the vast differences between the two candidates on abortion and even, however briefly, Walker’s use of what appeared to be a sheriff’s badge.

    Walker continued to deny the allegations about him – calling them “a lie” – and Warnock, as he has on the campaign trail, did not engage on the controversy, instead choosing to question his Republican opponent’s relationship to the truth.

    “We will see time and time again, as we have already seen, that my opponent has a problem with the truth,” Warnock said. “And just because he says something doesn’t mean it’s true.”

    For Walker, the debate was as much about touting his own candidacy as it was about tying Warnock to Biden, who was invoked early and often. His effort, in the closing moments, to assuage fence-sitting voters about his readiness to serve also included a jab at Warnock and Biden.

    “For those of you who are concerned about voting for me, a non-politician, I want you to think about the damage politicians like Joe Biden and Raphael Warnock have done to this country,” Walker said.

    Here are five takeaways from Friday’s debate:

    Biden wasn’t on the stage Friday night, but Walker tried repeatedly to convince viewers that the Democratic President was ostensibly there with his Democratic opponent.

    From the outset of the event, Walker repeatedly invoked Biden, hoping to tie his Democratic opponent to the President’s low approval ratings.

    “This race isn’t about me. It is about what Raphael Warnock and Joe Biden have done to you and your family,” Walker said at the top of the debate.

    Later, when pressed on voter fraud in the 2020 election, he added, “Did President Biden win? President Biden won, and Sen. Warnock won. That’s the reason I decided to run.”

    He then synthesized his point: “I am running because he and Joe Biden are the same.”

    Warnock did little to distance himself from Biden, even at times touting the legislation he passed with the President’s help. But during a question on foreign policy, he took the chance to note a specific time he stood up to the Biden administration.

    “I am glad we are standing up to Putin’s aggression and we have to continue to stand up, which is why I stood up to the Biden administration when it suggested we should close the Savanah Combat Readiness Training Center,” Warnock said. “I told the President that was the exact wrong thing to do at the exact wrong time. … We kept that training center open.”

    Walker went back to his message in response: “He didn’t stand up. He had laid down every time it came around.”

    “It is evident,” said a somewhat exasperated Warnock, “that he has a point that he tried to make time and time again.”

    Headed into the debate, the focus was on how Walker – and arguably less predictably, Warnock – would address the accusations that the Republican candidate allegedly paid for a woman to terminate her pregnancy and then, two years later, encouraged the same woman to have the procedure a second time.

    Walker did what he has done repeatedly as the allegations roiled an already contentious Senate race: Label the allegations a lie.

    “As I said, that is a lie,” Walker said in response to a question from the moderator. “I put it in a book, one thing about my life, I have been very transparent. Not like the senator, he has hid things.”

    Walker added: “I said that is a lie and I am not backing down. And we have Sen. Warnock, people that would do anything and say anything for this seat. But I am not going to back down.”

    CNN has not independently verified the allegations about Walker.

    Warnock, as he has done previously, did not address the allegations, instead choosing to let Walker fight them off without pushing them himself.

    Instead, the senator took a broad approach, focusing on Walker’s “problem with the truth” and less on the specific allegations.

    The candidates also clashed on abortion rights more generally, with Walker insisting he did not support a federal ban, in contrast to past statements, and pointing to the state’s restrictive “heartbeat” law. The law prohibits abortions as soon as early cardiac activity is detectable, which can be as early as six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant.

    “On abortion, I’m a Christian. I believe in life. Georgia is a state that respects life,” Walker said.

    The Georgia law makes exceptions for cases of rape or incest, pending a timely police report, and in some cases where the pregnant person’s health is at risk.

    Before the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, state law had allowed abortions up to 20 weeks.

    Warnock, who supports abortion rights, repeated an argument he’s made on the trail: “A patient’s room is too narrow and small and cramped for a woman, her doctor and the US government. … I trust women more than I trust politicians.”

    Walker then shot back, invoking Warnock’s support for the Black Lives Matter movement against police brutality.

    “He told me Black lives matter… If Black lives matter, why are you not protecting those babies? And instead of aborting those babies, why aren’t you baptizing those babies?,” Walker said.

    Warnock, as he did throughout the debate, didn’t directly answer Walker’s provocation. Instead, he repeated his position.

    “There are enough politicians piling into the rooms of patients,” the senator said, “and I don’t plan to join them.”

    Georgia is one of 12 states not to expand Medicaid and currently has an estimated 1.5 million uninsured residents.

    Walker, when asked by the moderator if the federal government should step in to make sure everyone has access to health care, began a confusing non-response.

    “Well, right now, people have coverage for health care. It’s according to what type of coverage do you want. Because if you have an able-bodied job, you’re going to have health care,” he said. “But everyone else – have health care is the type of health care you’re going to get. And I think that is the problem.”

    Walker continued to say that Warnock wants people to “depend on the government,” while he wants “you to get off the government health care and get on the health care he’s got.”

    To note: Warnock, as a US Senator, is on a government health care plan.

    Walker also gave a puzzling response to Warnock’s attack on his opposition to federal legislation capping the price of insulin for people with diabetes.

    “I believe in reducing insulin, but at the same time, you have to eat right,” Walker said. “Unless you have eating right, insulin is doing you no good. So you have to get food prices down and you got to get gas prices down so they can go and get insulin.”

    Warnock responded by telling viewers who require the drug that Walker was, in effect, blaming them for their struggles accessing it.

    Warnock, on the subject of his pledge to close the Medicaid gap, was asked how he would pay for it.

    “This is not a theoretical issue for me,” he replied, invoking the story of a nurse in a trauma ward who lost coverage when she became sick and, as he put it, died “for lack of health care.”

    “Georgia needs to expand Medicaid,” Warnock continued. “It costs us more not to expand. What we’re doing right now is we’re subsidizing health care in other states” – a reference to the state’s refusal to accept federal funds that residents already pay into.

    The debate within the debate over Warnock’s support for police, in which the senator pointed to his support for legislation that backed smaller departments, was briefly derailed when Walker pulled out what appeared to be a police badge.

    The moderator quickly admonished Walker, reminding him that props were not allowed onstage.

    “You have a prop,” the surprised moderator said. “That is not allowed, sir.”

    Moments earlier, Warnock – in response to Walker’s claims that he has “called (police officers) names” and caused “morale” to plummet – said that his opponent “has a problem with the truth.”

    Warnock then hit Walker with a callback to a more than two-decade-old police report in which the Republican discussed exchanging gunfire with police and a subsequent false claim from Walker that he previously served in law enforcement.

    “One thing that I haven’t done is I haven’t pretended to be a police officer and I’ve never, ever threatened a shootout with police,” he said.

    Warnock also argued that his support for greater scrutiny of police didn’t undermine his support for law enforcement.

    “You can support police officers, as I’ve done, through the COPS program, through the invest-to-protect program, while at the same time, holding police officers, like all professions, accountable,” he said.

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  • Five takeaways from the Michigan gubernatorial debate | CNN Politics

    Five takeaways from the Michigan gubernatorial debate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her Republican challenger, conservative commentator Tudor Dixon, squared off in their first debate Thursday night in Grand Rapids.

    Whitmer has placed her support for abortion rights at the forefront of her bid for a second term in a state where Republicans control the legislature. She has also touted her economic efforts and increased funding for schools.

    Dixon, who is backed by former education secretary Betsy DeVos’ family and won the GOP nomination after an endorsement from former President Donald Trump, has criticized Whitmer’s pandemic policies. She has also leaned into cultural battles, proposing a policy that would ban transgender girls from competing in sports with the gender they identify with, as well as one modeled after the controversial measure Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law earlier this year, which critics dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

    Here are five takeaways from their debate:

    The governor’s race has largely revolved around the stark differences between Whitmer and Dixon on abortion rights, and Whitmer opened the debate by pointing to her lawsuit to halt the enforcement of a 1931 law banning abortions in virtually all instances in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade earlier this year.

    “The only reason that law is not in effect right now is because of my lawsuit stopping it,” Whitmer said.

    Whitmer also backed a referendum that is appearing on Michigan’s ballots this year that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.

    Dixon responded by accusing Whitmer of opposing any limits on abortion rights. But she also downplayed her position, saying she will respect the outcome of that referendum.

    “I am pro-life with exceptions for the life of the mother. But I understand that this is going to be decided by the people of the state of Michigan or by a judge,” Dixon said. “The governor doesn’t have the choice to go around a judge or a constitutional amendment.”

    Whitmer highlighted Dixon’s comment in a podcast interview in which she said a 14-year-old child who is raped by a family member should not be allowed to have an abortion.

    “To protect our rights, we cannot trust Ms. Dixon,” Whitmer said.

    Dixon has repeatedly parroted Trump’s lies about Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election coming as a result of widespread fraud.

    Whitmer sharply criticized Dixon over those comments early in Thursday night’s debate, as the Democratic governor sought to cast doubt on her Republican challenger’s claim that she would accept the results of the abortion referendum on this year’s ballot.

    “This is a candidate who still denies the outcome of the 2020 election,” Whitmer said.

    “For her to stand here and say she will respect the will of the people, when she has not even embraced the outcome of a last election or pledged to embrace the outcome of a future election, tells me we cannot trust what you say,” Whitmer said.

    Dixon did not respond to Whitmer on the issue, or comment on whether she accepts the outcome of the 2020 election, during the debate.

    Dixon was critical of Whitmer’s management of the Covid-19 pandemic, saying that school and business closures were too far-reaching and long-lasting.

    “Not only did she make bad choices when she closed it down and refused to open our schools, but she hasn’t figured out how to recover,” Dixon said.

    She said Whitmer kept children “locked out of schools, and wouldn’t listen to parents when they begged her to let them play.”

    Whitmer, meanwhile, defended her actions amid the crisis, saying that “we made tough decisions because lives were on the line,” even as she conceded she would have done some things differently in hindsight.

    Whitmer said 35,000 people in Michigan died during the pandemic. “They may not matter to some. But they matter to me, every single one of them,” Whitmer said.

    “If I could go back in time with the knowledge we have now, sure, I would have made some different decisions. But we were working in the middle of a crisis and lives were on the line,” she said.

    Whitmer’s memorable 2018 campaign slogan – “fix the damn roads” – was among the reasons she won the governor’s office.

    On Thursday night, Dixon took aim at one way Whitmer attempted to pay for those road improvements: increasing Michigan’s 27 cents per gallon gas tax by 45 cents per gallon.

    Dixon said Whitmer “didn’t fulfill her promise,” citing a report by the Michigan Transportation Asset Management Council warning that roads are continuing to deteriorate.

    Whitmer touted a bonding program and measures approved by the legislature that she said amount to $4.8 billion in transportation funding. She also credited Biden and the Democratic-led Congress for its infrastructure bill, which she said “sent us billions.”

    “There are orange cones and barrels all over the state because we are fixing the damn roads,” Whitmer said.

    She added: “We are fixing the damn roads. We are moving dirt. We are using the right mix and materials, and they are built to last. But you don’t overcome decades of disinvestment overnight.”

    Dixon, acknowledging that a shift to electric vehicles will over time reduce gas tax revenue, said Michigan will need to pursue “public-private partnerships” to fund road construction. She did not detail what those would include, but such partnerships typically involve tolls.

    “We will have to find a way to fund the roads. It’s going to take public-private partnerships in the future. But it’s going to be a ways out, because the entire country is not going to go to EV vehicles overnight,” she said.

    Among the clearest differences in Thursday night’s debate was over gun rights, with Whitmer advocating a series of restrictions while Dixon said she opposed policies that she said would “take guns away from law-abiding citizens.”

    Whitmer said she supports background checks and “red flag” laws. She also criticized Dixon for opposing gun-free zones in places like schools and for supporting permitless carry.

    Dixon’s positions would lead to “more guns, less oversight, less training,” Whitmer said.

    Dixon responded that Michigan should respond to gun crimes by being “tough on crime in this state.”

    “This idea that you’re going to take guns away from law-abiding citizens and somehow that’s going to keep them out of the hands of criminals? That’s never going to work,” Dixon said. “When we find someone who commits a gun crime, they need to be put away.”

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  • New poll finds Georgia Senate race remains unchanged after allegations about Walker | CNN Politics

    New poll finds Georgia Senate race remains unchanged after allegations about Walker | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Sen. Raphael Warnock continues to hold an advantage over Herschel Walker in Georgia’s US Senate race, according to a new poll from Quinnipiac University, with the margin between the two candidates little changed compared with polling conducted before allegations emerged that Walker paid for a woman’s abortion and encouraged her to have another one.

    The survey, which was conducted after the allegations about Walker emerged last week, finds Warnock with 52% support among likely voters to 45% for Walker, about the same as in a mid-September poll. Walker’s favorability rating has shifted narrowly more negative, from 51% saying they held an unfavorable view of him in September to 55% now. Warnock’s favorability rating is unchanged.

    Voters broadly say that Walker is not honest (57% feel that way, including 96% of Democrats, 63% of independents and 16% of Republicans), and 58% feel he does not have good leadership skills. Majorities say Warnock is honest, by contrast (54% overall, including 93% of Democrats, 58% of independents and 14% of Republicans), and that he does have good leadership skills (57%). More also see Warnock as caring about average Georgians (57% say Warnock does vs. 46% saying Walker does).

    The race between Walker and Warnock is one of the most competitive Senate contests this midterm cycle, and is key to control of the evenly split chamber.

    Last week, the Daily Beast reported that Walker, who has opposed abortion rights during his campaign, had reimbursed a woman with whom he was in a relationship for a 2009 abortion. Additionally, The New York Times reported that he asked her to get the procedure again when she became pregnant two years later; she refused the second time.

    CNN has not independently confirmed the woman’s allegations.

    The Republican has repeatedly denied the allegations made in the reports, including in a Tuesday interview with ABC. “Yes, she’s lying,” he told the outlet.

    Georgia’s gubernatorial contest is also largely unchanged from Quinnipiac’s prior polling on it and suggests there is no clear leader in the race, with 50% behind incumbent Brian Kemp and 49% backing Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams.

    The survey of 1,157 Georgia likely voters was conducted October 7-10 by telephone and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

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  • Tom Brady says he’s utilized therapy to address his mental health in recent years | CNN

    Tom Brady says he’s utilized therapy to address his mental health in recent years | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Tom Brady said he has used both physical and mental therapy to address his mental health in recent years so that he can “be good for people around me.”

    Speaking on his “Let’s Go!” podcast alongside co-host Jim Gray on Monday, the 45-year-old quarterback opened up about the “intense amount of stress” he has faced over his 22-year NFL career.

    “Everyone has different situations in their life and children and you worry about their mental health. You worry about your parents [and] obviously yourself,” Brady said.

    “I think I’ve had to learn a lot of things over a long period of time in sports. I think there’s an intense amount of stress that we all deal with, and how do you relieve stress so that you’re not inflicting so much damage on yourself through kind of stress response?”

    He added: “So [it’s] something I’ve always continued to try to work at, and it’s obviously a challenge for me and different forms of whether it’s physical therapy or mental therapy, all those things I’ve definitely done over the years.”

    Brady has endured an uncharacteristically bumpy start to the 2022 NFL season, with issues on and off the field.

    The Tampa Bay Buccaneer quarterback retired in February only to later reverse that decision. In the midst of August’s training camp, Brady took an 11-day leave of absence to “deal with personal things,” according to his head coach Todd Bowles.

    In September, Brady twice hinted that retirement was not too far away, saying he was “close to the end” of his NFL career.

    Earlier this month, a source close to Brady and his wife Gisele Bündchen told CNN that the estranged couple have each hired divorce attorneys and are “exploring their options” regarding their marriage.

    CNN reported last month that Brady and Bündchen have been dealing with “marital issues,” according to a source close to the couple.

    On the field, Brady’s Bucs have had a rocky start to the season. They currently have a 3-2 record and sit atop the NFC South but have had some bad losses and some underwhelming performances.

    Brady said on Monday that the importance of addressing one’s mental health in sports is often underplayed.

    “I think there was a part of us where we felt like, suck it up and deal with it,” Brady added. “And I think you realize that there’s a lot, especially in today’s day and age, with how fast things are happening in life for all of us, and the amount of responsibilities we have.

    “You hear this a lot from people that say: ‘I’m only human.’ We are only human. We’re not inhuman. We’re not immune to a lot of the things that life brings us. We’re not robots.”

    Brady said having a “great support system” has helped him cope with the pressure he’s had during his storied career, during which he’s won seven Super Bowl titles.

    “You wake up every day trying to do the best you can do, understanding that life has its stresses and to deal with them with a great support system and understanding and having some introspectiveness in your life where you can look at yourself and say, where do I need to commit my time and energy to?” he explained.

    “And how can I lessen some of the stress and lessen the burden on me so that I can be good for people around me? So those are all different things that you work at. I worked at them when I was 20.

    “There was a lot of things that I was going through when I was 20. There was a lot of things I was going through in my 30s. There’s things I’m going through in my 40s.

    “And it’s life. And you learn to grow up and you learn to deal with life. And that’s what we’re all trying to do. We’re trying to do it the best way we can.”

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  • Republican Sen. Rick Scott to campaign for Herschel Walker in Georgia this week | CNN Politics

    Republican Sen. Rick Scott to campaign for Herschel Walker in Georgia this week | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Sen. Rick Scott of Florida will travel to Georgia on Tuesday to support GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker, whose campaign has been reeling following reports Walker asked a woman to terminate two pregnancies.

    The move by Scott highlights how critical the race in Georgia is with a 50-50 split in the US Senate. Scott is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate Republican campaign arm.

    “The Democrats want to destroy this country, and they will try to destroy anyone who gets in their way. Today it’s Herschel Walker, but tomorrow it’s the American people,” Scott said in a statement sent to CNN on Saturday. “I’m proud to stand with Herschel Walker and make sure Georgians know that he will always fight to protect them from the forces trying to destroy Georgia values and Georgia’s economy, led by Raphael Warnock.”

    Warnock, a Democratic senator from Georgia, is Walker’s opponent.

    The Daily Beast reported on Friday that Walker paid for a woman’s abortion in 2009. The woman told The New York Times that Walker asked her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later, but she refused the request and their relationship ended.

    Walker, who said in May he supports a full ban on abortions, with no exceptions, has denied the earlier report from The Daily Beast, calling the allegation a “flat-out lie.”

    CNN has not independently confirmed the woman’s allegation about the abortion or that Walker urged her to terminate a second pregnancy. CNN has reached out to the Walker campaign for comment.

    Earlier Saturday, Warnock, said Walker “has trouble with the truth.”

    “It’s up to Georgia voters. It’s not up to him, it’s not up to me,” Warnock said. “We do know that my opponent has trouble with the truth. And we’ll see how all this plays out, but I am focused squarely on the health care needs of my constituents, including reproductive health care.”

    NRSC spokesperson Chris Hartline said on Saturday that the organization will “have a big presence in Georgia in the final stretch.”

    Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas will also be in Georgia to campaign for Walker on Tuesday.

    “Senator Cotton is headed to Georgia on Tuesday to campaign for Herschel Walker and help Republicans take back the Senate next month,” Cotton’s communications director, Caroline Tabler, told CNN. “He believes Herschel will be a champion for Georgia who will vote to keep violent criminals in jail, for lower gas prices, and to stop Joe Biden’s inflationary policies.”

    The Washington Post first reported on Scott and Cotton’s trip to Georgia.

    On Sunday, GOP Rep. Don Bacon, who is facing a competitive reelection in a swing district in Nebraska, told NBC he still backs Walker.

    “I sure do,” Bacon told Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press.”

    “Hershel needs to come clean and be honest,” he added. “We also know that we all make mistakes. It’s better – if this actually did happen – it’s better to say ‘I’m sorry’ and ask for forgiveness.”

    This headline and story have been updated.

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