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  • Why 2022 may bring a new peak of political instability | CNN Politics

    Why 2022 may bring a new peak of political instability | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    All year, the principal question looming over the 2022 campaign has been whether Democrats could defy political gravity.

    As we’re nearing the end, the answer appears to be: no, or at least not entirely.

    Midterm elections have almost always been bad for the party holding the White House, and they have been especially bad when most Americans are dissatisfied with the economy and the president’s performance. Those conditions are present in force now, with polls showing that most Americans disapprove of how President Joe Biden has handled crime, the border, and especially the economy and inflation. Pessimism about the economy is pervasive. Historically such attitudes have generated big gains up and down the ballot for the party out of the White House – in this case, the Republicans.

    That may be how the election ultimately turns out, especially in House and state legislative races where the individual candidates are less well-known, and many voters are likely to express dissatisfaction with the country’s direction by voting against the party in power. The president’s party, in fact, has lost House seats in all but three midterm elections since the Civil War. If there is a surprise in the House, it’s less likely to come from Democrats maintaining their majority than the Republicans exceeding the average 26 seat midterm gain for the party out of power since World War II.

    But Democrats have remained unexpectedly competitive in the higher-profile Senate and gubernatorial races by focusing attention not only on what Biden has done, but what Republicans might do, with power. Many of these statewide contests have become a “double negative election”: while most voters in the key states consistently say they disapprove of Biden’s job performance, most also say they hold negative personal views about the GOP candidates, many of whom were propelled to their nomination by support from Donald Trump. If Democrats hold the Senate, or hold their own in the top governor races, a principal reason will be the large number of voters who viewed GOP nominees as unqualified, extreme (particularly in their desire to ban or restrict abortion), a threat to democracy, or all of the above. The same dynamic could also save some House Democrats in districts where Biden has fallen well below majority support.

    So many races are so close – within the margin of error in public polls – that the results Tuesday could range from a true red wave to a Democratic sigh of relief. The scary precedent for Democrats is that in wave years almost all of the close races often tip in the same direction – toward the party out of power. A reason for Democratic hope is that in the final surveys, their candidates are consistently running better among all registered voters than among those the pollsters consider most “likely” to vote. That means the party could outperform expectations if even slightly more of its key constituencies (particularly young people) show up than pollsters anticipate – an outcome that groups such as the powerful union Unite Here is trying to achieve with 1,000 canvassers knocking on doors each day in Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania. “We are in the battle every place,” says Gwen Mills, the union’s secretary-treasurer. “All of [these races] are within the margin of effort.”

    If Republicans take back either chamber this week, it would mark the fifth consecutive election in which a president who went into a midterm with unified control of government had it revoked by the voters. That happened to Donald Trump in 2018, Barack Obama in 2010, George W. Bush in 2006 and Bill Clinton in 1994.

    No president, in fact, has successfully defended unified control of Congress through a mid-term since Jimmy Carter in 1978 – and he was insulated by the huge Congressional margins Democrats had amassed after Watergate, as well as his party’s strength in what was then still a “solid South” for Democrats. (The sole asterisk on this pattern is that Republicans under George W. Bush regained unified control of Congress in the 2002 midterm held a year after the September 11 attacks after a party switch by a Republican senator in early 2001 flipped control of the chamber to Democrats and broke the GOP’s unified hold on Congress.) A Republican takeover of either or both chambers would extend one of the defining trends of modern politics: Neither party has held the White House and Congress for more than four consecutive years since 1968. That’s a stark departure from most of the 20th century when each side, at different times, cemented lasting control for as long as 14 consecutive years.

    No matter what happens Tuesday, most experts don’t anticipate either party shattering this fragile modern stand-off to establish a lasting edge. “I don’t see either side getting a durable advantage,” says Gary Jacobson, a professor of political science emeritus at the University of California at San Diego. “They are highly polarized parties, and they are very closely balanced overall.”

    From that angle, Republican gains Tuesday would simply continue a long-standing tendency toward instability in our political system, with the initiative rapidly shifting back and forth between the parties. But the election could also ratchet that instability to a combustible new level. The strong tide behind Republicans virtually guarantees victories for some, maybe many, of the hundreds of candidates who have embraced Trump’s lies about the 2020 elections and signaled that they will seek to tilt the electoral rules toward the GOP or simply deny future wins by Democrats. Some of those candidates, if they lose this week, seem likely to emulate Trump after 2020 and refuse to concede, claiming fraud. (Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin have each suggested as much already.) The most important legacy of this week’s voting may be the beachhead inside the electoral system it will likely establish for Republican officeholders untethered to America’s democratic traditions as we have known them.

    In more conventional political calculations, Tuesday’s results seem likely to resurface debates, that had somewhat receded during the Trump years, over the structural electoral challenges Democrats face in the battle to control Congress.

    The modern period of Congressional elections arguably began in 1994, when Republicans captured both the House and Senate in the backlash against Bill Clinton’s chaotic first two years. That ended an era in which Democrats had held the House majority for 40 consecutive years, and controlled the Senate, usually by wide margins, for all but six years over that long span.

    Since 1994, though, Republicans have controlled Congress more often than Democrats. The GOP has held the Senate for about 16 and a half years (counting the roughly half year before the party switch cost them their majority in 2001) and Democrats for only about 11 and a half years. The imbalance in the House has been even more lopsided: Republicans have held it for 20 of these past 28 years, and Democrats for just eight. Especially ominous for Democrats is that if they lose the House on Tuesday, it would mark the second consecutive time they have surrendered their majority only four years after regaining it. (The previous case came when they were swept from the majority by the Tea Party uprising in 2010, just four years after they recaptured the chamber in 2006.) By contrast, Republicans held the House for 12 consecutive years from 1994 through 2006, and then for eight from 2010 through 2018.

    What makes this disparity especially striking is that it has come even as Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections since 1992 – something no party has done since the formation of the two-party system in 1828. (No Republican candidate has reached even 51% of the presidential popular vote since 1988.) These results clearly suggest the modern Democratic electoral coalition, on a nationwide basis, is larger than the Republican coalition. And yet, Republicans, more often than not, have controlled the Congressional majorities in this era anyway.

    Aggressive GOP gerrymanders partly explain that difference in the House. But that doesn’t fully explain the GOP’s House advantage and it isn’t a factor at all in the party’s Senate edge. Instead, the Republican Congressional success largely reflects geographic and demographic limitations of the Democratic coalition that almost certainly will be evident again this week.

    Tuesday’s election is likely to remind Democrats again that they are competing in too few places to establish a durable majority in Congress. In the House, Republicans have established such an overwhelming hold on rural and exurban districts that Democrats must win a very high share of urban and suburban districts to reach a majority. In a good year, like 2018, Democrats can meet that test. And even now, the continued resistance of college-educated suburban voters to the Trump-era Republican Party has provided Democrats a chance to hold down their losses in white-collar districts. But ceding so many rural, exurban and small-town seats leaves Democrats too little cushion to lose some of their suburban seats – as they inevitably will when discontent over the economy, and secondarily crime, is this high even in those places.

    If anything, the Democrats’ geographic challenge is even greater in the Senate. A dominant trend in modern US politics is that both parties are winning virtually all the Senate seats in states that typically support their presidential candidates. The challenge for Democrats is that, despite their repeated victories in the popular vote, slightly more states reliably lean Republican than Democrat in presidential races. Democrats already hold 39 of the 40 Senate seats in the 20 states that voted against Donald Trump both times (Susan Collins in Maine is the only exception). But 25 states voted for Trump both times, and they provide Republicans an even larger Senate contingent, with the GOP holding 47 of their 50 seats. Democrats have squeezed out their precarious 50-50 Senate majority only by capturing eight of the ten seats in the five states that flipped from Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020 (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia).

    This geography is what makes this week’s Senate elections so crucial to Democrats. This year’s key races are occurring almost entirely in states that Biden won, albeit mostly narrowly, with Democrats defending seats in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, Colorado and Washington, and targeting Republican-held seats in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. (With longer odds, Democrats have also mounted serious challenges to Republicans in Ohio and North Carolina, two states that twice voted for Trump.) Given that map, Democratic strategists recognize it’s critical for the party to expand, or at least maintain, its Senate margin now.

    After this year, the Senate terrain will rapidly become more foreboding for Democrats. In 2024, they will be defending all three of the seats they hold in the two-time Trump states (Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Joe Manchin in West Virginia and Jon Tester in Montana), as well as seats in half a dozen other swing states that could go either way in a presidential contest (including Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.) If most of the toss up Senate races fall to the Republicans on Tuesday, those gains, combined with the 2024 map, could put the GOP in position to dominate the upper chamber throughout this decade. “If Republicans take the Senate, I don’t see in our immediate lifetime how Democrats are going to take back” the majority, says Doug Sosnik, a senior White House political adviser to Bill Clinton.

    Much of the Democrats’ Senate problem is rooted in the constitutional provision that provides two Senate seats to every state. That magnifies the influence of sparsely populated, rural and strongly Republican interior states. There’s no political repositioning that is likely to provide Democrats a realistic chance any time soon to win Senate seats in Wyoming and Idaho or North and South Dakota.

    But many Democratic strategists argue that the party must expand its map in the Senate by finding ways to attract more non-college and non-urban voters, especially with white people, but across racial lines, in at least a few more states. That list of potential targets includes places like Ohio, Iowa and Florida where Democrats competed much more effectively as recently as under President Barack Obama. Rebuilding the party’s competitiveness in those states could take years and likely require a significant change in its positioning and message.

    Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at the centrist Democratic group Third Way, points out that while the party’s modern coalition of young people, racial minorities and college-educated whites has allowed it to effectively contest the presidency, it doesn’t represent a winning majority in enough states to reliably hold the Senate. “When you look at the electoral college, college educated [and diverse] America is close to enough to elect you president,” Kessler says. “But it is not close to getting you a majority in the Senate.”

    Tuesday’s election could also demonstrate the reemergence of a second demographic challenge for Democrats in the battle for Congress, what analysts in the past have called the “boom and bust” nature of their electoral coalition. The biggest remaining uncertainty for Tuesday’s election may be how many young people, who polls show continue to back Democrats in large proportions, turn out. Usually, turnout falls more for young people than for older generations between presidential and midterm elections (hence the “boom and bust” risk). But in 2018, robust youth turnout helped power the Democratic gains.

    Large-scale polls focused particularly on young adults (such as the Harvard Institute of Politics survey) have found them expressing levels of interest comparable to 2018. Yet their participation in early voting has been lackluster, and several recent national surveys (such as CNN’s poll last week) found their engagement lagging. If turnout among young adults disappoints on Tuesday, it will strengthen those Democrats who argue the party must prioritize regaining ground among middle-income, middle-aged voters, especially those without college degrees. (That includes non-college Latinos, particularly men, who may continue to drift away from Democrats at least somewhat this week.) The sharpest post-election debates among Democrats are likely to revolve around whether the party must embrace more conservative approaches on crime and immigration, two issues Republicans wielded to powerful effect, in order to earn a second look from more non-college educated voters across racial lines.

    History says that a bad result on Tuesday need not panic Democrats about 2024 (though, in practice, it probably will). Midterms have not had much value forecasting the result of the presidential election two years later. Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush had relatively good first-term midterms and then lost their reelection races. The president (or his party) did lose the White House two years after bad midterms in 1958, 1966, 1974 and 2018. But Harry Truman in 1948, Ronald Reagan in 1984, Bill Clinton in 1996 and Barack Obama in 2012 all won reelection, usually convincingly, two years after stinging midterm losses. Alan Abramowitz, an Emory University political scientist who has built models that project presidential outcomes based on economic and public opinion data, says the results of the midterm add literally no predictive value to the forecasts.

    The 2024 presidential election will begin almost immediately after Tuesday – probably before all the last votes are counted. Though midterm gains are the rule for the party out of power, Trump is likely to interpret GOP victories as a clarion call for his return; aides say he could announce a 2024 candidacy as soon as this month. White House officials believe Biden is certain to run if Trump does because he views the former president as an existential threat to American democracy. On Election Day 2024, the combined age of these two men will be nearly 160 years. Polls show that one of the few areas of broad public agreement is that most Americans do not want either to run again.

    Yet, long before any newly elected officials take office, or any gavels in Congress change hands, the first consequence of Tuesday’s bitterly fought election may be to place America more firmly on the path toward exactly such a rematch. And this time, such a confrontation could occur with the electoral machinery in decisive states under control of Trump allies who share his willingness to tilt or even subvert the system. Whatever storms rattle the political system this week, the real tempest won’t arrive until 2024 – and it may bring the greatest strain on the nation’s fundamental cohesion since the Civil War.

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  • Trump says US ‘in decline’; Biden has his own dire warning

    Trump says US ‘in decline’; Biden has his own dire warning

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    LATROBE, Pa. — Former President Donald Trump is predicting America’s destruction if his fellow Republicans don’t deliver a massive electoral wave on Tuesday. Democrats, led by President Joe Biden and two other former presidents, are warning that abortion rights, Social Security and even democracy itself are at stake.

    Three of the six living presidents delivered dire closing messages Saturday in battleground Pennsylvania entering the final weekend of the 2022 midterm elections, but their words echoed across the country as millions of Americans cast ballots to decide the balance of power in Washington and in key state capitals. Polls across America will close on Tuesday, but more than 39 million people have already voted.

    On Sunday, Biden was set to campaign in suburban New York, while Trump was headed to Florida.

    “If you want to stop the destruction of our country and save the American dream, then on Tuesday you must vote Republican in a giant red wave,” Trump told thousands of cheering supporters as he campaigned Saturday in western Pennsylvania, describing the United States as “a country in decline.”

    Earlier in the day, Biden shared the stage with former President Barack Obama in Philadelphia, the former running mates campaigning together for the first time since Biden took office. In neighboring New York, even former President Bill Clinton, largely absent from national politics in recent years, was out defending his party.

    “Sulking and moping is not an option,” Obama charged. “On Tuesday, let’s make sure our country doesn’t get set back 50 years.”

    Not everyone, it seemed, was on message as the weekend began.

    Even before arriving in Pennsylvania, Biden was dealing with a fresh political mess after upsetting some in his party for promoting plans to shut down fossil fuel plants in favor of green energy. While he made the comments in California the day before, the fossil fuel industry is a major employer in Pennsylvania.

    Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the president owed coal workers across the country an apology. He called Biden’s comments “offensive and disgusting.”

    Trump seized on the riff in western Pennsylvania, charging that Biden “has resumed the war on coal, your coal.”

    The White House said Biden’s words were “twisted to suggest a meaning that was not intended; he regrets it if anyone hearing these remarks took offense” and that he was “commenting on a fact of economics and technology.”

    Democrats are deeply concerned about their narrow majorities in the House and Senate as voters sour on Biden’s leadership amid surging inflation, crime concerns and widespread pessimism about the direction of the country. History suggests that Democrats, as the party in power, will suffer significant losses in the midterms.

    Trump peeked ahead toward Florida as he campaigned in Pennsylvania, slapping at the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis. After displaying recent presidential poll numbers on the big screens, Trump called DeSantis, a potential 2024 GOP rival, “Ron DeSanctimonious.”

    Trump’s weekend travels were part of a late blitz that will also take him to Ohio. He’s hoping a strong GOP showing on Tuesday will generate momentum for the 2024 run that he’s expected to launch in the days or weeks after polls close.

    Over and over on Saturday, Trump falsely claimed he lost the 2020 election only because Democrats cheated, while raising the possibility of election fraud this coming week. In part, because of such rhetoric, federal intelligence agencies have warned of the possibility of political violence from far-right extremists in the coming days.

    “Everybody, I promise you, in the very next — very, very, very short period of time, you’re going to be happy,” Trump said of another White House bid. “But first we have to win an historic victory for Republicans on Nov. 8.”

    Biden’s Pennsylvania address was largely the same he has been giving for weeks — spotlighting a grab bag of his major legislative achievements, while warning that abortion rights, voting rights, Social Security and Medicare are at risk should Republicans take control of Congress.

    The president highlighted the Inflation Reduction Action, passed in August by the Democratic-led Congress, which includes several health care provisions popular among older adults and the less well-off, including a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket medical expenses and a $35 monthly cap per prescription on insulin. The new law also requires companies that raise prices faster than overall inflation to pay Medicare a rebate.

    But with a bigger and more energetic audience in his home state, Biden’s energy seemed lifted.

    “We have to reaffirm the values that have long defined us,” Biden said of threats to democracy. “We are good people. I know this.”

    He added: “Get out and vote!”

    ———

    Learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections. And follow the AP’s election coverage of the 2022 elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections.

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  • French far-right party elects new leader to replace Le Pen

    French far-right party elects new leader to replace Le Pen

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    PARIS — European lawmaker Jordan Bardella replaced his mentor Marine Le Pen on Saturday at the helm of France’s leading far-right party, pledging to protect French civilization from perceived threats posed by immigration and defending a party member who made a racist remark in parliament.

    Bardella, 27, won an internal party vote with 85% support, marking a symbolic changing of the guard at the resurgent National Rally party. He is the first person to lead the party who doesn’t have the Le Pen name since it was founded a half-century ago.

    The National Rally is seeking to capitalize on its recent breakthrough in France’s legislative election and growing support for far-right parties in Europe, notably in neighboring Italy. It’s also facing broad public anger over an offensive comment this week by a National Rally member in parliament in response to a Black lawmaker.

    Marine Le Pen is still expected to wield significant power in the party’s leadership and run again for France’s presidency in 2027. She says she stepped aside to focus on leading the party’s 89 lawmakers in France’s National Assembly.

    To broad applause, she hugged Bardella after the results were announced at a party congress on Paris’ Left Bank, and both raised their arms in victory. Le Pen said Bardella’s main challenge will be pursuing the party “roadmap” of taking power in France.

    “We are going to win!” supporters chanted.

    Anti-racism activists, union leaders and politicians protested nearby Saturday against the National Rally, denouncing what many see as a creeping acceptance of its xenophobic views.

    Yeliz Alkac, 30, told The AP that she was demonstrating to support people who face persistent racism in France. She described shock that the remark in parliament seen as denigrating African immigrants was seen as ”normal” by some in France.

    “The fact that the National Rally has 89 lawmakers at the National Assembly is a strong signal. It should be a warning about how the extreme right is going strong,” she said.

    In his speech Saturday, Bardella defended the National Rally legislator who was suspended over the remark, calling him a victim of a “manhunt.”

    Bardella described his family’s Italian immigrant roots and pride at becoming French, but made it clear that not all foreigners are welcome.

    “France shouldn’t be the world’s hotel,” he said, calling for “drastic” limits on immigration.

    He welcomed a representative of Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s far-right party who came to the congress, calling for a “rapprochement” of similar forces in Europe.

    Bardella had been the interim president of the National Rally since Le Pen entered the presidential race last year. He beat out party heavyweight Louis Aliot, 53, who had argued that the National Rally needs to reshape itself to be more palatable to the mainstream right.

    “Bardella’s election feels like a fresh push,” said party member Marie Audinette, 23. “He embodies the youth.”

    Audinette, who grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Bordeaux, said that her country “was perishing,” citing deteriorating public services that struggled to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. She also described “a clear change of population” in Bordeaux.

    Some far-right supporters in France increasingly refer to the false “great replacement” conspiracy theory that the populations of Western countries are being overrun by non-white, non-Christian immigrants. The claim, propagated by white supremacists, has inspired deadly attacks.

    Le Pen lost to French President Emmanuel Macron on her third presidential bid in April but earned her highest score yet. Two months later, her party won its most seats to date in the lower house of parliament, in part thanks to Le Pen’s efforts to focus on inflation and workers’ economic troubles.

    Le Pen has worked to remove the stigma of racism and antisemitism that clung to her party and broaden its base. She has notably distanced herself from her now-ostracized father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who co-founded the party then called the National Front and has been repeatedly convicted for hate speech.

    “Bardella is part of a generation of young, very young, people who engaged themselves behind Marine Le Pen in the 2010s and who probably wouldn’t have joined the National Rally during Jean-Marie Le Pen’s era,” political scientist Jean-Yves Camus told The Associated Press.

    The Le Pen family and the party also have deep ties to Vladimir Putin’s Russia. While Le Pen condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she has also questioned resulting Western sanctions against Russia, and her party took out a $9 million loan from the First Czech-Russian bank in 2014 that many see as a Russian effort to influence French politics.

    According to Camus, Saturday’s party vote won’t question Le Pen’s leadership.

    “Le Pen won’t have to deal with the party (now) and can focus on the most important thing, leading the party’s lawmakers in the National Assembly,” he said.

    ———

    Associated Press writers Elaine Ganley and Alex Turnbull contributed to this report.

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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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  • New York Democrats are bracing for stunning Election Day losses, and they already have a fall guy | CNN Politics

    New York Democrats are bracing for stunning Election Day losses, and they already have a fall guy | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Democratic officials and strategists in New York tell CNN they are bracing for what could be stunning losses in the governor’s race and in contests for as many as four US House seats largely in the suburbs.

    With crime dominating the headlines and the airwaves, multiple Democrats watching these races closely are pointing to New York City Mayor Eric Adams, accusing him of overhyping the issue and playing into right-wing narratives in ways that may have helped set the party up for disaster on Tuesday.

    “He was an essential validator in the city to make their attacks seem more legit and less partisan,” said one Democratic operative working on campaigns in New York, who asked not to be named so as not to compromise current clients.

    Other Democrats argue this has it backwards. While they accuse Republicans of political ploys they call cynical, racist and taking advantage of a situation fostered by the pandemic, they insist candidates would be in better shape if they had followed Adams’ lead in speaking to the fear and frustration voters feel.

    But going into Election Day, New York Democrats worry about a double whammy from how they’ve struggled to address crime: Swing voters turned off by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and suburban House Democrats go vote Republican, while base Democrats in the city, dejected by talk of how awful things are, don’t turn out at all.

    “Crime today has been compared to the ’80s and the ‘90s, and the fact of the matter is that crime is lower now than it was then,” said Crystal Hudson, a Democratic New York City councilwoman from Brooklyn. “That’s emboldened the right to use crime as their narrative and put Democrats in a bad spot for these midterm elections.”

    Rep. Lee Zeldin, Hochul’s GOP opponent, has taken to regularly invoking Adams on the campaign trail, to the point that some Democratic operatives have grimly joked that Zeldin could just run clips of Adams talking about crime as his closing ads.

    There are national ripples: Democratic groups like the Democratic Governors Association are moving in millions of dollars to prop up Hochul in a deep-blue state instead of spending that on tight races elsewhere, with Vice President Kamala Harris flying in on Thursday in one of her own last campaign stops and President Joe Biden heading to Westchester County, north of New York City, on Sunday to rally with the governor. Republicans, meanwhile, are seizing opportunities to pad a potential House majority by targeting seats that Democrats had been counting on as backstops.

    Adams was elected mayor last year on a tough-talking, tough-on-crime message, then embraced as such a hero among many Democratic leaders that rumors circulated he might be eyeing a 2024 presidential run himself. In office, he’s often talked about the bad shape the city is in, including citing statistics he says demonstrate connections between the rise in crime and a 2019 progressive-led state law change that barred judges from setting cash bail for all but the most serious offenses.

    Multiple top Democrats argue that Adams could have used his credibility to buttress Hochul – whom allies point out is in a tricky political spot talking about crime in New York City as a 64-year-old White woman from Western New York – instead of loudly pushing the governor to call a special session of the legislature to roll back more of the new bail laws. Hochul also seemed to be caught surprised by the attacks and unsure of how to defend her record, with several elected officials and operatives saying she appeared to be balancing between different factions of the party rather than setting a firm agenda of her own.

    That’s fed an increasingly tense relationship in the campaign’s final weeks, though Adams recently appeared with Hochul at both an official government event announcing she’d allocate state money to pay for overtime for police patrolling the subways and at a campaign stop in Queens as she seeks to prove to voters that she’s taking crime seriously. Adams has also shifted to blaming the media for sensationalizing the crime problem.

    Appearing on “CNN This Morning” on Friday, Hochul said there’s never been a governor and mayor in New York with as strong a relationship as the one she has with Adams. While she acknowledged that violent crime is up and that the issue was rooted in voters’ sincere fears, she said Republicans were “not having a conversation about real solutions.”

    She cited her record of getting more cops and cameras on the street and help for the mentally ill, and Zeldin’s opposition to gun control.

    “Crime has been a problem,” she said. “I understand that. Let’s talk about real answers and not just give everybody all these platitudes.”

    Rep. Kathleen Rice, a retiring moderate Democrat from just outside New York City and a former Nassau County district attorney, said at first she was encouraged by Adams. As a former police officer, he understands the problem, she said, but “the general consensus is that he hasn’t shown he has focused on the issue enough for it to have made a difference.”

    Rice said she’s heard from constituents from just outside the city who are turned off by reports of Adams spending late nights at pricey private restaurants juxtaposed with stories about murders on the subways and other horrific incidents.

    “People want to feel safe first before they go to a club,” Rice said.

    Rice’s seat is one of two Democratic-held seats on Long Island now seen at risk. Democrats are also in danger of losing two seats north of New York City – one held by Rep. Pat Ryan and the Lower Hudson Valley district of Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the chair of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

    “It is an issue for voters, but it is not because they have personally experienced crime in the Hudson Valley or their neighbors are talking about crimes committed in the Hudson Valley as much as it is the narrative pushed by the industrial fear machine at Fox and the New York Post describing New York City as a lawless hellscape,” Maloney said in an interview. “That, understandably, is raising concerns among suburbanites.”

    Months ago, Maloney warned other House Democrats, in conversations and in a March memo sent around by the DCCC and obtained by CNN, to be ready to respond and rebut attacks for being weak on crime. The guidance started with telling candidates to be firmly against calls to “defund the police” but also to talk about the more than $8 billion Democratic lawmakers had secured for law enforcement in bills such as the American Rescue Plan.

    Maloney pointed to his votes for legislation to fund programs for body cameras and plate reading technology for local police departments in his district, as well as for the gun control measures enacted over the summer.

    He also stood by a remark he made last July – catching several Democratic operatives’ attention at the time – when he stood with Adams on the steps of the Democratic National Committee headquarters and called him “a rock on which I can build a church.”

    “What I meant is that I like his combination of respecting good policing and understanding the need for public safety with a genuine passion for justice and fairness in our system,” Maloney said in an interview. “He may not get everything right, and it may not be everything I would do. But he recognizes that we’re not where we should be. And I support his efforts to clean it up.”

    Others have not been convinced.

    “The concern over crime is real. It is acute,” said Rep. Mondaire Jones, a progressive Democrat who lost a primary to represent parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn after Maloney opted to run for a redrawn suburban seat that also included parts of Jones’ district. “But once this election is over, I hope people have an honest conversation about how Democrats like Eric Adams have validated a hysteria over crime that is uninformed and that has been debunked.”

    Conversations about crime in New York are bound up in the debate over reforming the bail laws, and in well-worn internal political power struggles among officials. In phone calls and meetings at the beginning of the year, Adams urged top officials in Albany to change the laws, warning them that crime would likely be a major political liability in the fall, according to people familiar with the conversations.

    Legislative leaders have already passed two partial rollbacks, including one supported by Hochul earlier this year. But they have resisted doing more, despite warnings from suburban members.

    Adams has charged that the “insane broken system” of bail laws now puts criminals back on the street who then tend to get back to committing crimes. According to figures from the New York Police Department, in the first half of the year, 211 people were arrested at least three times for burglary and 899 people were arrested at least three times for shoplifting, increases of 142.5 percent and 88.9 percent, respectively, over the same period in 2017. The mayor’s office also pointed to statistics that show double-digit jumps in recidivism for felony, grand larceny and auto theft.

    Still, crime statistics don’t tell as simple a story as what shows up in political ads. Suburban counties are reporting safer streets and communities – a report in February by the Westchester County executive from just north of New York City, for example, showed a 26.5 percent drop in its crime index.

    Murders and shootings are down in the city from last year, but rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and auto theft are all up, by over 30 percent from 2021 in several categories, according to New York Police Department data.

    But those are the stories which play on the same local news – and campaign ads during the breaks – that reach into the homes of suburban voters who may not have been crime victims themselves, or even spent much time in the city for years. And that’s left Hochul and Democratic House and state legislative nominees leaching support in Long Island, Westchester and the northern New York City suburbs.

    “A lot of the story that’s being told is of New York City crime,” said Democrat Bridget Fleming, a former prosecutor who’s been endorsed by police unions in the House race for much of the area Zeldin currently represents on Long Island. “We’re making sure law enforcement is supported – and other than gun crime, we’re keeping crime down here.”

    Evan Roth Smith, a pollster working on several local races, said Adams “may be a drag on Democratic trustworthiness on crime.”

    But Adams spokesman Maxwell Young said the mayor’s job isn’t to put a rosy spin on things in a way that could benefit Hochul’s or any of the other candidates’ campaigns.

    “We can’t, and won’t, ignore the reality,” Young said. “Those who claim we aren’t making progress or, conversely, that we’ve been crying wolf aren’t paying attention and have no idea what they’re talking about.”

    Evan Thies, a top Adams political adviser, said he wished other Democrats had taken lessons from the mayor’s win last year.

    “You have to convince people you’re worthy to lead by following their lead on issues and meeting their urgency, not by disagreeing with them,” Thies said. “The mayor became mayor by listening to and advocating for people in high-crime communities – he’s not going to abandon them now.”

    Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat, whose district covers Upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx, points to how many systemic, as well as larger societal and economic issues, are involved in making a real impact on crime – and that Adams has only been on the job for 10 months.

    “He’s really trying hard. This is not easy,” Espaillat said. “It’s going to take some time.”

    Biden had his own bromance with Adams, from hosting him in the White House weeks after he won his mayoral primary to offering him half of his peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich as they rode together in the limo in February during a presidential visit to New York to talk about gun violence. White House chief of staff Ron Klain praised Adams for tapping into the same coalition of pragmatic, working-class and African American voters, which won Biden the 2020 Democratic nomination.

    Through an aide, Klain did not respond to questions about how he and the president view Adams these days.

    But what many Democrats are left with as they approach the end of campaigning in New York is a potentially devastating example of failing again to break a decades-long paradigm of Republicans capitalizing on calling them soft on crime.

    “The paradox here is: Crime is high in some of the reddest parts of the country where they have the weakest gun safety laws. We needed to tell that story and done so loudly to neutralize the issue. You can’t sit idly by and wish it away,” said Charlie Kelly, a political adviser to former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s gun safety group Everytown and former executive director for the Democratic-aligned House Majority PAC.

    In New York and beyond, some Democrats are already hoping for a post-election recognition and realignment that pushes their party both toward a tougher attack on Republicans and a more forceful deflection of their own left flank.

    “We can’t dismiss people’s concerns,” said Justin Brannan, a New York City councilman from a moderate district in Brooklyn. “It’s another thing to be a Republican, to say, ‘If you go outside, you’re going to die.’”

    “It’s both true that crime is down from the 1990s and that it has been increasing and that people feel uncomfortable,” said Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president. “Democrats have to be able to talk about that and offer real solutions.”

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  • Obama and Trump bring dueling visions for America in return to campaign trail | CNN Politics

    Obama and Trump bring dueling visions for America in return to campaign trail | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Midterm elections are almost always about incumbent presidents, especially when they are unpopular. But in a unique twist this year, two ex-presidents who lost control of the House while in office have turned into their parties’ closing messengers.

    Barack Obama and Donald Trump personify two rival visions of the meaning of America itself and are extending their bitter years-long duel as they find themselves on opposite sides of a profound confrontation over the future of US democracy.

    Obama remains an avatar of progressive change and an increasingly diverse nation, who’s far more popular than current Democratic President Joe Biden. He’s the most sought-after political fireman for Democrats struggling to survive tight swing state races and is being used to energize young, minority and suburban middle-class voters.

    Trump has mobilized his Make America Great Again movement, which first emerged as a backlash to the first Black presidency and is built around the notion that the cultural values of a largely White, working-class nation is under siege from political correctness, undocumented migration, experts and the establishment.

    Obama is lambasting politicians, celebrities and sports stars who peddle conspiracy theories, fear and social media “garbage” of which Trump is the most prominent exponent. And he’s delivering searing take-downs of the 45th president’s proteges who are running for election on the platform of his 2020 election falsehoods – like Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

    “Why would you vote for somebody who you know is not telling the truth about something? I mean, on something that important, I don’t care how nicely they say it. I don’t care how poised they are or how well-lit they are,” Obama said of the former local TV news anchor, who has emerged as a rising MAGA star, in Arizona on Wednesday.

    “What happens when truth doesn’t matter anymore?” Obama added. “If you just repeat something over and over again, and it’s a lie, and yet because your side is saying it, it’s okay.”

    Trump adopted exactly that tactic in his return to the campaign trail in Iowa on Thursday night, in what was ostensibly an appearance for veteran GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, but felt like a first-in-the-nation caucus warmup for 2024.

    He falsely claimed that he had won in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in 2020, two of the states that helped Biden win the White House.

    “Your favorite president got screwed,” Trump told his crowd on a frigid night in Sioux City, in which he repeated false conspiracies that Obama spied on his campaign in 2016.

    One interesting comparison of the styles of Trump and Obama on show in their rival rallies is in their use of humor. Trump has long used comedy – often dark and cruel – to bind himself to his audience, a feature that doesn’t always come across on TV. Often his crowds look like they are having a whale of a time, enthralled by a rule-breaking bull in a china shop trashing decorum with every word and lacerating his opponents with outrageous accusations and belittling nicknames.

    On Thursday, Trump had his crowd in stitches in a digression from an otherwise dystopian speech as a stiff wind blew around the teleprompters showing his prepared remarks.

    “I’ve got these teleprompters waving like a flag,” he said. “I’m going to get sea sick!”

    Obama’s humor is typically warmer, although no less cutting, but he uses it effectively to ridicule Republicans before delivering a devastating political hit. For instance, in Wisconsin last weekend, he branded Republicans as the party of the rich when he accused Sen. Ron Johnson of voting for a tax break for private plane owners.

    “He fought for this. And then, his adult children bought not one, not two, but three private planes because apparently, carpooling was not an option. Now, I mean, you need three?” Obama joked.

    People in Obama’s extended circle have remarked that their former boss has been on fire this campaign season. Lacking the burdens of presidential office, unlike his former vice president, Obama has shown the kind of freedom and relish for big political rallies that rocketed him to the Democratic nomination in 2008.

    It’s easy to tell when the 44th president doesn’t have his heart in his task. In the early rallies of his 2012 election race, for instance, he was lethargic and weary, and he didn’t approach top form in his events last year in an off-year election in Virginia.

    But his rallies this year have rocked with the pulsating energy and enthusiasm that is often lacking at appearances by the incumbent president, an older, more conventional politician. Obama has also come up with far more relatable and focused economic messages than Biden has managed – ironically performing the same role for the current president as another ex-president, Bill Clinton, performed for him in the 2012 campaign – a service that led Obama to dub the 42nd president “the explainer-in-chief.”

    Obama’s talent for oratory is undiminished and he looks like he’s having great fun showing it off. He’s like a basketball star who after years retired makes a comeback and suddenly starts draining three-pointers. And his popularity means he can drop into the most crucial states where candidates running away from Biden’s unpopularity wouldn’t welcome a visit from the president.

    Yet Obama’s prominence is a reminder of the kind of A-list political talent that the modern Democratic Party lacks. It’s an indictment that its best messenger first ran for president 14 years ago.

    But despite his rhetorical impact, the question is now how effective Obama will be in driving out the vote. The former president often struggled while he was in office to translate his stardust onto other Democratic candidates and lesser talents. And the question in this election is whether he’s simply preaching to the converted in addressing Democrats who already planned to vote, or whether he’s actually making the sale to independents and disaffected anti-Trump Republicans who Biden badly needs to show up to vote for his party.

    Former Obama political strategist David Axelrod, who is now a CNN commentator, said that this onetime boss is being used by his party on a specific electoral mission.

    “In the main, this is the time when you try and get your base out and for Democrats this is really important because the reason why incumbent parties generally lose in midterm elections is that their base is not as motivated as the out-of-office party which tends to come and vote its grievances,” Axelrod said. “There is an enthusiasm gap, at least in the polls, between Republicans and Democrats.”

    While Obama is rekindling memories of a past presidency, Trump is out on the trail seeking to build the foundation for a future one.

    The most recent ex-president has demonstrated the extraordinary hold he still has on the Republican Party by promoting and endorsing a roster of candidates in his election-denying image. There is a question, however, whether Trump’s role in orchestrating inexperienced or extreme nominees, like senatorial candidates like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Herschel Walker in Georgia and Blake Masters in Arizona, could cost his party the critical seats in swing states that will decide control of the Senate.

    Republican officials have worried all election cycle about the former president putting his own political ambitions ahead of his party. Many still blame his false claims of voter fraud for helping two Democrats, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, win Senate seats in Georgia runoffs, which enabled their party to control the 50-50 chamber with the help of the tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President Kamala Harris.

    While he’s heading out in to the country again, Trump has not been doing his normal routine of multiple rallies in the most closely contested states.The GOP has succeeded in the last few weeks in returning the focus of the election to Biden, high inflation and the economic anxieties that are spooking voters.

    But there are increasing signs that Trump may not wait much longer to announce a 2024 bid, not least because he has already signaled he would use a presidential campaign to brand legal investigations he faces related to his hoarding of classified documents in his home in Mar-a-Lago and his conduct leading up to the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, as proof of political persecution.

    “They are weaponizing the Justice Department,” Trump said at his rally Thursday, accusing Democrats of a transgression of which he himself was guilty when he was in the White House and treated attorneys general as his personal lawyers.

    Former Trump White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway praised the former president for not taking the focus off the GOP’s midterm message, a decision that may repay him with a radical Republican House majority that he could use to weaken Biden in the run-up to the 2024 election.

    “He’d like to have done it already. … I think you can expect him to announce it soon,” Conway said of Trump’s anticipated campaign launch. “He’s being urged by some people to still have a November surprise.”

    “Donald Trump is just getting started. I think you should keep your cellphone on,” Conway told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast on Thursday.

    The former president used his rally in Iowa to tease a new campaign.

    “I will very, very, very probably do it again,” he said, drawing cheers from the crowd.

    If he follows through, this midterm is unlikely to be the last election when Trump and Obama cross swords on the campaign trail.

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  • Biden to plug tech bill in California, campaign in Illinois

    Biden to plug tech bill in California, campaign in Illinois

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    SAN DIEGO — President Joe Biden on Friday is set to tour a southern California communications company that is expected to benefit from his legislative push to bolster American semiconductor manufacturing — and he’s taking a vulnerable Democratic congressman with him.

    Biden will be joined by Rep. Mike Levin for the visit to Carlsbad-headquartered Viasat as he looks to highlight the CHIPS and Science Act, a $280 billion legislative package, ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections. The bill is one of the Biden administration’s most significant legislative achievements.

    Levin, a two-term congressman representing a San Diego-area district that was once a GOP stronghold, is locked in a tight race with former San Juan Capistrano Mayor Brian Maryott. Biden headlined a rally Thursday night in Oceanside, California, for Levin.

    Coronavirus pandemic-era supply disruptions and a dearth of domestic chip manufacturing hampered Viasat, which relies on such components for services it provides to industrial customers and the U.S. military. Biden intends to use the event to highlight how the CHIPS act will help companies like Viasat reduce their reliance on overseas chip manufacturers, according to the White House.

    Later Friday, Biden will head to Chicago to participate in a political reception. Biden is heading to the Democratic stronghold amid signs that some House members representing suburban Chicago districts may be facing more competitive than expected reelection battles.

    The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super political action committee, or super PAC, aligned with the GOP House leadership, this week announced a $1.8 million ad buy targeting Democratic Rep. Sean Casten, who represents a district that Biden won by about 11 percentage points in 2020. Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader, is due to campaign with GOP challenger Keith Pekau in the district Friday.

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  • Biden’s plea for democracy is a strong election-closing argument for a different election | CNN Politics

    Biden’s plea for democracy is a strong election-closing argument for a different election | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Joe Biden’s eloquent defense of democracy was a message Americans needed to hear. But it was not the one voters most want now from their president – that relief is at hand from the soaring cost of living.

    Biden’s speech Wednesday, delivered blocks from the US Capitol that was ransacked by ex-President Donald Trump’s mob on January 6, 2021, was a strong election-closing argument. But for an election other than the one taking place next week.

    That’s not to say that the warning was misplaced. The fact that Biden felt the need to say, “We can’t take democracy for granted any longer,” underscores the grave threat posed to America’s core values by political violence and election denialism. If a president does not safeguard this historic legacy, who will? The chaos and violence Trump incited after the 2020 election show what unfolds when a president chooses to try to destroy democracy for personal gain.

    Biden’s speech was deeply personal, reflecting his own view of the mission handed him by history. It was also highly political given that the midterm elections, which feature scores of pro-Trump candidates spouting his stolen election nonsense, are only five days away. And it came days after the latest shocking example of political violence – the attack on the 82-year-old husband of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And since Biden launched his 2020 campaign as a quest to save America’s soul from what he sees as the aspiring autocracy of Trump, it was a statement of a mission unaccomplished – as well as a potential opening volley of a possible 2024 showdown for the White House between the 45th and 46th presidents.

    “You have the power, it’s your choice, it’s your decision, the fate of the nation, the fate of the soul of America lies, as it always does, with the people,” Biden told voters.

    Elections should be about more than one thing. Voters can walk and chew gum at the same time. But the harsh truth is this: In Washington, where just a glimpse of the towering Capitol dome reminds politicians and their media chroniclers of the January 6 horror, the threat to democracy feels visceral.

    But in the heartlands of Pennsylvania, the suburbs of Arizona and cities everywhere, the gut check issue is less the somewhat abstract and age-old concept of self-government. It’s the more basic one of feeding a family. This is an election more about the cost of a cart full of groceries or the price of a gallon of gasoline than America’s founding truths.

    As Scottsdale, Arizona, retiree Patricia Strong told CNN’s Tami Luhby: “The price of everything was better during Trump,” adding, “We were looking forward to retirement because everything was good.”

    Declining stock markets have hurt retirement accounts and Americans with credit card debt took another blow Wednesday when the Federal Reserve raised its short-term borrowing rate by another 0.75%. There are fears the Fed’s strategy could pitch the economy into recession and ruin one of the best aspects of the Biden economy – the low unemployment rate.

    Biden’s argument is implicitly that while inflation will fall, and economic damage can be repaired, the current election – and its legions of anti-democratic Republican candidates – could cause political wreckage that is beyond mending.

    But it’s a tough case to make in such a doom-laden political environment for Democrats. The millions of Republicans who believe Trump’s falsehoods about the last election don’t listen to Biden and his call for national unity anyway. His low approval ratings don’t help. And in a new CNN/SSRS survey published on Wednesday, for instance, 51% of Americans said inflation and the economy was most driving their vote in the midterms. Abortion – the issue Democrats hoped would save them next Tuesday after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this summer – was the only other concern in double figures, polling at 15% of likely voters. And voting rights and election integrity – the focus of the president’s speech on Wednesday night – polled at only 9%.

    But Biden effectively asked voters to make a concern well down the list of their priorities the decisive factor when they cast their ballots.

    “This year, I hope you’ll make the future of our democracy an important part of your decision to vote, and how you vote,” he said. “Will that person accept the outcome of the election, win or lose?” he added, at the end of a campaign in which several GOP nominees have not guaranteed they would accept voters’ will.

    In places where Biden is unpopular, Democrats in tight races have made an explicit point about distancing themselves from the national party.

    “You know, the national Democratic Party has never been really good at strategic political decisions. So you know, it is not a surprise here, and thank God that I have enough experience that I’ve built this campaign not needing them and we really don’t want them at this point. We’re gonna do this thing with all the grassroots people we have here,” Rep. Tim Ryan, who is in a tight race for US Senate in Ohio against J.D. Vance, told “CNN This Morning” on Thursday.

    It’s not that Biden hasn’t been also talking about high prices. His pitch is that the billions of dollars of spending in his domestic agenda will lower the cost of health care, lift up working families and create millions of jobs. That may be the case, but things that could happen in the future can’t ease the pain being felt now.

    While Biden may be talking at cross purposes with the electorate on these issues, they are linked, in a fateful way, that he did not mention in his speech at Union Station on Wednesday evening. The president’s failure – whether it is all his fault or not – to quell inflation and the worries of a nation already demoralized by a once-in-a-century pandemic created the electoral conditions that look likely to restore Trumpism to power, in the form of a volatile, extreme GOP majority in the House of Representatives at least, with the Senate still on a knife’s edge.

    Throughout history, inflation has often been a pernicious political force that breeds desperation in an electorate and seeds extremism as a potential response. That’s why politicians fear it so acutely and why it is so curious that the Biden White House initially didn’t take the surge of prices that seriously, repeatedly insisting that this was a “transitory” problem caused by Covid-19.

    The president also renewed his call for national unity that he delivered in his inaugural address in front of a still violence-scarred Capitol in 2021. He explained that American democracy was primarily under attack because “the defeated former president of the United States refuses to accept the results of the 2020 election.”

    “He has abused his power and put the loyalty to himself before loyalty to the Constitution. And he’s made the Big Lie an article of faith in the MAGA Republican Party – a minority of that party,” Biden said, being careful not to insult every GOP voter as he did when referring to “semi-fascism” earlier this year.

    The president also argued that Trump’s threat was far broader now than it was in the 2020 election. “As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in America: for governor, Congress, for attorney general, for secretary of state who won’t commit – who will not commit to accepting the results of the elections they’re running in,” the president warned.

    Biden also hinted at a lack of understanding of Trump’s MAGA supporters, who have embraced his anti-democratic, populist, nationalist appeal to mainly White voters, which grew out of a backlash to the first Black presidency of Barack Obama. The 44th president has been making his own searing defenses of democracy and repudiation of Trump on the midterm election campaign trail in recent days.

    “You can’t love your country only when you win,” Biden said. The president is right – the essence of democracy depends on the loser in an election accepting the verdict of the people. This is why Trump’s behavior was so noxious in 2020 since his refusal to admit defeat did not just ruin one election. It tore at the fundamental principle of the political system that made America great two-and-a-half centuries before Trump’s political career and caused damage that will long outlast the shockwaves of one administration.

    But the essence of the Trump message exists in direct contradiction to Biden’s logic. Such voters can only love their country when their party wins because they see the Democrats that they lose to as the antipathy of their vision of America itself. These dueling understandings of what America actually means are at the core of the current, great political struggle that will not just play out next Tuesday, but in the 2024 election and beyond.

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  • As Israel’s far right parties celebrate, Palestinians shrug

    As Israel’s far right parties celebrate, Palestinians shrug

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    RAMALLAH, West Bank — The apparent comeback of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the dramatic rise of his far-right and ultra-Orthodox allies in Israel’s general election this week have prompted little more than shrugs from many Palestinians.

    “It’s all the same to me,” Said Issawiy, a vendor hawking nectarines in the main al-Manara Square of Ramallah, said of Netanyahu replacing centrist Yair Lapid and poised to head the most right-wing government in Israel’s history.

    Over the past month, Issawiy had struggled to get to work in Ramallah from his home in the city of Nablus after the Israeli army blocked several roads in response to a wave of violence in the northern West Bank. “I’m just trying to eat and work and bring something back to my kids,” he said.

    Some view the likely victory for Netanyahu and his openly anti-Palestinian allies, including ultranationalist lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir who wants to end Palestinian autonomy in parts of the occupied West Bank, as a new blow to the Palestinian national project.

    The sharp rightward shift of Israel’s political establishment pushes long-dormant peace negotiations even further out of reach and deepens the challenges facing 87-year-old President Mahmoud Abbas, whose autocratic Palestinian Authority already seemed to many Palestinians as little more than an arm of the Israeli security forces.

    “If you want to use the metaphor of a ‘nail in the coffin of the Palestinian Authority,’ that was done earlier,” said Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian peace negotiator and Cabinet minister. “This election is another step in that same direction.”

    During his 12 years in power, before being voted out in 2021, Netanyahu showed scant interest in engaging with the Palestinians. Under his leadership, Israel vastly expanded its population of West Bank settlers — now some 500,000 — and retroactively legalized settler outposts built on private Palestinian land. The measures have entrenched Israel’s occupation, now in its 56th year since Israel captured the territory during the 1967 Mideast war.

    Palestinians see successive Israeli governments as seeking to solidify a bleak status quo in the West Bank: Palestinian enclaves divided by growing Israeli settlements and surrounded by Israeli forces.

    “We had no illusion that this next government would be a partner for peace,” said Ahmad Majdalani, a minister in the Palestinian Authority. “It’s the opposite, we see a campaign of incitement that began more than 15 years ago as Israel drifted toward extremism.”

    The Gaza Strip’s militant Hamas rulers said the election outcome would “not change the nature of the conflict.”

    But for the first time, surging support for Israel’s far right has made the Jewish supremacist party of Ben-Gvir the third-largest in the Israeli parliament.

    Ben-Gvir and his allies hope to grant immunity to Israeli soldiers who shoot at Palestinians, deport rival lawmakers and impose the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of attacks on Jews. Ben-Gvir is the disciple of a racist rabbi, Meir Kahane, who was banned from parliament and whose Kach party was branded a terrorist group by the United States before he was assassinated in New York in 1990.

    On the campaign trail, Ben-Gvir grabbed headlines for his anti-Palestinian speeches and stunts — recently brandishing a shotgun and encouraging police to open fire on Palestinian stone-throwers in a tense Jerusalem neighborhood.

    Some Palestinians have found reason for optimism. After Tuesday’s elections, they say, Israel will no longer present to the world the telegenic face of Lapid. A win for extremism in Israel, some say, could bolster the moral case for efforts to isolate Israel, vindicating activism outside the moribund peace process.

    “It will lead to some international pressure,” said Mahmoud Nawajaa, an activist with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, which calls for an economic boycott of Israel as happened to apartheid-era South Africa in the 1980s.

    “Netanyahu is more honest and clear about his intentions to expand settlements. The others didn’t say it, even if it was happening,” Nawajaa added.

    Lapid and his predecessor, Naftali Bennett, a former settler leader who rebranded himself as a national unifier, had presided over a wobbly coalition of right-wing, centrist and dovish left-wing parties, including the first Arab party to ever join a government.

    Foreign leaders who shunned the divisive Netanyahu embraced what appeared to be a less ideological government. Bennett became the first Israeli leader to visit the United Arab Emirates after the countries normalized ties — an honor repeatedly denied to Netanyahu. President Joe Biden, who had a rocky relationship with Netanyahu, basked in Lapid’s warm welcome during his visit to Israel last summer.

    But even as Lapid voiced support for the two-state solution during his address to the U.N. General Assembly in September, Palestinians saw no sign he could turn words into action. They watched Israel approve thousands of new settler homes on lands they want for a future state.

    Israeli military raids in the West Bank have also surged after a series of Palestinian attacks in the spring killed 19 people in Israel. More than 130 Palestinians have been killed, making 2022 the deadliest since the U.N. started tracking fatalities in 2005. The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

    “In terms of violence, the Lapid government has outdone itself,” said Nour Odeh, a Palestinian political analyst and former PA spokeswoman. “As far as new settlements and de facto annexation, Lapid is Netanyahu.”

    Many young Palestinians have given up on the two-state solution and grown disillusioned with the aging Palestinian leadership, which they see as a vehicle for corruption and collaboration with Israel. Hamas and Fatah, the Palestinian party that controls the West Bank, have remained bitterly divided for 15 years.

    A mere 37% of Palestinians support the two-state solution, according to the most recent report from Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki. In Israel the figures are roughly the same — 32% of Jewish Israelis support the idea, according to the Israel Democracy Institute.

    “There is no horizon for a political track with the Israelis,” Odeh said. “We need to look inward … to re-legitimize our institutions through elections, and stand together on a united political platform.”

    But on the crowded, chaotic streets of Ramallah on Wednesday, there was only misery and anger over the daily humiliations of the occupation.

    “I hate this place,” said Lynn Anwar Hafi, a 19-year-old majoring in literature at a local university. “It’s like the occupation lives inside me. I can’t think what I want to. I can’t go where I want to. I won’t be free until I leave.”

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  • Warnings about a fragile democracy hit home for some Arizona voters as election deniers compete for key offices | CNN Politics

    Warnings about a fragile democracy hit home for some Arizona voters as election deniers compete for key offices | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The voters who poured into a Phoenix high school to hear from former President Barack Obama were looking to send a message of defiance Wednesday night.

    They said they are determined to defeat former President Donald Trump’s hand-picked slate of election deniers – including gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, Senate nominee Blake Masters and Secretary of State nominee Mark Finchem – and will not allow their state’s voters to be intimidated by activists who turned up to monitor ballot drop boxes late last month – some of them armed, masked and wearing camouflage.

    As President Joe Biden warned Americans from Washington, DC, on Wednesday night that democracy is at stake, it’s here in Arizona that democratic institutions look most fragile ahead of next week’s midterm elections and the 2024 presidential election, in which Arizona is likely to be a pivotal battleground.

    Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who successfully defeated Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, now finds herself locked in a tight race against Lake, who has said she will accept the results of a “fair, honest and transparent election,” after previously refusing in an interview with CNN to commit to accepting the results if she lost. And Finchem, who could become the state’s chief elections administrator, is still trying to overturn the results of the last election.

    “If you do need one more reason to vote, consider the fact that our democracy is on the ballot. And nowhere is that clearer than here in Arizona,” Obama told the crowd Wednesday, later adding that “democracy as we know it may not survive in Arizona” if election deniers fill all the top state offices.

    Maricopa County was the site of repeated “audits” after the 2020 election – including the sham partisan review conducted by the now-defunct firm known as Cyber Ninjas. Both political parties are now girding for another potential battle over the election results in a state Biden won by less than 10,500 votes. And the GOP candidates at the top of the ticket are setting that tone.

    Joann Rodriguez, a registered Democrat from Maricopa County, said it was scary that “radical Republicans” in her state were able to elevate candidates like Lake and Masters, who won their primaries in part by echoing Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 election.

    “What are they running on, aside from Trump’s talking points that the election was stolen?” Rodriguez said. She noted that “a lot of Trumpers” are still driving their trucks with Trump flags around her Glendale, Arizona, neighborhood. “And they’re walking around with guns on their hips, showing up at the ballot boxes or showing up at the election sites – for what reason? I mean, do they think that their intimidation tactics are going to work?”

    Hobbs touted her record as secretary of state Wednesday night. “I stood for democracy when I refused to give into the insurrectionists who surrounded my home after I certified the 2020 election and I’m still doing it today in this race for governor,” she said.

    A New York Times/Siena College poll released this week showed her in a dead heat race with Lake. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race a Toss-up.

    The state was on edge as Obama arrived in Arizona less than a week before the midterm election to campaign for fellow Democrats, including Sen. Mark Kelly, who is in a close race with Masters. The fact that those top statewide contests may be decided on a razor’s edge is what brought Obama to the Grand Canyon State as he seeks to fire up the Democratic base and make sure that young voters and Latino voters – who will be critical to victory in Arizona – turn out in a midterm election year.

    Both Biden and Obama have been arguing that the fate of democracy is at stake, but Biden, who has not been invited to campaign in top swing states, had to make his argument from the opposite side of the country.

    The political climate and concerns about the sanctity of the election results are what brought Keith Greenberg, a registered Republican from Maricopa County, to Obama’s rally. He said in an interview that he wasn’t voting for Democrats in this election, he is voting against the Trump ticket.

    “The Republican Party today is not the Republican Party I’m a part of,” said Greenberg, who described the 2020 election as fair and honest. “That’s more like the American Nazi Party and I can’t put up with that – the lie.”

    If the Trump ticket wins, Greenberg said, “It means that the state of Arizona has lost its mind. And this is no longer a safe place to live. If Mark Finchem wins and says, ‘Well, I don’t care what the people voted. I’m going to do this’ – then what’s the point? We’ve lost our democracy.”

    Arizona’s status as a tinderbox of election controversies is underscored by the fact that two lawsuits have already been filed in federal court on behalf of voters who felt intimidated by the aggressive patrols at ballot drop boxes late last month.

    Voters filed complaints to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office after some activists were taking pictures of voters and their license plates – apparently inspired by debunked conspiracy theories about so-called “mules” who stuffed ballot boxes in 2020. A federal judge issued a ruling in one of the cases on Tuesday barring members of a group known as Clean Elections USA – whose leader has falsely asserted the 2020 election was rigged – from openly carrying guns or wearing body armor within 250 feet of drop boxes.

    Because of the ruling, the group’s members are also now barred from speaking to or yelling at voters who drop off their ballots, and they may not photograph or film voters at the drop boxes. The Justice Department had weighed in on the case that was brought by the League of Women Voters. The DOJ did not formally take sides, but in a legal brief, federal prosecutors said the right-wing group’s “vigilante ballot security efforts” were likely illegal and “raise serious concerns of voter intimidation.”

    The depth of the belief among Republicans about Trump’s election lies was underscored by a CNN poll conducted by SSRS that was released on Wednesday: 66% of Republicans said they don’t believe Biden legitimately won the election.

    That dynamic is even more pronounced in a state like Arizona where Trump acolytes control the Republican Party and have censured figures like outgoing Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake for what they said was insufficient loyalty to the former president.

    Michelle Gonzales, a registered Democrat from Maricopa County, said she believes that people came to see Obama Wednesday night “so they could feel hopeful” about the democratic process amid all the noise.

    “With everything, all the rhetoric going on, I think it’s important to really hear from someone – that we trust and we believe in – that we can be hopeful about this election,” she said. “You can see all these people out here. Thousands of people waiting. I just want to believe that people want to believe in something better – that they have morals and values that we all should have as human beings and not elect these liars and con people.”

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  • GOP Gov. Chris Sununu on backing election denier: ‘I don’t think anybody should be a one-issue voter’ | CNN Politics

    GOP Gov. Chris Sununu on backing election denier: ‘I don’t think anybody should be a one-issue voter’ | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu believes that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election but is supporting Don Bolduc – a GOP Senate nominee who has consistently pushed election falsehoods – because he is considering a “variety of issues” in making his choice on Election Day.

    “It is not just a one-issue – you can’t say, ‘Well, based on that one issue, we vehemently disagree, so, therefore, we shouldn’t be casting our vote.’ I don’t think anybody should be a one-issue voter regardless of the issue,” Sununu told “CNN This Morning” hosts on Tuesday.

    Bolduc, a retired Army brigadier general who is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, has shifted his answers related to false 2020 election claims, though he has still pushed some falsehoods after securing the Republican nomination to represent the Granite State in the US Senate.

    “We might disagree on what happened in 2020 or folks are focusing on the conspiracy theories around the 2020 election. At the end of the day, the vast majority of voters, especially those independent voters that still haven’t made up their mind, they’re voting on inflation, they’re voting on the cost of goods, they’re voting on not being able to make their mortgage or find housing,” said Sununu, who is seeking reelection.

    Recent CNN polls conducted by SSRS in battleground states have found that the economy is the foremost issue for voters this midterm season, well ahead of voting rights and election integrity.

    Asked by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins if he thinks congressional Republicans and Bolduc have a plan to combat the inflation that they have often cited on the campaign trail, Sununu said, “Well, one thing I’m really confident of is if you send the same people back to Washington, you ain’t going to get a different result. Not even close.”

    Sununu, who endorsed one of Bolduc’s opponents in the primary race, touted Bolduc as a war hero who has worked on mental health issues and said Bolduc wants “to mix things up.”

    “You can’t say that just by electing the same old Democrats you’re going to get a different result. We want different results across this country and the only way to do that is to bring a different system,” he said.

    Sununu also condemned a joke made on Monday by Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake in regard to the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband.

    “There is just no place for it. This is serious,” he said before adding, “lines are moving on both sides. This isn’t just one party or the other.”

    Sununu then referred to the alleged plot to murder conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh as well as the shootings of GOP Rep. Steve Scalise and Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords as evidence of escalating violence in American politics.

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  • Black men say they feel ignored by politicians. A historic Senate face-off between two Black men isn’t helping | CNN Politics

    Black men say they feel ignored by politicians. A historic Senate face-off between two Black men isn’t helping | CNN Politics

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    Atlanta
    CNN
     — 

    Aaron Bethea says he has voted election after election for US presidents, governors and senators – and yet those lawmakers have done little to nothing to improve life for him, his family or his community.

    Bethea said he believes the issues he cares about, financial freedom and equal investment in predominately Black schools, have largely been ignored.

    “Where we are from, nobody really cares about what Black men think,” said Bethea, an Atlanta father of six who owns a wholesale company that sells televisions. “They don’t do anything for us.”

    Bethea, 40, said he still plans to vote Democratic in Georgia’s hotly contested gubernatorial and US senate races. But he’s not voting with enthusiasm. He said he is hoping that one day someone will prioritize the needs of Black men.

    Bethea is not alone. Political analysts, researchers and Black male leaders say politicians are failing to reach some Black men with messaging that resonates with them and visibility in their communities. Those shortcomings could particularly hurt Democrats in the upcoming midterms given Black men are the second most loyal voting bloc for the party next to Black women, experts say.

    And while Black men have increasingly supported Republicans in recent years, some say the GOP is still missing the mark. Many Black men say they are concerned that Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker does not represent them in a positive light given his many public gaffes, history of domestic violence and being an absentee father.

    Political analysts worry that the lack of effective messaging could result in Black men sitting home on Nov. 8 and Democrats like Stacey Abrams – who has made a late attempt to reach Black men with a series of events – losing their races.

    “If some of them feel unmotivated because they don’t feel spoken to then you’ve really got a problem,” said Jason Nichols, a professor of African American studies at the University of Maryland College Park. “A lot of these campaigns don’t hire Black male advisers. They don’t hire Black men to actually tell them how to reach Black men.”

    So far, 39% of Black voters have been men, and 61% have been women, according to Catalist, a company that provides data and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit issue-advocacy organizations and gives insights into who is voting before November. Those breakdowns were the same at this point in the early voting period in 2020.

    Some polls have suggested that Black men were gradually leaving the Democratic party to vote for Republicans. In 2020, 12% of Black men voted for former President Donald Trump.

    Ted Johnson, a senior director at the Brennan Center for Justice, said some Black men find Republicans more attractive because they promote individualism and the idea that hard work, not government dependence, leads to financial success. In 2016, Johnson wrote in the Atlantic that a Black person who supported Trump was likely a “working-class or lower-middle-class Black man, over the age of 35, and interested in alternative approaches to addressing what ails Black America.”

    Still, Johnson said Black men are not naive and will vote against a Republican candidate who they feel is unfit. And for some Black men, that is the case with Walker who is running against incumbent US Sen. Raphael Warnock.

    The match-up between Walker and Warnock is one of the closest and most critical Senate races in the country, as Republicans seek to win back control of the body, which is currently split 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote.

    Walker has been criticized by his opponents for being violent toward his ex-wife and the claim that he paid for the mother of one of his children to get an abortion. Walker told Axios last year that he was “accountable” for his past violent behavior, and that people shouldn’t be “ashamed” for confronting mental health issues.

    Walker speaks at a campaign event in Carrollton, Georgia, on October 11.

    In an interview with NBC News, Walker acknowledged that he sent a $700 check to a woman who alleges the money was provided to reimburse her for an abortion, but denied the check was for that purpose. Walker has been vocal about his anti-abortion views but has gone back and forth about whether he supports exceptions.

    Walker is currently polling at 11% with Black men compared to 74% for Warnock.

    “(Walker) is just not an attractive, viable candidate for most Black folks,” Johnson said. “I think there are Black men who won’t vote for Stacey Abrams but will vote for Raphael Warnock.”

    Recent polls show Republican Gov. Brian Kemp with support from 16% of Black men compared to 77% for Abrams. Johnson said he believes Kemp has more support from Black men because some men still refuse to vote a woman into office.

    “There is a strain of conservatism in Black men that comes with a strain of sexism,” Johnson said, noting that in 2016 some Black men sat home because they didn’t like Trump but also didn’t want to see Hillary Clinton as the first female president.

    In recent years, Republicans have faced criticism for being sexist, misogynistic and rejecting women’s rights.

    Walker’s candidacy was the topic of discussion for several Black men who gathered at Anytime Cutz barbershop in Atlanta on a recent Monday afternoon. The chat was part of a series hosted by the Urban League of Greater Atlanta’s Black Male Voter Project and Black Men Decide offering Black men a chance to discuss voting and the issues that matter to them.

    Some of the Black men present said they found it offensive that the GOP would pit Walker – a former NFL running back with no political experience and a troubled past – against Warnock, a beloved figure in Atlanta’s Black community who pastored the church once led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

    Aaron Bethea, second from right, speaks during a discussion about voting with other Black men at Anytime Cutz barbershop.

    Barber Antwaun Hawkins poses for a portrait in his barber's office at Anytime Cutz.

    “The guy is looking like a fool,” said Antwaun Hawkins, a 46-year-old barber. “That’s who we want to put in place to speak for us? Because he’s a Black man? No. To me, he looks like an idiot.”

    Bethea said after the barbershop event that Walker’s candidacy feels like a “sick joke.”

    “I think he’s embarrassing himself,” Bethea said. “I don’t play the field in a position that I don’t know how to play. Someone talked him out of staying in his lane.”

    Bethea said he plans to vote for Warnock because he’s a more qualified candidate and pillar in the community.

    Moyo Akinade, a 29-year-old soccer coach from Atlanta, said he too will vote for Warnock because he’s a positive role model. Walker, meanwhile, perpetuates negative stereotypes about Black men, Akinade said.

    Those stereotypes are “that we are aggressive, we aren’t intelligent and we are abusive,” Akinade said. “It portrays Black men as being violent. And that’s still inaccurate.”

    But one barber said he doesn’t think voters should judge Walker by his past.

    “Everybody has a past, everybody has done something wrong, everybody has lied before, everybody has done something that they shouldn’t have done,” said Charles Scott who manages Anytime Cutz. “But at one point, people can change. Just like they are bashing Herschel Walker. How do you know he’s not a changed man?”

    Anytime Cutz manager and barber Charles Scott think that voters shouldn't judge Walker by his past.

    Black men interviewed by CNN said they look for more than just character and experience in politicians, but also the issues they address.

    A report released by the NAACP in September found that Black men believed racism/discrimination, inflation/cost of living and criminal justice reform/police brutality were the most important issues facing the Black community. The survey also concluded that 41% of Black men disapproved of the job President Joe Biden is doing to address the needs of the Black community.

    The group at Anytime Cutz named financial security, student loan forgiveness, police reform, healthcare reform and improving jail conditions as their top concerns.

    Most said they vote in elections but rarely see lawmakers making decisions that help them personally or their communities.

    “Do something about policing,” Hawkins said. “Do something for the people that can’t really help themselves. I don’t think people choose to be homeless and hungry.”

    Hawkins and Bethea said they have given up waiting for policies that will close the wealth gap and give Black Americans a fair shot at success. They are focused on providing for their families.

    “We can’t sit around and wait for legislation to change because the kids are at home hungry,” Hawkins said.

    Hawkins gestures while speaking about voting at Anytime Cutz.

    Some of those same sentiments are felt by Black men nearly 900 miles away in New York.

    Mysonne Linen, a popular activist and rapper from the Bronx, said he can’t remember the last time a political candidate spoke directly to Black men during their campaign and delivered on those promises after winning. Linen said Black men are tired of “pandering.” Linen wants politicians who genuinely care about Black men living in marginalized communities and will follow through on addressing police reform, livable wage jobs and investment in mental health resources.

    “They have to do a better job with having tangible results,” Linen said. “Tell us how you to plan to invest in the communities to change those realities. Get into office and actually fight to do those things.”

    In the last few months, Abrams has hosted a series of events that targeted Black men in Georgia and released a “Black Men’s Agenda” that details her plans to invest in Black-owned small businesses, expand Medicaid, increase funding to schools and opportunities for job training and hold police accountable.

    Stacey Abrams speaks during a campaign event and conversation with Charlamagne tha God, 21 Savage and Francys Johnson at The HBUC in Atlanta on September 9.

    But Linen and Nichols both agreed that Abrams’ efforts may have come too late. Nichols said he fears that some Black men are already planning to sit home on Election Day or vote for Kemp.

    “I think she didn’t necessarily get the right advice at the right time and now it feels like she’s pandering,” Nichols said. “I think she really is concerned but I think it comes across to some like ‘we’ve been ignored all this time.’”

    Nichols said he urges 2024 election candidates to do more outreach to Black men and Black families. The organization Black Men Vote has already launched a national campaign to register one million Black male voters by November 2024.

    NAACP President Derrick Johnson said those seeking public office must prioritize the needs of Black men if they want to win.

    “It is incumbent upon both political parties and all candidates to understand that the votes of African American men are not guaranteed,” Johnson said. “It’s an important voting bloc and candidates must speak to them so they can see how their vote really can support democracy and their quality of life.”

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  • Senate Democrat wants national security investigation of Saudi Arabia’s role in Elon Musk-Twitter deal | CNN Business

    Senate Democrat wants national security investigation of Saudi Arabia’s role in Elon Musk-Twitter deal | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN Business
     — 

    Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy is calling on the federal government to investigate national security concerns raised by Saudi Arabia’s role in Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter.

    Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed bin Talal helped Musk finance the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter (TWTR) by rolling over his

    existing $1.9 billion stake     in the social media company. The move makes Saudi entities the second-largest shareholder in Twitter – behind only Musk himself.

    “We should be concerned that the Saudis, who have a clear interest in repressing political speech and impacting US politics, are now the second-largest owner of a major social media platform,” Murphy said in a tweet on Monday.

    The Connecticut Democrat urged the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS, to conduct an investigation into the “national security implications” of the Saudi involvement. CIFUS, an interagency committee chaired by the US Treasury Department, reviews takeovers of US businesses by foreign buyers and has the ability to block transactions that raise concerns.

    Even though Musk already closed his takeover of Twitter late last week, it may still be subject to national security review.

    According to the 2021 annual CFIUS report to Congress, the panel has the authority to “review pending or completed transactions” if a member of the committee believes there are national security concerns.

    “There is a clear national security issue at stake and CFIUS should do a review,” Murphy said, noting that another major social media platform, TikTok, is owned by a Chinese company. “This is a dangerous trend, and we don’t have to accept it.”

    Both the White House and the Treasury Department declined to comment in response to the call from Murphy.

    Earlier this month, Twitter shares dropped after Bloomberg News reported Biden officials are in early discussions about possibly subjecting some of Musk’s ventures to national security reviews, including the Twitter deal.

    However, US officials pushed back on that report. “We do now know of any such conversations,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement on October 21.

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  • Paul Pelosi suspect charged with attempting to kidnap House speaker and attempted murder | CNN Politics

    Paul Pelosi suspect charged with attempting to kidnap House speaker and attempted murder | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The man alleged to have attacked Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has been charged with a litany of crimes, including assault, attempted murder and attempted kidnapping, following last week’s break-in at the couple’s San Francisco home, the US attorney’s office and San Francisco district attorney announced on Monday.

    David DePape, 42, was charged with one count of “attempted kidnapping of a US official,” according to the US attorney’s office for the Northern District of California. That charge relates to Nancy Pelosi, who DePape told police he planned to “hold hostage,” according to an FBI affidavit also unsealed on Monday.

    The attempted kidnapping charge carries a maximum of 20 years in prison.

    DePape also was charged with one count of assault of an immediate family member of a US official with the intent to retaliate against the official. That charge relates to a crime allegedly committed against Paul Pelosi and carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.

    The federal charges against DePape are in addition to state charges, which the San Francisco district attorney said later Monday include “attempted murder, residential burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, false imprisonment of an elder, as well as threats to a public official and their family.”

    Based on current state charges, DePape is facing 13 years to life in prison, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said. She said DePape is expected in court for his arraignment Tuesday.

    Jenkins said at her news conference that the Pelosi attack was “politically motivated”.

    “Yes, it appears as though this was, based on his statements and comments that were made in that house during his encounter with Mr. Pelosi, that this was politically motivated,” Jenkins said.

    CNN reported earlier Monday that Paul Pelosi was interviewed this weekend at the hospital by investigators and was able to provide details of the attack, according to two law enforcement sources and a source familiar with the matter.

    Among those conducting the interview were FBI and local law enforcement investigators.

    The court filing related to the federal charges against DePape reveal the most detailed account yet of Paul Pelosi’s 911 call while the incident was unfolding.

    “Pelosi stated words to the effect of there is a male in the home and that the male is going to wait for Pelosi’s wife. Pelosi further conveyed that he does not know who the male is. The male said his name is David,” an FBI agent said in a sworn affidavit that was unsealed Monday.

    Paul Pelosi called 911 at 2:23 a.m. Pacific Time on Friday, and police arrived at his house eight minutes later, according to the affidavit unsealed Monday.

    Hear details from Paul Pelosi’s coded 911 call that led to his rescue

    “When the door was opened, Pelosi and DePape were both holding a hammer with one hand and DePape had his other hand holding onto Pelosi’s forearm,” the affidavit said. “Pelosi greeted the officers. The officers asked them what was going on. DePape responded that everything was good. Officers then asked Pelosi and DePape to drop the hammer.”

    At that moment, DePape allegedly pulled the hammer away and swung it, striking Paul Pelosi in the head. Pelosi “appeared to be unconscious on the ground” after the blow, the affidavit said.

    Paul Pelosi was later taken to the hospital and underwent a “successful surgery to repair a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands,” according to a previous press release from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. They said they expect Paul Pelosi to make a full recovery.

    A source familiar with the matter provided CNN with more information about the attack on Paul Pelosi and the extent of his injuries in the wake of the federal criminal complaint.

    The source said that DePape struck Pelosi twice in the head. Pelosi needed surgery for a skull fracture and also had serious injuries to his hands and right arm, which led to his shirt being cut off at the hospital to treat his arm, the source said.

    Paul Pelosi was sleeping in boxer shorts and a pajama top in the third-floor bedroom of his San Francisco house, the source said, when authorities allege that DePape broke in.

    CNN has previously reported that Pelosi managed to keep the line open with 911, the dispatcher could hear a conversation in the background, and that Pelosi was talking in code to help the authorities understand what was happening.

    “DePape was prepared to detain and injure Speaker Pelosi when he entered the Pelosi residence in the early morning of October 28, 2022,” the FBI agent said in the affidavit. “DePape had zip ties, tape, rope, and at least one hammer with him that morning.”

    DePape has not yet had any court appearances related to the attack.

    According to the criminal complaint filed in court, DePape confessed in an interview with local police that he intended to find the House speaker and hold her hostage.

    The FBI affidavit filed with the complaint said: “DePape stated that he was going to hold Nancy hostage and talk to her. If Nancy were to tell DePape the ‘truth,’ he would let her go, and if she ‘lied,’ he was going to break ‘her kneecaps.’”

    “DePape was certain that Nancy would not have told the ‘truth,’” the FBI affidavit said.

    US House of Representatives Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (R), with her husband Paul Pelosi (C), attend a Holy Mass for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul lead by Pope Francis in St. Peter's Basilica.

    ‘Where is Nancy?’: Assailant shouted before attacking Pelosi’s husband, source says

    The affidavit further stated DePape told police that Nancy Pelosi was the “leader of the pack” of lies promoted by the Democratic Party. DePape told police that other members of Congress would see that there are consequences to their actions when Pelosi, with broken kneecaps, would get “wheeled into” the House chamber, according to the affidavit.

    The interview was conducted by the San Francisco Police Department on Friday, the day of the attack, according to court filings. DePape was read his Miranda rights before he spoke with the police and confessed to his intentions to kidnap the top-ranking House Democrat, according to the filings.

    The federal charges unsealed Monday also further debunk a conspiracy theory about the Pelosi attack that was previously shared on Twitter by its billionaire owner Elon Musk.

    The conspiracy theory claimed, among other things, that Paul Pelosi knew his attacker. Musk tweeted a link to an article promoting the theory on Sunday, though he later deleted it.

    The FBI affidavit, unsealed Monday alongside the federal charges, says Pelosi told a 911 dispatcher during his call that “he does not know who the male is” that invaded his home.

    scott galloway smerconish iso 10 29 2022

    Galloway explains how the attack on Paul Pelosi complicates Musk’s vision for Twitter

    Furthermore, the affidavit said San Francisco Police Department officers interviewed Pelosi in the ambulance on the way to hospital, and he said, “He had never seen (David) DePape before.”

    Earlier on Monday, San Francisco Police Department chief William Scott told CNN’s Ana Cabrera that Paul Pelosi didn’t know the suspect. The police chief said the wave of conspiracies about the case were “baseless” and “damaging” to the ongoing investigation.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Paul Pelosi attack unleashes partisan finger-pointing and sows fresh fears of political violence | CNN Politics

    Paul Pelosi attack unleashes partisan finger-pointing and sows fresh fears of political violence | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    America’s toxic politics quickly turned the brutal attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband into the latest vicious partisan fight – even before the full facts are known.

    Police have yet to ascribe a motive to the attack on Paul Pelosi, 82, after a man broke into the couple’s home in San Francisco. They have said the alleged assailant was intentional about going to the house, and he shouted out, “Where is Nancy?” CNN has reported.

    Eight days before critical midterm elections, the intense political reaction had already outraced the investigation even before the US attorney’s office for the Northern District of California on Monday filed charges of attempted kidnapping of a US official and assault against the suspect in the case, David DePape, 42.

    Republicans, while condemning the violence, are denying they have any culpability in fostering a poisoned political environment. Some even used it to pivot to new attempts to sow doubt on the integrity of US elections.

    In another sign of an ugly time, Pelosi’s misfortune is already the subject of outrageous conspiracies – amplified for a time by the new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, in a possible sign of how the social network could develop under his leadership. Ex-President Donald Trump’s son, Don Jr., also pushed false claims about the attack that were in deeply poor taste.

    Reports confirmed by CNN that the suspect posted memes and conspiracy theories on Facebook about Covid-19 vaccines, the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, insurrection renewed the debate about how much responsibility political leaders have to temper inflammatory rhetoric in order to avoid triggering violence.

    The suspect in the case has not been arraigned, but Democrats, including President Joe Biden, are warning that the attack on the Pelosi is just the latest inevitable consequence of a GOP overtaken by its extreme fringe.

    “What makes us think that one party can talk about ‘stolen elections,’ ‘Covid being a hoax,’ ‘this is all a bunch of lies,’ and it not affect people who may not be so well balanced?” Biden said on Friday.

    “What makes us think that it’s not going to corrode the political climate?”

    This was a question even before the Paul Pelosi attack given that many Republican candidates have tried to energize their base by putting Trump’s false claims about a stolen election in 2020 at the center of their midterm election campaigns.

    Trump, who’s still the de facto leader of the GOP, has yet to fully condemn the attack on Paul Pelosi. In an interview on Spanish-language Americano Media on Monday, the ex-President called the attack “a terrible thing” and then quickly connected it to Republican criticisms of rising crime in US cities.

    But dozens of Republicans – from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former Vice President Mike Pence and GOP House conference chair Elise Stefanik – have offered stronger condemnations.

    At the same time, top Republicans on Sunday dodged on whether their side especially had fostered a dangerous political climate after embracing election falsehoods and blamed both sides equally for political turmoil.

    The gulf between the two parties in the aftermath of the attack underscored the nation’s internal political estrangement ahead of next week’s election. It suggested Republicans are unwilling to get crosswise with their voters by being more critical of the extremism pulsating through the GOP base. And political shock waves of the incident also showed how Democrats are keen to link rising threats against lawmakers and their families with Trump’s political movement as raging inflation threatens to deal them a heavy defeat at the ballot box.

    Yet the aftermath of the assault represents more than just another fault line between Republicans and Democrats and points to something more than rote arguments of equivalence between rival politicians.

    It took place in a time scarred by the January 6 insurrection, which established that in a festering political atmosphere cultivated and incited by Trump, individuals can be inspired to carry out acts of violence. The overwhelming majority of the ex-President’s supporters have not acted on his false claims of a stolen election. But while leading Republicans are right to argue the political attacks have targeted prominent figures on both sides, only one party features members who are excusing, downplaying, or denying the violence of January 6 and amplifying false claims of a stolen election that have been proven to incite violence.

    It was a sign of a worsening political environment that Musk gave credence to a fringe conspiracy theory about the Paul Pelosi attack. He tweeted and then deleted a link to an article on a website that purports to be a news outlet, CNN’s Oliver Darcy and Donie O’Sullivan reported. The conspiracy theory was later amplified on Twitter by Trump Jr.

    And in another troubling development this weekend that wasn’t linked to the Pelosi case but underscored worrying extremism coming to the surface of American politics, a series of antisemitic messages appeared in public spaces – including a football stadium, a highway overpass and a downtown building in Jacksonville, Florida.

    Top Republicans on Sunday condemned the Pelosi attack as a despicable crime, but they tended to see it in isolation from current political tensions, even though the GOP has long demonized the speaker in hard-hitting ad campaigns. Instead, Republicans suggested it’s symptomatic of the rising violent crime they pin on Democrats.

    “It’s disgusting. This violence is horrible,” Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who runs the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding that his heart went out to Paul Pelosi and wished him a full recovery. But Scott quickly pivoted to highlight a Republican canvasser whom his fellow Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has said was attacked in Miami for political reasons. (After the incident, Rubio accused the media of not caring about violence when it targets Republicans.)

    Scott also tried to move on in the interview to tacitly raise fresh suspicions about the US electoral system in coded language. Asked by CNN’s Dana Bash whether Republicans should do more to condemn dangerous rhetoric and conspiracy theories, Scott replied: “We have to do everything we can to … make sure people feel comfortable about these elections. We have got to do everything we can to get people comfortable that this election in nine days is going to be free and fair, that people’s votes are all going to be counted fairly.”

    The reason why millions of Americans have lost confidence in elections – despite repeated court rulings rejecting Trump’s fraud claims and his own Justice Department’s statement that 2020 lacked major irregularities – is that the ex-President and many GOP allies are still falsely saying the election was stolen.

    Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, rejected the idea that the attack on Paul Pelosi was an inevitable consequence of rising Republican rhetorical attacks on Democratic politicians.

    “We don’t like this at all across the board. We don’t want to see attacks on any politician from any political background,” McDaniel said on “Fox News Sunday.”

    She also claimed that Biden had not condemned a suspect arrested near Brett Kavanaugh’s home who has been charged with attempting to murder the conservative Supreme Court justice. (After the arrest, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Biden believed any threats, violence or attempt to intimidate judges had no place in US society.)

    House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has yet to deliver a full-throated public condemnation of the assault on Paul Pelosi on camera or on his official social media accounts or to release a detailed statement. The California Republican did tell Fox on Sunday he had texted with the speaker to express concern and his hopes for her husband’s full recovery.

    “Let me be perfectly clear, violence or threat of violence has no place in our society. What happened to Paul Pelosi is wrong,” he told Fox.

    The lack of a more public reaction by McCarthy is notable since he could be speaker himself, if Republicans win the House next week, and would have the responsibility of fulfilling the institutional duties of a role that is sometimes supposed to supersede partisan politics. This will lead to questions of whether he is catering to his fervently pro-Trump conference.

    His comments also appear less direct than Speaker Pelosi’s reaction to the shooting of GOP Whip Steve Scalise at a congressional baseball practice in 2017, which she described as a “despicable and cowardly attack” on Congress itself and said at such times there were “no Democrats or Republicans.” After Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was informed that the deceased suspect in the shooting volunteered on his Democratic presidential campaign, he took to the Senate floor to condemn political violence “in the strongest possible terms.”

    The Pelosi attack is also highlighting concerns about the general tone of some Republican advertising, which sometimes features candidates wielding guns.

    Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, the chair of the GOP’s House campaign arm, denied there was anything tonally off about a video he tweeted last week that showed him firing a rifle with the hashtag #FirePelosi.

    Emmer said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the tweet was about “Exercising our Second Amendment rights, having fun.”

    Another Republican who could have a big role in a future majority is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. The pro-Trump Republican said such attacks “shouldn’t happen to Paul Pelosi. It shouldn’t happen to innocent Americans. It shouldn’t happen to me,” claiming she received death threats every day.

    In 2021, a CNN KFile review of hundreds of posts and comments on Greene’s Facebook page showed she repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians in 2018 and 2019, including Pelosi, before being elected to Congress.

    Leading Democrats were quick to make a link between such extremist rhetoric and the rise of violence and intimidation that has seen threats rise against political candidates and even some groups show up to monitor drop boxes in states like Arizona in moves Democrats have criticized as attempts at voter intimidation.

    Some of them reacted to reports that the alleged assailant in the Paul Pelosi incident had asked where his wife was, and immediately drew conclusions not yet supported by details released by police. Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, for instance, tweeted that a “far right white nationalist tried to assassinate the Speaker of the House and almost killed her husband a year after violent insurrectionists tried to find her and kill her in the Capitol, and the Republican Party’s response is to either ignore it or belittle it.”

    Biden was more temperate but also made the link to far-right wing rhetoric at a fundraising event in Pennsylvania on Friday, referring to the alleged assailants’ demands of “where is Nancy?”

    “Every person of good conscience needs to clearly and unambiguously stand up against the violence in our politics regardless what your politics are,” Biden said.

    Former President Barack Obama made a wider argument about how the coarsening of political dialogue risked new eruptions of violence – and squarely put the blame on Republicans.

    “This habit of saying the worst about other people, demonizing people, that creates a dangerous climate,” the former President said at a campaign event in Wisconsin on Saturday.

    “If elected officials don’t do more explicitly to reject this kind of over-the-top crazy rhetoric, if they keep on ignoring it or tacitly supporting it or in some cases encouraging it, if they’re telling supporters, ‘you’ve got to stand outside polling places armed with guns and dressed in tactical gear,’ that’s the kind of thing that ends up getting people hurt.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • What we know about the attack on Paul Pelosi | CNN Politics

    What we know about the attack on Paul Pelosi | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The man who is alleged to have attacked Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, could have federal charges filed against him by the US attorney in San Francisco as soon as Monday, two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

    The federal charges against David DePape, 42, are expected to include threatening or injuring the family member of a federal official and a charge pertaining to attempted kidnapping, according to a law enforcement official.

    Paul Pelosi was interviewed this weekend at the hospital by investigators and was able to provide details of the attack, two law enforcement sources and a source familiar with the matter tell CNN.

    Among those conducting the interview were FBI and local law enforcement investigators.

    DePape’s alleged motive is not yet known, though police believe DePape was intentional about going into the house, and CNN has reported that he posted memes and conspiracy theories on Facebook about Covid vaccines, the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

    The assault has renewed discussions about violent rhetoric directed toward lawmakers, with Democrats calling on Republicans to forcefully condemn extremist language in their camp, as well as concerns about lawmaker safety.

    This is what we presently know about the attack.

    CNN reported on Sunday that DePape had with him a bag that contained multiple zip ties, among other things, according to two sources who have been briefed on the incident.

    In addition to the zip ties, the suspect also had duct tape on him, according to a law enforcement source. The hammer that was used to allegedly assault Pelosi was brought by DePape, according to a law enforcement source and a senior congressional aide briefed on the assault.

    Neither source knew of any other weapons found when DePape was detained. CNN has previously reported that DePape allegedly tried to tie up Pelosi.

    Police have said that DePape entered the home through a backdoor and it wasn’t clear if he circumvented any security measures.

    CNN previously reported that DePape confronted Pelosi and asked where his wife was, shouting, “Where is Nancy?” The speaker was not home at the time of the attack.

    Paul Pelosi was able to call 911 at the start of the attack, a law enforcement source and another source familiar with the matter previously said.

    San Francisco police entered the home around 2:27 a.m. local time Friday (5:27 a.m. ET) to find Pelosi struggling over a hammer with DePape, according to the city’s police chief. Officers saw DePape “violently assault” Pelosi with the hammer before they tackled him to the ground and arrested him.

    The attack, coming in the home stretch of a midterm campaign season in which Nancy Pelosi often has served as the focus of Republican criticism, has renewed concerns about violence directed toward lawmakers, especially in the wake of the January 6 Capitol riot.

    “What makes us think that one party can talk about ‘stolen elections,’ ‘Covid being a hoax,’ ‘this is all a bunch of lies,’ and it not affect people who may not be so well balanced?” President Joe Biden said on Friday.

    “What makes us think that it’s not going to corrode the political climate?”

    GOP Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, who is set to become House Oversight Committee chairman if the GOP gains control of the House next year, condemned the attack in comments to CNN on Saturday, and said both Republicans and Democrats need to tone down the political rhetoric while admitting that he, too, could improve in that regard.

    “It’s very difficult environment out there. You have a lot of people that get so fired up, because of various political causes. It puts many politicians in a dangerous spot,” he told CNN’s Pamela Brown on “CNN Newsroom.”

    Several prominent Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, have condemned the attack, though some others – most notably former President Donald Trump – have remained silent.

    Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who chairs the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” Sunday that the attack was “disgusting,” but dodged questions about election conspiracy theories that were shared by the alleged attacker on social media.

    Asked by Bash if his party should do more to reject false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, insurrection that were shared on social media by DePape, Scott did not directly respond.

    And Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, the chair of the House GOP campaign arm, condemned violence broadly in an interview with CBS on Sunday, but refused to commit to pulling advertisements targeting Nancy Pelosi.

    Emmer also wouldn’t commit to taking down a recent tweet, which included a video of him firing a gun that read, “Enjoyed exercising my Second Amendment rights … Let’s #FirePelosi,” telling CBS that he disagreed that the tweet was dangerous.

    A CNN investigation into DePape found that he posted memes and conspiracy theories on Facebook about Covid vaccines, the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

    Most of the public posts on DePape’s Facebook page were from 2021. In earlier years, DePape also posted long screeds about religion, including claims that “Jesus is the anti christ.” None of the public posts appeared to mention Pelosi.

    His stepfather, Gene DePape, said David DePape grew up in Powell River, British Columbia, and left Canada about 20 years ago to pursue a relationship that brought him to California.

    People who knew DePape in California described him as an odd character, with one acquaintance, Linda Schneider, a California resident, telling CNN that she had received “really disturbing” emails from DePape in which he sounded like a “megalomaniac and so out of touch with reality.”

    She said she stopped communicating with him “because it seemed so dangerous,” adding that she recalled him “using Biblical justification to do harm.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Rick Scott calls attack on Paul Pelosi ‘disgusting’ but dodges questions about election conspiracies shared by alleged assailant | CNN Politics

    Rick Scott calls attack on Paul Pelosi ‘disgusting’ but dodges questions about election conspiracies shared by alleged assailant | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who chairs the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, on Sunday called the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, “disgusting” but dodged questions about election conspiracy theories that were shared by the alleged attacker on social media.

    “It’s disgusting, this violence is horrible,” Scott said on “State of the Union” in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash. “We had a door-knocker in Florida that was attacked. I mean, this stuff has to stop. … And my heart goes out to Paul Pelosi, and I hope he has a full recovery.”

    Asked by Bash if Republicans should do more to reject false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, insurrection that were shared on social media by Paul Pelosi’s alleged assailant, Scott did not directly respond.

    “I think what we have to do is, one, we have to condemn the violence, and then we have to do everything we can to get people – make sure people feel comfortable about these elections,” the senator said.

    “I think what’s important is everybody do everything we can to make these elections fair,” he reiterated when Bash asked him again about it.

    An intruder, identified by police as David DePape, 42, confronted the 82-year-old Paul Pelosi with a hammer early Friday morning at his San Francisco home, shouting, “Where is Nancy? Where is Nancy?” according to a law enforcement source. The assailant attempted to tie Pelosi up “until Nancy got home,” two sources familiar with the situation told CNN.

    The alleged assailant had posted memes and conspiracy theories on Facebook about Covid vaccines, the 2020 election and the January 6 attack, and an acquaintance told CNN that he seemed “out of touch with reality.”

    Meanwhile, Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, the chair of the House GOP campaign arm, condemned violence broadly in an interview with CBS on Sunday.

    “There’s no place for violence period in our society. Physical violence or violence against someone’s property,” Emmer, who heads the National Republican Congressional Committee, said when asked about political violence. “The incident in San Francisco, tragic as it is, I think we need some more information about it. But we should all be feeling for Paul Pelosi and his family. Hopefully, there’ll be a 100% recovery.”

    But Emmer refused to commit to pulling advertisements targeting Nancy Pelosi. Nor would he commit to taking down a recent tweet, which included a video of him firing a gun and read, “Enjoyed exercising my Second Amendment rights … Let’s #FirePelosi,” telling CBS that he disagreed that the tweet was dangerous.

    “I never saw anyone after Steve Scalise was shot by a Bernie Sanders supporter trying to equate Democrat rhetoric with those actions. Please don’t do that,” Emmer said.

    On Sunday, Bash asked Scott if his successor as Florida governor, Republican Ron DeSantis, should attend an upcoming rally in South Florida headlined by former President Donald Trump. The rally will feature Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who, like DeSantis, is also up for reelection next month, but not DeSantis, amid reports that the relationship between Trump and the governor has grown distant ahead of a possible presidential showdown in 2024.

    “That’s a choice everybody makes. I mean, I know President Trump is trying to make sure we get a majority back in the Senate,” Scott said.

    Scott, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, also predicted the GOP will control “52-plus” Senate seats after the midterm elections.

    “Herschel Walker will win Georgia. We’re going to keep all 21 of ours. (Mehmet) Oz is going to win against Fetterman in Pennsylvania. And Adam Laxalt will win in Nevada,” he said, while also expressing optimism about GOP chances in Arizona and New Hampshire and noting that Republicans “have got shots” in Washington state, Colorado and Connecticut.

    “This is our year,” Scott said.

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  • As Election Day approaches, Trump-DeSantis 2024 rivalry seeps into the public | CNN Politics

    As Election Day approaches, Trump-DeSantis 2024 rivalry seeps into the public | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    When Election Day arrives in Florida, Donald Trump will vote for a Republican whose political demise he may soon find himself plotting.

    Months after Trump told The Wall Street Journal he would support Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ bid for reelection, the former President and his home-state governor appear increasingly likely to collide in a heated 2024 presidential primary. While neither has formally announced a presidential campaign, both have taken steps in the closing days of the 2022 cycle to cement themselves as team players and kingmakers – locking horns in those pursuits.

    “We have a rift with Trump. Big shocker,” said a source close to the DeSantis campaign, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “It’s no secret that things are cool between [Trump and DeSantis] right now. They’re not punching each other, but we’re not helping them and they’re not helping us.”

    A rivalry that had mostly existed behind the scenes burst into public view this week after DeSantis recorded a robocall endorsing Republican businessman Joe O’Dea, an underdog in the Colorado Senate race who vowed earlier this month to “actively campaign” against Trump if he mounts a third presidential bid. While the Florida governor has supported other Republican midterm candidates, none of them have been as explicitly critical of Trump as O’Dea.

    The move did not go unnoticed by the former President, who has spent months griping to aides about DeSantis and amplifying claims that he would handily beat the governor in a Republican primary.

    “A BIG MISTAKE!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform of DeSantis endorsing O’Dea. Three days later, Trump announced plans for a rally in South Florida with the state’s senior senator, Marco Rubio. DeSantis was not invited, a source told CNN.

    The first signs of a strain in Trump’s relationship with DeSantis began last fall amid the Florida Republican’s soaring popularity and thinly veiled criticism of Trump’s Covid-19 policies as president.

    Despite efforts by allies of both men to defuse tensions, their strained relationship has persisted for months and now appears at a crescendo as Trump readies a post-midterm 2024 campaign announcement and DeSantis barrels toward reelection with potentially historic support from Florida Hispanics.

    “Trump has to be concerned because DeSantis has built an unprecedented base in the Hispanic community,” said one Florida-based Republican consultant.

    DeSantis has also spent the past year making inroads with deep-pocketed Republican donors and laying the groundwork for a potential 2024 campaign launch next year, according to allies, some of whom said he doesn’t want to rush his potential entry into what is likely to be a crowded primary. It’s those overt steps toward a White House bid that have most irritated the former President.

    Days after Trump slammed the Florida governor for endorsing in the Colorado Senate contest, DeSantis committed another cardinal sin in the eyes of the former President when he once again refused to rule out a presidential run if Trump is a candidate. During a Monday debate against his Democratic opponent, Charlie Crist, DeSantis declined to commit to serving a four-year term if reelected, standing in silence as his opponent repeatedly raised the subject. Privately, Trump allies gloated over the debate, questioning DeSantis’ ability to endure a debate against Trump.

    “DeSantis did fine for a race he’s crushing,” said one Republican operative who has worked with both men. “It’s a whole different ballgame when he’s on a stage next to Donald Trump. Trump has a way of very effectively getting under people’s skin, especially on the debate stage.”

    Other Republicans dismissed such takeaways as premature – even unfair – given DeSantis’ clear edge in his reelection race and Trump’s inimitable debate style.

    “I don’t think that debate mattered at all,” said Brian Ballard, a Florida-based Republican consultant who maintains close ties to both Trump and DeSantis.

    “Donald Trump on the debate stage is the most unique political animal in 100 years. Everybody got decimated by him [in 2016],” Ballard added. “I believe Ron DeSantis can hold his own against anybody, but Donald Trump is his own character.”

    For months, Trump has worked to cast himself as the automatic front-runner in a contested 2024 primary while asking his own pollsters to identify whether DeSantis or others pose a serious threat.

    In perhaps his most direct jab at DeSantis yet, the former President reposted a video to his Truth Social site this week in which former Fox News host Megyn Kelly confidently predicted that Trump would emerge on top in a contest against DeSantis. Kelly repeatedly sparred with Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign, both as a debate moderator and prime-time commentator, but in the video shared by Trump she suggested the former President’s base remains firmly behind him.

    “You really think the hardcore MAGA is going to abandon Trump for DeSantis? They’re not. They like DeSantis, but they don’t think it’s his turn,” Kelly says in the clip, adding that “the hardcore Trump faithful is unshakable [and] if forced to choose, they will choose Trump.”

    While some Republicans agree with Kelly, others are looking for new blood, exhausted by Trump’s unending legal battles and the media spectacle surrounding him.

    Those close to DeSantis say he is content, for now, to let his election performance do the talking for him. Through mid-October, two political committees behind his reelection effort had spent more than $80 million trying to engineer a lopsided victory that would further bolster his resume and deliver an overwhelming mandate for his agenda.

    But in conversations with donors, DeSantis allies say he is far less dismissive these days when questioned about a White House bid than he was six months ago – something Trump allies have brought to his attention, further irritating him.

    “People are always talking about, wondering about presidential elections in the future and all this stuff,” DeSantis said at a rally Wednesday. “People are concerned about who’s running the country next because no one knows who the hell is running the government now.”

    On the campaign trail, the Florida governor has been beta-testing messages that could set him apart in a presidential primary either with or without Trump as a competitor. He has touted his record on the economy, his management of the pandemic and his battles with businesses, Big Tech and school districts over “woke ideology.” Some say the more he can lean into his accomplishments as governor, the less likely he is to draw comparisons with Trump even as he mimics elements of the former President’s political style – from his hand gestures to his public war on the media.

    “If I were advising him, I would tell him to ignore that stuff. You’re Ron DeSantis 1.0, not anything 2.0,” said Adam Geller, a former Trump campaign pollster and Republican strategist.

    But Trump rallying voters in DeSantis’ state on November 6, two nights before the election, serves as a reminder of how easily he still commands GOP voters. Among Florida Republican operatives, the timing and location of Trump’s event has raised eyebrows. There are Senate battlegrounds considerably more competitive than Florida, where Rubio is favored to defeat Democratic Rep. Val Demings, and neither party has committed significant resources to the state in the closing weeks of the race.

    In announcing the visit, Trump once again claimed credit for DeSantis winning the governor’s mansion through “a historic red wave for Florida in the 2018 midterms” with the former President’s “slate of endorsed candidates up and down the ballot.” But Trump also preemptively took ownership of DeSantis’ reelection, saying he had “molded the Sunshine State into the MAGA stronghold it is today.”

    A person briefed on the matter said the prospect of a Florida rally was first raised during a phone call between Trump and Rubio following the Florida Senate debate earlier this month. Since the rally is being organized by Trump’s political operation, any effort to involve DeSantis would have likely come from the former President’s orbit. But that did not happen, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

    “The Senator and President Trump discussed holding a rally in Florida, like he’s doing for Senate races across the country,” said Elizabeth Gregory, a Rubio campaign spokesperson.

    Miami is also home to several vibrant Latino communities that shifted to the right under Trump and have continued to trend red in the two years since he left office. Trump will land in the city just before Republicans are poised to have their best electoral showing in Miami-Dade County since Jeb Bush won a second term in 2002.

    One Florida-based Republican consultant said he doesn’t think that’s a coincidence.

    “We’re potentially going to see Florida Republicans win Miami-Dade County, and it’s pretty clear Trump’s trying to get down there to take credit,” the consultant said.

    DeSantis’ campaign didn’t ask to join the program for the Trump rally once it was announced, a source told CNN.

    Like Trump, DeSantis has also tried to ascribe greater meaning to Florida’s transformational shift from a purple battleground into a reliably red state. On Wednesday, he told supporters that a big win on Election Day “will send a loud message, I think, across the country to governors in our own party” to follow his example in their states.

    But any tension over who deserves credit for engineering that success is unlikely to matter until after November 8, said Tim Williams, a former Florida GOP campaign strategist.

    “As far as the midterms go, that’s a train that’s approaching so quickly that this Trump-DeSantis feud isn’t going to get in the way of it,” Williams said.

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  • ‘SNL’ takes on ‘surging’ Republicans before the midterm elections | CNN Business

    ‘SNL’ takes on ‘surging’ Republicans before the midterm elections | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    “Saturday Night Live” kicked off this week’s episode with Heidi Gardner leading a PBS NewsHour focused on three notable Republicans before the midterm elections in less than two weeks.

    First up was Herschel Walker, played by Kenan Thompson.

    “My name is Herschel Walker Texas Ranger,” Thompson as Walker said, kicking off the cold open of the NBC variety show. “And I’m running for president of the United Airlines.”

    Next up: Dr. Mehmet Oz, played by Mikey Day.

    “My Pennsylvania Phillies are in the World Series, and I just had a delicious Philadelphia cheese and steak. Yum!” Day’s Oz declared.

    Finally: Kari Lake, played by Cecily Strong.

    “Great to be with you,” she said. “On your sweet little show full of lies.”

    Gardner as the PBS NewsHour host noted all three have been doing well in the polls lately despite having no political experience.

    “And that’s where I don’t know,” Thompson’s Walker said when asked why his support was growing. “The whole world is a mystery, ain’t it? For example, a thermos it keeps the hot things hot but also the cold things cold. My question is… how does it decide?”

    This was followed up with the question of why so many Georgians, the state in which Walker is running for Senate, still support him despite his many controversies.

    “Gas,” he said.

    The next question went to Day’s Dr. Oz, who the PBS NewsHour host said has caught up to his Pennsylvania Senate race opponent, John Fetterman.

    “I was a long shot,” Day’s Dr. Oz said. “But I told myself you can win this election if you’re honest, you’re fair and if your opponent has a debilitating medical emergency.”

    Fetterman had a stroke earlier this year.

    Strong’s Lake responded to her rise in the polls by saying she was a “fighter” and had sent back “over two thousand salads” in her lifetime.

    “And I’m not afraid to do the same thing with democracy,” she said.

    Walker then asked to take the next question and began to talk about Pokémon.

    Gardner’s PBS host mentioned that Lake has proposed major changes to voting laws in Arizona.

    “If the people of Arizona elect me, I’ll make sure they never have to vote ever again,” Strong’s Lake said.

    The segment then wrapped up with Thompson’s Walker saying “yippee ki-yay and go Halloween” before the show’s signature catch phrase, “Live… from New York! It’s Saturday night!”

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  • Opinion: Democrats just can’t seal the deal with young Americans | CNN

    Opinion: Democrats just can’t seal the deal with young Americans | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: Kristen Soltis Anderson, a CNN Political commentator, is a Republican strategist and pollster and author of “The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (and How Republicans Can Keep Up.)” The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more opinion articles on CNN.



    CNN
     — 

    Democrats have sensed that younger voters might stay home in November and have turned to “Dark Brandon” for help in times of trouble.

    For those who do not know – and my own polling suggests that is most everyone reading this – “Dark Brandon” is a meme of President Joe Biden, rendered as an all-powerful hero (or villain, depending on your perspective). It started as a right-wing catchphrase before Democrats appropriated it to praise the President.

    The meme reached the height of its powers, whatever those may be, when the Democratic group Building Back Together released a hallucinogenic 30-second ad earlier this month featuring the meme of President Biden, lasers coming out of his eyes and all. The message? Biden is an exciting and successful hero on issues like student loan debt. Or rather, “if you’re unenthused about Biden and the Democratic Party, please don’t be.”

    I’ve sounded the alarm for years that Republicans are in trouble with younger voters and are in danger of losing them for good. This remains the case, as many polls show younger voters still have quite negative views of the GOP.

    But even though Millennials and Gen Z Americans tend to lean leftward on a host of economic and cultural issues such as LGBTQ rights and the size of government, it is clear that in this midterm election, Democrats have not energized the youth vote and may not be able to count on young people as a key part of their coalition.

    Voters under 30 are not exactly enamored with how things are going in America these days. Two-thirds of them say that the economy is bad, according to CBS News/YouGov polling. And accordingly, less than a quarter “strongly approve” of the job Biden is doing. Only 31% say they are “very enthusiastic” about voting in the midterms, compared to two-thirds of voters 65 and older. And only one in six say they are paying a “great deal” of attention to the midterms.

    This isn’t terribly unusual. Younger voters usually drop off in larger numbers than older voters when you go from a big presidential election to a lower-key midterm. According to CNN’s exit polls, voters under 30 only made up 13% of all voters in the 2018 midterms, compared to 17% in the 2020 general election.

    However, my own firm’s analysis suggests that voters under the age of 30 could fall to only 10% of the electorate in 2022 –a year where we expect overall turnout to be historic for a midterm at over 125 million votes.

    While young voters aren’t likely to turn out in huge numbers to power a “red wave,” it isn’t hard to imagine them costing Democrats their majorities by staying home.

    Democrats didn’t always need younger voters to win. In fact, younger voters were a relatively evenly split voter group for much of the 1990s and 2000s. But in the 2006 midterm, before then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) had even announced his bid for the presidency, young voters began bleeding away from the GOP in big numbers. Exit polls showed voters under the age of 30 breaking for Democrats by a 22-point margin in House races in that election, which swept Nancy Pelosi into the speakership for the first time.

    Young voters continued to oppose the GOP even in “red wave” years. The 2010 election, by all accounts a great year for Republicans, saw voters under age 30 still break for Democrats by a 16-point margin. By the time the “blue wave” of 2018 came along, we were seeing blockbuster turnout among young voters in elections that they previously sat out. Additionally, those voters broke for Democrats by an absolutely enormous 35-point margin.

    But then Donald Trump lost the presidency and Biden – not necessarily a favorite among younger voters – became the leader of the nation and the Democratic Party. Even before he was the Democratic presidential nominee, his polling among young voters always left something to be desired; only one third of voters under 30 held a favorable view of him before the 2020 election.

    Issues of importance to many young voters have taken a backseat and our political class continues to age. As a result, in the last few years, there has been a fascinating depolarization along generational lines. Previously, if I knew your age, I could somewhat easily make an educated guess about how you’d vote. That is less likely to be the case today, largely because young voters have become more disillusioned with Democrats.

    What is especially troublesome for Democrats is that this is all happening against a backdrop of young Americans being increasingly vocal about their politics. Companies are grappling with Gen Z and Millennial employees who seem keener than ever to work for employers that align with their political and cultural worldview. I regularly hear from business leaders who know that younger consumers are voting with their wallets and opting for products and services that match their values.

    If younger Americans are increasingly focused on issues and wanting change, but they aren’t turning out to vote in midterms, that represents a huge missed opportunity for those who want to see greater youth participation in politics. And in this election, it could cost Democrats their majorities.

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