ReportWire

Tag: us political parties

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

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

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • As Democrats try to hold on in November, it’s Pete Buttigieg who’s in demand on the campaign trail | CNN Politics

    As Democrats try to hold on in November, it’s Pete Buttigieg who’s in demand on the campaign trail | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    A selfie crowd formed around Pete Buttigieg as he stood in line for coffee at the airport in Washington.

    One woman said she wasn’t going to stop because she wasn’t sure it was him. “It’s me,” the Transportation secretary replied.

    An older man explained to his wife, “That’s Pete BOOT-GUG,” missing the pronunciation and the emphasis.

    “He’s the President’s…” the man said, unable to come up with his job title.

    And yet, it’s Buttigieg – whose only political experience before his failed presidential bid was serving as mayor of South Bend, Indiana – who has become the most requested surrogate on the campaign trail for Democratic candidates in the midterms, people familiar with the requests tell CNN. He’s so in demand that he’s getting more requests than Vice President Kamala Harris, those sources tell CNN – but still fewer than President Joe Biden – as Democrats look to defend their narrow congressional majorities and win governor’s races in November.

    With invitations flowing into the White House and the Democratic National Committee, a relatively low-ranking Cabinet secretary’s staff has to choose between Democratic candidates trying to chase him down. There’s no precedent for this. But there’s also no precedent for the winner of the Iowa caucuses becoming Transportation secretary and proving more agile on camera than the vice president and Biden.

    Both Buttigieg and Harris are widely expected to run to succeed Biden – whether an open race emerges in 2024 or 2028 – and for Democrats looking ahead, the party’s preference for Buttigieg on the trail may be an early indicator of the future direction of the party overall.

    Two dozen operatives and candidates tell CNN they think Buttigieg is benefiting from the desire for a fresh face. Despite a steady uptick since the summer, Biden’s approval ratings are low, and Democrats believe that’s hurting Harris too, who has had her own political struggles – even as much of the administration’s agenda remains broadly popular.

    “It’s the association with being a Democrat – but not with Biden or Harris,” said one operative involved in multiple House races, explaining why campaigns have been gravitating to Buttigieg. “In the context of what people have to pick from, he’s very popular.”

    It’s not just about popularity. Some campaign operatives admit, with a note of embarrassment, they have been reluctant to invite Harris out of fear that would bring scrutiny from Republicans who monitor every word she says in ways Buttigieg rarely has to worry about, leaving candidates as collateral damage in an attack (fairly or unfairly) aimed at the first Black woman vice president.

    And some point to the basics of tight campaign budgets in the final stretch of the midterms: the vice president’s security footprint is large, and when she travels for politics, some of the costs for the Secret Service and local police protection have to be covered by the campaigns that are bringing her in. Even just a few hours on the ground can run tens of thousands of dollars and create traffic and other hold ups.

    Buttigieg, by contrast, can travel with just a member of the Protective Services Division squished beside him in coach on a commercial flight. Harris only meets people who’ve been wanded by the Secret Service and tested for Covid-19, while Buttigieg can go to political events making his way through the airport in the reverse of his campaign trail style – suit jacket on now, but no tie.

    White House political aides “recognize the dexterity and want to dispatch him to places that he uniquely can go and where Democrats don’t traditionally campaign,” said one person familiar with Buttigieg’s plans taking shape.

    That’s in contrast to the vice president’s team, which has been hoping to rebuild her standing by keeping her away from many tight races and focused largely on Black voters, among whom she remains very popular, and on women as she talks about abortion rights, arguing that she can have a large influence indirectly.

    Aides to a West Coast House Democrat in a very competitive race were debating who was going to be their one big ask in the final stretch. The President? The vice president? The first lady?

    “A senior staffer on our campaign says, ‘Throwing in two cents from our finance director – our San Francisco people have expressed that they don’t really care about POTUS, VPOTUS or the first lady. … They just really like Secretary Pete,’” recounted one of the aides.

    One Biden adviser highlighted an intentional deployment of the Cabinet over the final month in races where they think they’ll matter most, urging them to appear in their personal capacities to avoid violating the Hatch Act provisions on not mixing government work with campaigning. Only a few secretaries beyond Buttigieg, though, have generated much interest: Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge. Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough, rarely much of a political presence, will also hit the trail soon for a few events.

    But of those, Buttigieg is the only one who shows up in early presidential polls. He’s the one who was invited to address House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s retreat for top donors in Napa Valley in August. He’s the one who’s already headlined an event for Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto, seen as perhaps the most endangered Democrat in the Senate, and for Nan Whaley, the Democratic nominee for Ohio governor.

    Buttigieg, who came in a close second in the 2020 New Hampshire Democratic primary, was state party officials’ top choice to headline their big fall fundraising dinner, according to party officials, even before a poll that came out in late July showing him leading the field for a theoretical New Hampshire primary, essentially tied with Biden but edging out Harris by 11 percentage points.

    To the surprise of some in New Hampshire, the White House political office greenlit the invitation not long after. Tickets sold out.

    The morning of the New Hampshire speech, state Rep. Matt Wilhelm proudly tweeted a photo of a “BOOT EDGE EDGE” mug he had left over from when he’d endorsed and volunteered on his presidential campaign two years ago.

    “When I was asked by the party, ‘Who do we want as a surrogate?’ not only was I supportive of Pete, because yeah, I want him back here, but I think that he’s the kind of messenger that we want on the ground to get people fired up ahead of the midterms,” Wilhelm said. He remains very popular in the state, added Rep. Annie Kuster, who’d endorsed him in 2020 and had him headline a fundraiser for her campaign this year.

    The synth-horn notes of “High Hopes,” his old campaign anthem, played as Buttigieg took the stage. He hadn’t done a big political speech in two years. And while rattling off Biden administration accomplishments – like putting Ketanji Brown Jackson on the Supreme Court and signing bipartisan legislation providing health care for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits – he had some rusty moments working out new lines.

    “Most Americans don’t need culture wars every time there’s a gay Muppet or Black mermaid on TV – we need funding for our public schools,” he said in one riff.

    But it all built to a very Buttigieg centerpiece, intended to generate knowing smirks more than laughs, and metered out to invite the standing ovation he got.

    “Teddy Roosevelt had the square deal. FDR had the New Deal. So I’m going to say this body of defining achievements, this incredibly productive year, amounts to such a big deal that we ought to just call it The Big Deal,” Buttigieg said, putting that up against Republicans’ “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

    “And if, in the tradition of our President, you like to insert an extra adjective in there, feel free.”

    He ended with a passage that could one day drop right into a political convention speech, soaring past Biden or the infrastructure law or any more Trump mentions, to an aspirational line about building a “truly representative, fully inclusive, multi-racial, democratic republic like the one that has been under constant construction here on US soil for the last 200 years.”

    “This is somebody who really believes in the promise of democracy and in delivering results,” Sen. Maggie Hassan said after the final standing ovation for Buttigieg. “And we have seen him delivering results. And his pragmatic approach really means a lot to people here.” Hassan, who is facing a competitive reelection after winning her first term by only 1,017 votes, also had Buttigieg headline a fundraiser for her in Washington earlier this summer.

    Two weeks later, on another Saturday night, Harris was the featured speaker at the Texas Democrats’ big dinner in Austin. Every statewide Democratic candidate skipped, except the nominee for state railroad commissioner. Tickets were not as hard to get, though the state chair said it was their highest grossing event ever, and some took note that several state legislators from other parts of the state specifically flew in to be there.

    Harris’ stump speeches tend to be more grounded and direct, much like she is herself.

    She rooted her Austin speech in home turf stories about former Rep. Barbara Jordan and Lyndon Johnson, leading an enthusiastic call and response. She built up to a line she has often used, paraphrasing, she recalled, “the words of a great American leader, Coretta Scott King, who said: The struggle for justice is a never-ending process. And freedom is never really won; you earn it, and you win it in each and every generation.”

    Even though the White House political office lets Harris’ team pick her spots and write her speeches, she can’t stray far. When she talks up Biden’s record, she has to be subsumed to the President. She can’t put her own spin on it, aside from occasional moments, such as two days after Biden rolled out his marijuana policy changes without her in the frame, when she said, “Nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed.”

    Harris discusses reproductive rights at the LBJ Presidential Library on October 8, 2022, in Austin, Texas.

    “There’s a house that Joe Biden built – it’s got a bunch of rooms, and as vice president you can choose which of the rooms you sit in. But you’ve got to be in Joe Biden’s house,” a Harris adviser said recently, trying to come up with a metaphor to describe the dynamics within the administration.

    That reality – in addition to the different political landscapes in the two states – helps explains the different responses Buttigieg and Harris received in New Hampshire and Texas.

    “The administration does not have a good brand in Texas – and that’s Joe Biden or Kamala Harris,” said one of the attendees at the Austin event who asked not to be named.

    By contrast, being part of the administration has benefits for Buttigieg – without some of the burdens Harris faces. Since he’s doling out federal dollars in his official capacity, politicians like to be seen with him. At the dinner in New Hampshire, nearly every speaker made a joke about how they hoped he’d come back with another big check for an infrastructure project.

    This past Wednesday in South Carolina, House Majority Whip Rep. Jim Clyburn – a key Biden supporter, and a promoter of Harris – spent the day with the secretary, going around with him to multiple events.

    But he said he had been eager to have Harris appear at the South Carolina Democratic Party dinner in June, and noted that she was in the critical early primary state again at his alma mater just a few weeks ago.

    “When you’re bringing her in, there’s a cost factor that goes far beyond what most Democratic Party folks can afford,” Clyburn said, not the expense of Air Force 2. “When we were bringing her to South Carolina, it was a real big problem. In fact, yours truly had to step up to help the party be able to afford it.”

    That speech, to an enthusiastic room in Columbia, was warmly received. Clyburn called the money he’d kicked in from his own campaign account “money well spent.”

    Buttigieg is both self-aware enough to know that any move suggesting presidential thinking would almost certainly leak and self-confident enough to believe he doesn’t need to start laying the groundwork for a campaign now.

    People in Buttigieg’s orbit and the secretary himself try to downplay any presidential speculation, and any suggestion of tension between the once and possible future rivals. People in Harris’ orbit say that they don’t spend much time thinking about the Transportation secretary, but when they do, they’re often left feeling he gets a pass on moves that for her would be seen as machinations.

    “The future is Joe Biden is going to run for reelection in 2024 – so what’s the point of thinking beyond that?” said one Buttigieg adviser.

    In the airport coffee line, though, a woman shrugged as her husband tried to explain who Buttigieg was after mispronouncing his name.

    “I would not have known him if he bought my coffee,” she said.

    That’s the downside for Buttigieg. Not far away, a stand was selling Harris bobbleheads and a T-shirt with her face on it.

    CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to more accurately reflect the demand for tickets for Harris’ Austin event, which was the highest grossing event ever for the state party, according to its chair.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

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

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

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    [ad_2]

    Source link

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

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

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Obama to campaign in Michigan and Georgia in final weeks of midterm elections | CNN Politics

    Obama to campaign in Michigan and Georgia in final weeks of midterm elections | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Barack Obama will travel to Atlanta and Detroit for campaign events in the final weeks of the midterm elections.

    The Democratic Party of Georgia said in a statement Saturday that Obama will campaign with Democratic candidates on October 28. It was unclear which Democrats the former President would stump with in Georgia, which is home to high-profile races for governor and US Senate.

    Obama will then join Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, among other down-ballot Democrats, at a get-out-the-vote rally on October 29, Whitmer’s team said in a statement. Michigan and Georgia also have competitive US House races and critical down-ballot contests, some of which feature GOP nominees who have spread false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

    The Wisconsin Democratic Party announced on Friday that Obama would campaign with Democratic nominees in Milwaukee, also on October 29.

    In an interview with “Pod Save America” that aired Friday night, Obama pointed to down-ballot races as an important test for the Democratic Party.

    “One of the things I want to emphasize in this midterm is the importance of looking not just at the top of the ballot, but all the way down the bottom, because there are governor’s races, secretary of state’s races, state legislative races that are going to really matter,” he said. “It may turn out that in a close presidential election at some point, certification of an election in a key swing state may be at issue. And, it’s going to a be really important that we have people there who play it straight.”

    Obama won both Wisconsin and Michigan in 2008 and 2012. He did not win Georgia in either presidential campaign, but now-President Joe Biden won the state in 2020, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to do so since Bill Clinton in 1992.

    “Given the high stakes of this year’s midterm elections, President Obama wants to do his part to help Democrats win next month,” an Obama spokesperson told CNN. “This is why he headlined four finance events in recent months for the key campaign committees and will campaign in targeted states as part of Democrats’ final GOTV stretch. He looks forward to stumping for candidates up and down the ballot, especially in races and states that will have consequences for the administration of 2024 elections.”

    The former President headlined a fundraiser for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee on August 31, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on September 8, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on September 28, and the Democratic National Committee on September 29.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

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

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

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • The Latino voter shift comes into focus in South Texas | CNN Politics

    The Latino voter shift comes into focus in South Texas | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    What first appeared as statistical noise is now becoming clearer: Historically left-leaning Latino voters are shifting toward the GOP, with the potential to swing major races come November’s midterm elections.

    And with razor-thin margins determining control of Congress, Hispanic communities where Donald Trump unexpectedly made gains in 2020 are coming into sharp focus, especially the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas.

    Here, the battle for Texas’s 15th Congressional District between Republican Monica De La Cruz and Democrat Michelle Vallejo is arguably the state’s most competitive House race and may be a test for Republicans’ appeal among Hispanic Americans.

    Hispanic Americans make up a fifth of registered voters in more than a dozen hotly contested House and Senate races in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Texas. While Democrats are still expected to win a majority of Latino voters, their margins appear to be shrinking – dramatically, in some cases.

    “What we’re seeing now is that the GOP has stepped in and helped us get our messaging out to show Latinos their values of faith, family and freedom really align with the Republican Party,” De La Cruz said

    Vallejo argues that the shift is tied to an increase in outside spending by the GOP: “I think the resources and money they’re getting from the outside really does add fuel to their fire. … It’s not deeply connected with the desire from the community to drive up and bring solutions that are specifically from South Texas.”

    For De La Cruz, attending her first Trump rally inspired her to start a career in politics.

    “I was busy raising a family, raising my business,” De La Cruz said. “(Trump) caught my attention to look at national politics and what was happening in DC and say, ‘Those policies don’t reflect me or my values.’”

    The entrepreneur insurance agent and mother of two says she’s a former Democrat whose family voted against Republicans for generations, including her “abuelita.”

    “This area had been under Democrat rule for over 100 years and what we’re seeing here is that Democrats haven’t done anything for us. … (They) just abandoned Latinos and Latinos are seeing that their values of faith, family and freedom just align better with the Republican Party.”

    Part of a trio of Latina Republican congressional nominees on the ballot in South Texas, De La Cruz is attempting to redefine the region’s political tradition alongside Cassy Garcia, a former Ted Cruz aide who is running in the 28th District, and US Rep. Mayra Flores in Texas’ 34th who became the party’s first representative from the Rio Grande Valley in more than a century after winning a special election earlier this year.

    The “triple threat,” as some Republicans call them, are part of a record number of Republican Latino nominees this fall, with many taking a page from Trump’s pro-border wall playbook.

    Asked whether she ever felt insulted by Trump’s rhetoric toward Latino immigrants (“They are bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists,” the then-candidate said when announcing his first presidential run in 2016), De La Cruz, the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, said his words didn’t turn her away.

    “Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have said things the way he said them, but I think people were able to look past those things because they knew he’s not a politician. He didn’t have a political background. He was a businessman,” said De La Cruz. “He stood up against the establishment and put forth policies that worked for American families.”

    Like her GOP opponent, Vallejo, the Democrat running in Texas’ 15th, is a relatively new to politics and an entrepreneur. She operates the Pulga Los Portales flea market in Alton, which her parents founded some 25 years ago.

    “Our community deserves more attention and more respect,” Vallejo said of the newly drawn district, which would have voted for Trump by nearly 3 percentage points in 2020. “I think that both national parties were leaving us out.”

    Vallejo said Republicans have “demonized” Latino immigrants to score political points.

    “We have pride and dignity and we will not stand for anyone making fun of us, making fun of our community and our culture. We’re deserving and we give a lot back to this country,” she said.

    Running as a progressive in an area that more often elects moderate Democrats, Vallejo defeated her primary opponent by only 35 votes and is campaigning on guaranteed abortion rights, expanding Medicaid and Medicare, and raising the minimum wage to $15.

    “There are a lot of issues being ignored,” Vallejo said. “It’s time we see a change for South Texas, and we need progressive, bold policies … so that we finally get a voice at the table.”

    Vallejo points to outside influence and spending to account for the GOP’s gains in the area, saying, “Outside interests did see an opportunity to swoop in, pouring millions and millions of dollars to pretty much buy up our seat.”

    As for Latinos who drifted from Democrats to support Trump, Vallejo said she “looks forward to hopefully earning their support.”

    “I’m fighting for all our families here in South Texas, whether they’re Republican, independent or people who have never felt engaged by the political system before,” she said.

    Polling indicates that Latino voters are more likely than any other ethnic groups to cite the economy or inflation as the most important issue facing the country. But other issues, such as immigration and abortion, also loom large.

    “It’s become so difficult. … Supply chain issues are a big problem. And inflation – we used to pay $19 for a box of eggs. Now, I pay $54,” said Rodolfo Sanchez-Rendon, the owner of Teresita’s Kitchen in McAllen.

    Sanchez-Rendon also faults Democrats for undervaluing faith, family and small business.

    “Their values have changed,” he said. “Extremely liberal, where religion becomes an afterthought. … They’ve drifted from our values.”

    But the economy remains the most important issue to voters like Sanchez-Rendon, who immigrated to the United States in 1986 and said unchecked illegal immigration is out of control across the southern border.

    Contractor Edgar Gallegos said he plans to vote Republican because of the economy, despite Trump’s rhetoric about Latino immigrants.

    “I’ll take a mean tweet right about now, over what we have,” Gallegos said.

    Other voters, like Justin Stubbs, say they feel Democrats lack urgency on the issue of immigration.

    “It seems like Republicans care and talk about the border issue a lot more. … I just don’t see a lot of Democrats talking about the border crisis and honestly, there’s a lot of people down here that are affected by that,” he said.

    One voter in nearby Alton, Texas, said he and his wife will remain loyal to the Democratic Party because he believes it will do more to help the community.

    “We want candidates who will pay attention to our needs,” says Jose Raul Guerrero, who says he’s voting for Vallejo partly because he’s known her since she was a child. “She understands our needs. … and we need a lot of help right now.”

    “What people have to understand is that Hispanic Americans have hard working-class values,” said Giancarlo Sopo, a former Barack Obama campaign worker who led Trump’s hyper-local Hispanic advertising in 2020.

    “Who’s America’s blue-collar billionaire? Donald Trump,” he said.

    Sopo said part of the Trump’s campaign’s success with Latinos was tied to an ad campaign that “used words and ways of speaking” that were unique to specific nationalities and generations, tailoring ads meant to target Puerto Ricans, for example, with slang and references common to the island.

    “The reality is there are many Hispanic communities,” Sopo says. “You open the door with culture and engage Hispanics on a policy level.”

    Pointing to trends over the last decade that show Latinos experiencing gains when it comes to incomes, home purchases and starting new businesses, Sopo said many in the community view Trump aspirationally – adding that among some Latinos, especially men, the former President’s brash rhetoric may have worked to his advantage.

    “To a lot of Hispanic Americans – the same way that Bill Clinton was the first Black president before Barack Obama – Donald Trump, to them, is the first Hispanic president,” Sopo said. “He’s very charismatic, he’s not politically correct, he’s a successful entrepreneur. … These values really resonate.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Barnes seeks to rebut crime attacks headed into final Senate debate with Johnson in Wisconsin | CNN Politics

    Barnes seeks to rebut crime attacks headed into final Senate debate with Johnson in Wisconsin | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Mandela Barnes, the Democrat taking on Republican Sen. Ron Johnson in Wisconsin’s Senate race, on Thursday faces what could be his last clear shot at rebutting the avalanche of GOP attacks on crime and police funding that have taken a months-long toll on his campaign.

    Barnes and Johnson are set to meet for their second and final debate Thursday night – hours after the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol holds a hearing that is expected to function as its closing argument ahead of the November midterm elections.

    Barnes is highlighting Johnson’s actions on that day, seeking to cast him as an unreliable and hypocritical messenger on what it means to support police officers. Johnson, who played a role in trying to push “fake electors” for then-President Donald Trump before the start of the congressional certification of the 2020 electoral votes, has repeatedly downplayed the attack on the Capitol, saying it was not an “armed insurrection,” including as recently as earlier this month.

    Johnson and Republican outside spending groups have hammered Barnes, the Wisconsin lieutenant governor, throughout the fall in television advertisements, at events and in their first debate on crime – echoing a theme the GOP has made a core component of its closing message in Senate races across the map. Those attacks have coincided with Johnson rebounding from a summer slump in the polls less than four weeks from Election Day.

    During a campaign event Tuesday in Milwaukee where the Wisconsin Fraternal Order of Police and the West Allis Professional Police Association endorsed the two-term Republican senator, Johnson said that Barnes has shown “far greater sympathy for the criminal or criminals versus law enforcement or the victims.” He pointed to Barnes’ history of statements in support of decreasing or redirecting police funding.

    “The dispiriting nature of attempting to cut or use the code words of ‘reallocate,’ ‘over bloated budgets,’ – my opponent says that it pains him to see a fully funded police budget. I mean, that type of rhetoric,” Johnson said, “Those types of policies are very dispiriting for police.”

    Barnes, who says he does not support defunding the police, is attempting to shift the debate over crime away from his previous comments by targeting Johnson’s actions around the attack on the Capitol after President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

    Ahead of Thursday’s debate, Barnes plans to hold a virtual news conference with retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who served on the National Security Council and emerged as a star witness against Trump during the his first impeachment. Barnes’ campaign said the event would serve to “hold Ron Johnson accountable for his attempt to send a fake slate of electors to the Vice President.”

    Johnson’s role in trying to put forward the slate of electors who had not been certified by any state legislature was uncovered in June by the House select committee investigating the events around the insurrection. “I was aware that we got this package and that somebody wanted us to deliver it, so we reached out to Pence’s office,” Johnson told CNN at the time.

    In his first debate with Barnes, Johnson said he did not know what he was being asked to hand Pence.

    “I had no idea when I got a call from the lawyers for the president of the United States to deliver something to the vice president, did I have a staffer who could help out with that – I had no idea what it was,” Johnson said. “I wasn’t even involved. I had no knowledge of an alternate state of electors.”

    His comment was part of perhaps the most memorable clash in their first debate last week. Barnes said that Johnson didn’t have any concern for the “140 officers that were injured in the January 6 insurrection.”

    “One officer was stabbed with a metal stake. Another crushed between a revolving door. Another hit in the head with a fire extinguisher,” Barnes said. “Let’s talk about the 140 officers that he left behind because of an insurrection that he supported.”

    Johnson said of the insurrection that he “immediately and forcefully and have repeatedly condemned it and condemned it strongly.”

    Barnes consistently led polls of the Senate race over the summer. But that edge has evaporated, more recent polls show – a change that has coincided with Republicans spending millions on TV ads focused on crime.

    A Marquette University Law School poll of Wisconsin released Wednesday showed movement among likely voters toward Johnson. The Republican led Barnes by 6 percentage points, 52% to 46%, among likely voters, the poll found. That’s a jump in Johnson’s favor from the neck-and-neck race the same poll found, with Johnson at 49% to Barnes’ 48%, in September.

    The poll’s results among likely voters are significantly more favorable to the GOP than are its results among all registered voters, suggesting substantial uncertainty hinging on Democrats’ ability to turn out less motivated supporters. By contrast, in Marquette’s latest results among all registered voters, Barnes and Johnson are tied at 47% in the Senate race.

    Other recent polls of the race have found likely voters deadlocked. In a CBS News/YouGov poll released Sunday, Johnson took 50% to Barnes’ 49% among likely voters.

    The Marquette poll found that inflation is a top issue in Wisconsin, with 68% of registered voters saying they are very concerned about it. Smaller majorities are also very concerned about public schools (60%), gun violence (60%), abortion policy (56%), crime (56%) and an “accurate vote count” (52%).

    But it’s crime that Republican strategists say has been central to Johnson’s rebound in the race.

    The attacks have taken place against the backdrop of rising violent crime figures, including a 70% increase in Wisconsin’s homicide rate from 2019 to 2021, according to the state’s Department of Justice. Republicans have also highlighted those convicted of violent crimes who have been paroled by the Wisconsin Parole Commission, an independent agency whose chairperson is appointed by the governor.

    “They don’t have an answer,” Brian Schimming, a Republican strategist in Wisconsin, said of Barnes’ campaign. “With Mandela Barnes, it’s not just one thing. It’s not anecdotal. There are three, four, five issues there that are not playing with an electorate that’s pretty concerned about crime right now, and not just if they’re in Milwaukee.”

    In the month of September, 61% of the nearly $9 million that Johnson and GOP groups spent on TV ads in the Wisconsin Senate race was behind ads focused on crime, according to data from the firm AdImpact.

    That share has dropped to 30% so far in October, but nine of the 14 ads that Republican groups have aired so far have been focused on crime.

    It has forced Democrats to respond. Barnes and Democratic groups have focused 40% of their TV ad spending so far in October on crime, with ads rebutting the GOP groups.

    The Republican attacks have focused on Barnes’ efforts as a state lawmaker to end cash bail, as well as a 2020 interview with PBS Wisconsin – weeks after the police killing of George Floyd in neighboring Minnesota – in which Barnes suggested that funding should be redirected from police budgets to other social services.

    “We need to invest more in neighborhood services and programming for our residents, for our communities on the front end,” he said then. “Where will that money come from? Well, it can come from over-bloated budgets in police departments.”

    He did, however, also stress in that same interview that he did not want police budgets completely done away with, saying, “The more money we invest in opportunity for people, the less money we have to spend on prisons.”

    One Johnson campaign ad shows video of Barnes saying that “reducing prison population is now sexy.” A narrator in the ad highlights Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ administration’s efforts to reduce the state’s prison population and says: “That’s not sexy. It’s terrifying. And as a mother, I don’t want Mandela Barnes anywhere near the Senate, from defunding our police to releasing predators.”

    Another Johnson spot features the sheriffs of Ozaukee and Waukesha counties, both huge sources of Republican votes in the Milwaukee suburbs.

    “Barnes wants to defund our police,” Waukesha County Sheriff Eric Severson says in the ad.

    “Mandela Barnes’ policies are a threat to your family,” Ozaukee County Sheriff Jim Johnson says.

    Barnes’ campaign has responded with ads of its own, including one in which Barnes says of GOP ads claiming he supports defunding the police, “That’s a lie.”

    “Mandela doesn’t want to defund the police,” a retired Racine Police Department sergeant says in another Barnes spot. “He’s very supportive of law enforcement and I know his objective is to make every community in the state of Wisconsin better.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Tulsi Gabbard, who sought 2020 Democratic nomination, says she’s leaving party | CNN Politics

    Tulsi Gabbard, who sought 2020 Democratic nomination, says she’s leaving party | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Former congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard announced on Tuesday that she is leaving the Democratic Party.

    For Gabbard, the announcement is the culmination of years in which she has been increasingly at odds with the Democratic Party and its policies.

    “I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party. It’s now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoking anti-white racism, who actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution,” Gabbard said in a video posted to social media. The announcement was made on the first episode of her new podcast, “The Tulsi Gabbard Show.”

    Gabbard, who made history by becoming the first American Samoan and practicing Hindu in Congress following her election in 2012, also criticized what she said were Democrats’ “open border” policies and anti-police rhetoric.

    The former congresswoman, who represented Hawaii’s 2nd district, has long been a unique and occasionally controversial voice in the Democratic Party.

    As one of the Democratic presidential contenders in the crowded 2020 field, she touted herself as an Iraq War veteran and staked out a distinctly anti-interventionist foreign policy. On the campaign trail, she blamed US intervention in Latin America for creating instability that triggered the surge in migration across the southern US border and was a co-sponsor of several bills aimed at keeping migrant families together at the border.

    And when Gabbard was running for president, Hillary Clinton suggested in an interview that she was being groomed to run as a third-party candidate and was a favorite of the Russians. Clinton suggested that the person she was talking about was a “Russian asset,” while not naming the Hawaii Democrat.

    Gabbard filed a defamation lawsuit over the matter that she subsequently dropped in May 2020.

    Gabbard endorsed Joe Biden after suspending her presidential campaign in 2020, but she has since been a vocal critic of the President and regularly appears on Fox News.

    “President Biden campaigned on a message of unity, healing the partisan divide bringing the country together. He just gave a big speech saying supporters of President (Donald) Trump are the most extremist group in our country and a threat to our democracy. That’s half the country,” she said in her announcement video on Tuesday.

    Gabbard also faced criticisms earlier this year from local Democrats who voted to condemn her “for participating in an event that raised funds that will harm Democrats across the country” after she spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

    The former congresswoman did not indicate which party she would be affiliated with moving forward but called on “independent-minded Democrats” to join her in leaving the Democratic Party.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Shooting outside NY GOP governor nominee’s home sharpens debate over crime and guns | CNN Politics

    Shooting outside NY GOP governor nominee’s home sharpens debate over crime and guns | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    A shooting that wounded two teenagers on the property of Rep. Lee Zeldin, the Republican nominee for governor of New York, was a disturbing development in a campaign that has seen him hammer Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul over public safety and a controversial bail reform law enacted more than three years ago.

    The random incident Sunday afternoon outside his Long Island house – his two 16-year-old daughters were inside, terrified but uninjured – provided Zeldin with an opportunity, however personally unwelcome, to sharpen his message on an issue for which concerns cross party lines and potential solutions have often defied typical partisan divides.

    “This is day after day after day,” Zeldin told Fox News on Monday. “And there are a lot of parents, there are a lot of families, dealing with this reality of rising crime in New York. For us, fortunately, my daughters knew exactly how to respond. But listen, they were just sitting there at the kitchen table doing homework and bullets started going off all around them.”

    An ally of former President Donald Trump, Zeldin has mostly run a one-issue campaign focused on crime and his criticism of the 2019 Democratic-led enactment of a bail reform law that made it more difficult for judges to keep some suspects behind bars. The law has been amended twice, but Republicans and some Democrats have pushed for more substantial revisions. While the backlash is real, Zeldin’s ability to parlay it into a winning message remains in doubt. He has struggled to break through with voters in deep-blue New York and Hochul has used his opposition to new gun restrictions to undermine his “soft on crime” attacks.

    Zeldin entered the general election at a clear disadvantage. There are more than twice as many registered Democrats in New York as Republicans, whose party has been hollowed out by a generation of cascading defeats. The last GOP victory in a statewide election came in 2002, when Gov. George Pataki won his third term in office. Hochul, nominally an incumbent after replacing disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo following his resignation last year amid a sexual harassment scandal, has distanced herself from her predecessor, but not the state’s Democratic donor apparatus, and has trounced Zeldin in fundraising.

    Zeldin has employed familiar GOP attacks against Hochul over the economy and inflation, but like other Republicans around the country, he sees an opening on the criminal justice front. Last November, months after he entered the GOP primary, Republicans won a pair of district attorney races in the New York City suburbs. In Nassau County, the incumbent Democratic executive was also unseated by a Republican. The backlash to bail reform played a central role in GOP messaging in those races.

    Zeldin has followed that roadmap. Perhaps, some critics suggest, too closely for a candidate whose path to an upset win requires a strong performance in the suburbs and upstate, but also a significant dent in the blue wall of New York City.

    For her part, Hochul has largely focused her broadsides against Zeldin on his ties to Trump and his opposition to abortion rights. (Zeldin has said he would not seek to change state law guaranteeing access to the procedure.) When pressed on the bail reform law, Hochul has pointed to the amendments passed by the legislature.

    Zeldin’s efforts to make hay over the controversy has been hamstrung by cash woes. Short on money, he turned to Trump for a fundraiser in early September. The event netted Zeldin’s campaign a reported $1.5 million but underscored a fundamental conundrum – Trump, and his wing of the Republican Party, are crucial drivers of campaign funds, but close public ties to them can be self-defeating in a state the former President lost by 23 points in 2020.

    “I don’t think Zeldin is in an impossible situation. In fact, I think he’s going to do better than expected,” said Kenneth Sherrill, a professor emeritus of political science at Hunter College. “But the campaign has been totally negative, hasn’t presented any positive reasons for supporting him. He says nothing about his record in prior offices. He says nothing about issues other than to attack. At some point, he has to explain why he’s a desirable alternative to Hochul.”

    Zeldin has found an unwilling ally of sorts in New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who, though he endorsed Hochul, has pilloried the state’s bail reform law and demanded lawmakers hold a special session in Albany to further restrict rules over pretrial detention. His ask was rejected.

    But Zeldin and Adams break sharply on gun violence, with the mayor – along with Hochul – pushing for stricter regulations on firearms. Zeldin criticized a new round of gun control measures passed in Albany and signed by Hochul this past summer that sought to circumvent a recent Supreme Court decision striking down some restrictions on concealed carry outside the home.

    “I think we need to separate a law-abiding New Yorker who wants to safely and securely carry a firearm for, solely, their self-defense and the criminals who want to carry firearms illegally and commit offense after offense after offense, harming others, and then because of the system in New York, they end up back on the street,” Zeldin told Fox News in an interview from early July.

    A federal court last week blocked enforcement of large chunks of the law. The ruling is being appealed by the state attorney general’s office.

    Early Sunday evening, Hochul tweeted a conciliatory note in response to the incident involving Zeldin’s family.

    “I’ve been briefed on the shooting outside of Congressman Zeldin’s home. As we await more details, I’m relieved to hear the Zeldin family is safe and grateful for law enforcement’s quick response,” Hochul said from her campaign’s Twitter account.

    The shooting marked the second time Zeldin has been thrust into the headlines by an act of violence. The first came over the summer, when a man wielding a sharp object accosted him onstage at a campaign event near Rochester. Zeldin was not hurt, and the alleged attacker was promptly subdued and arrested.

    Asked about the shooting on Monday, Hochul reiterated to reporters that her office had “sent our message right away” that the state police would be made available if desired to aid in the investigation.

    “It’s a reminder, we all have to work together to get guns off the streets,” she added. “And so I will continue, as I’ve been on this journey as governor, to do everything we can to ensure that our streets are safe. That is one of my highest priorities.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Why the GOP can’t count on Joe Biden’s low ratings to sink Democrats | CNN Politics

    Why the GOP can’t count on Joe Biden’s low ratings to sink Democrats | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    We are now under a month until Election Day, and you can feel the midterm campaign really taking hold. From Herschel Walker generating headlines for his troubles in Georgia to the Senate GOP campaign arm cutting bait in New Hampshire, we’re getting down to crunch time.

    All of this is happening with President Joe Biden’s approval rating stuck in the low-to-mid 40s. Democratic Senate nominees, though, still seem to be holding leads in a number of important battlegrounds (i.e., Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania) that are key to determining control of the chamber.

    So this got me thinking: In an era of high polarization, will Biden sink his party in these key races? A look back through recent history suggests that it may not.

    And that’s where we begin our view of the week in politics that was.

    This past week, CNN released polls conducted by SSRS in Arizona and Nevada. What was notable was that Biden’s approval rating was a mere 41% among likely voters in both states.

    Looking at that number, you’d think Democrats should be down considerably in both states. But in Arizona, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly clung to a narrow lead, while Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto was in a close race in Nevada.

    Indeed, these are not the only states where that is true. Recent polling from Georgia, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania shows Biden well south of a 50% approval rating, but the Democratic Senate nominees there are polling a good deal ahead of him.

    For Republicans hoping Biden’s numbers will drag the Democratic ticket into oblivion, history says to hold on for a second.

    The high correlation between how people feel about a president and how they vote for the Senate began in earnest in the 2010 cycle. That gives us two midterms to analyze whether Democrats can win with an unpopular Democratic president.

    It turns out there were at least eight Senate races in which the Democratic nominee won and the exit polls found the Democratic president (Barack Obama) with an approval rating below 50%.

    Three of these were in 2010 (Colorado, Nevada and West Virginia) and five were in 2014 (Illinois, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon and Virginia). Obama averaged an approval rating of 44% in these eight states. Democrats were able to emerge victorious in all of them.

    Now some of these (i.e., Illinois and Oregon) were blue states that aren’t politically comparable to the states Democrats need to win this year to maintain Senate control.

    But the other six were either swing states or flat-out red (i.e., West Virginia). Obama’s approval rating averaged 42% in these six states.

    The formula to win in these six states tended to be pretty simple: a very popular Democratic nominee (i.e., Joe Manchin in West Virginia) or an unpopular Republican nominee.

    Consider the three races that are probably the best analogies to this year’s races: Colorado and Nevada in 2010 and New Hampshire in 2014. Republicans Ken Buck of Colorado, Sharron Angle of Nevada and Scott Brown of New Hampshire all had negative net favorability (favorable minus unfavorable) ratings.

    (It was harder to get reliable data for Minnesota and Virginia, though it seems Republicans in those states were also underwater in terms of their favorable and unfavorable ratings.)

    Take a peek at recent 2022 polls from Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. They all share something in common: the Republican Senate candidate has a negative net favorability rating.

    The aforementioned CNN poll from Arizona is a perfect example. Republican Blake Masters had a net favorability rating of -16 points among likely voters. Kelly’s was +6 points.

    History has shown this is a recipe for success for Democrats. People vote for a Senate nominee of the president’s party when they like that nominee and dislike both the president and the other party’s Senate nominee.

    And it could be the recipe that saves Democrats’ Senate majority this year.

    A lot has been written about how polls have underestimated Republican strength in recent years. For Senate races, that might not have as big a consequence as you might think. In fact, Democrats would still win the Senate today if every state had the same polling miss it did in 2020.

    Less spoken about is the House. Even a small miss on the generic congressional ballot could have major consequences in terms of who controls that chamber.

    The generic congressional ballot usually asks respondents some form of the following question: “If the elections for Congress were held today, would you vote for the Democratic or Republican party?”

    The final generic congressional ballot aggregates have differed from the House popular vote by an average of about 3 points since 2000. That may not seem like a lot, but consider this: Every extra point swing in the national House vote is worth about three to four seats. So an average error of 3 points could be worth upward of 12 House seats.

    A generic ballot error like we had in 2020 (4 points) could be worth upward of 16 seats. That’s why the House forecasts in 2020 underestimated Republicans so much. The national environment was 4 points more Republican than what the polls indicated.

    Right now, Democrats and Republicans are tied on the generic congressional ballot of the national House vote. One estimate from FiveThirtyEight suggests that would result in an evenly divided House in terms of seats.

    So if the generic ballot ends up being off by the same margin this year as it was two years ago and if the current polling holds through the election, Republicans could be looking at a gain north of 20 House seats.

    Of course, it’s worth considering whether Democrats’ position on the generic ballot underestimates their standing nationally.

    Recent special elections have suggested a political environment that leans in their favor. If they were able to win the national House popular vote by a few points, they’d be clear favorites to hold on to the chamber.

    That is one reason why, as a number of smart people have said, it is time to seriously consider the possibility of Democrats holding the House. It’s still not likely, but it’s realistic.

    Growing up, many of you may have marked Columbus’ birthday each year. A CNN poll from 1992 showed that 57% of Americans thought the country should be celebrating the 500th anniversary of his voyage to America.

    Last year, however, only 27% of Americans told Ipsos that they planned to observe Columbus Day in the upcoming year.

    The change in celebrating Columbus comes as views of him have shifted in the last 30 years. A 1991 Gallup poll found that 59% of Americans believed Columbus first discovered America, compared with 14% for Leif Erikson and 7% for American Indians/Native Americans.

    In 2014, 49% of Americans said American Indians/Native Americans deserved the most credit, according to a CBS News survey. Columbus’ share dropped to 40%.

    Views split on Covid-19 communication: A bare majority (51%) told the Pew Research Center that public officials have done an excellent or good job of communicating with the public about the coronavirus outbreak. A similar 49% said public officials have done a poor or only a fair job.

    We’re becoming a cashless society: Just 24% of Americans had never used cash in a typical week back in 2015, according to Pew. That’s up to 41% this year.

    Flying the flag: Most Americans (55%) said in a Marist College poll that they display the American flag on their property for at least some of the year. There was a partisan split: 75% of Republicans do so compared with 43% of Democrats.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Trump’s visit to small Nevada town highlights importance of rural voters to state Republicans | CNN Politics

    Trump’s visit to small Nevada town highlights importance of rural voters to state Republicans | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    When former President Donald Trump touched down in Minden, Nevada, on Saturday to campaign for a slate of Republican candidates, he landed in a town of just under 3,500 people – about 0.1% of the state’s population.

    It’s a tiny stop for the former President, who rode stronger-than-expected turnout in rural stretches of the country like Minden to the White House in 2016. But it highlights just how important rural counties are to Nevada Republicans such as Senate nominee Adam Laxalt and gubernatorial hopeful Joe Lombardo in the critical midterm elections.

    “We believe that rural Nevada is the key to turning our state back,” Laxalt said during a stop late last year in Winnemucca, a mining town of under 8,000 people in northern Humboldt County.

    Nevada, which Trump lost twice, represents one of the biggest tests for Democratic power in the 2022 midterms. The party holds all but one statewide office in Nevada, and Democratic presidential nominees have carried the state in every election since 2008, buoyed by the strength of the late Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid’s so-called Reid Machine. But those Democratic margins have been declining and after closures around the coronavirus pandemic dramatically affected Nevada’s tourism-centric economy, Republicans see a strong chance to make gains in the state, hanging their hopes on Lombardo’s bid to unseat Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak and Laxalt’s challenge to Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.

    A CNN poll released on Thursday found no clear leader in either race: Laxalt and Lombardo had the support of 48% of likely voters compared with 46% for Cortez Masto and Sisolak.

    The same poll was littered with warning signs for Democrats. Forty-four percent of registered Nevada voters said the country would be better off if Republicans are in control of Congress, compared with 35% who said it wouldn’t be. More Republican voters in Nevada said they were extremely motivated to vote – 62% versus 52% for Democrats. And 41% of voters said the economy was the most important issue in the midterms, something Republicans have used to hammer Democrats.

    Nevada has been home to one of the most dramatic and politically important urban-rural divides in recent years. And that split could prove even more pivotal in November, given the tightness of the Senate and gubernatorial contests.

    Rural voters make up a tiny fraction of Nevada’s electorate, with the state’s major urban centers – Clark County, home to Las Vegas, and Washoe County, home to Reno – making up nearly 90% of Nevada’s population of some 3.1 million. According to a study by Iowa State University, Nevada’s rural population fell from nearly 20% of the state in 1970 to less than 6% in 2010.

    The urbanization of Nevada has long allowed Democratic candidates in the state to run on one strategy: Run up the vote total around Las Vegas, win narrowly or at least stay competitive in the Reno area and lose big in rural Nevada. Cortez Masto, the first Latina elected to the Senate, followed this strategy in 2016 when she lost every Nevada county, except Clark, but still won a first term by over 2 points.

    In recent years, that strategy paid even greater dividends as Washoe County, the second largest in the state, has tilted toward Democrats. Democratic presidential candidates have carried Washoe County in the last four presidential elections, while Sisolak and the state’s junior senator, Jacky Rosen, both won the county in 2018.

    That has put more pressure on Nevada Republicans to not only close the gap in Clark and Washoe counties but to also boost as much turnout as possible in rural areas.

    Whether that “rural first” strategy can even lead to wins any more is an open question, according to David Damore, a political science professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

    “It’s a huge part of the Republican playbook, but every year it is smaller and smaller,” he said of GOP attempts to turn out rural voters. “It’s all about cutting the margin in Clark. What has happened is, even though Trump did that last time, Washoe is becoming more liberal. … It is a little bit of a whack-a-mole game for Republicans.”

    Laxalt knows the pressure he faces firsthand. When he successfully ran for state attorney general in 2014, he became the only statewide candidate in recent decades to lose both Clark and Washoe counties but win the election when he narrowly defeated Democrat Ross Miller.

    Laxalt did what a statewide Republican candidate needed do in Nevada in that race: He kept the margins down in Clark and Washoe – losing the former by less than 6 points and the latter by 1 point – and posted strong margins across the rest of the state.

    Laxalt also knows it’s not a perfect strategy. Nevada’s increased urbanization has put a strain on that rural-focused strategy as evidenced by Laxalt’s 4-point loss to Sisolak in 2018. In that race, Laxalt once again lost both Clark and Washoe, but this time by wider margins, including losing the Las Vegas area by nearly 14 points.

    Laxalt, on multiple tours through rural Nevada during his Senate campaign, has stressed the area’s importance to his success. At the same time, he’s had to walk a fine line between raising false claims about the validity of the 2020 election, including Republican concerns about vote-counting in Clark County, and the need to boost rural turnout. Laxalt has done so by raising baseless questions about Clark County elections while stressing to rural voters that their votes matter.

    “In the end of the day, rural Nevada can provide 75,000-vote cushions, so rural Nevada still matters,” he told an audience in Fallon in late 2021. “Rural Nevada is discouraged. They think Vegas is all that matters. Not true. The vote block out of rural Nevada still makes a huge difference.”

    Brian Freimuth, a spokesman for Laxalt, said in a statement that the Republican’s effort “is the most well-traveled campaign in the state” and has “hosted events in every rural county, dozens of rural meet & greets, a cattle drive, and events with ranchers and farmers.”

    “Rural Nevadans know that Adam’s record on water rights, the second amendment, sage grouse, and fighting federal overreach make him the best candidate in this race,” said Freimuth.

    Cortez Masto, arguably the most vulnerable Democratic Senate incumbent in the country, has focused much of her campaign on tying Laxalt to Trump. Laxalt, who was a co-chair of Trump’s 2020 campaign in Nevada, was central to filing election lawsuits seeking to overturn the presidential result in the state, which Biden won by 2 points. Those lawsuits did not change the election result.

    Cortez Masto has also looked to cut into Laxalt’s advantage in rural areas.

    A former state attorney general herself, she embarked on a rural tour of Nevada in August, campaigning in communities such as Ely, Elko, Winnemucca and Fallon – all with populations of less than 20,000 people.

    “When I became your US senator, it was just as important to me to get out and talk to Nevadans, because here’s the deal: To me, it is about all of us succeeding and that rising tide lifting all of us,” she said in Ely. “At the end of the day, your party affiliation, your background is about making sure your families are successful, your businesses are successful, we’re all in this together.”

    Cortez Masto has been endorsed by several rural Republican leaders, such as former Winnemucca Mayor Di An Putnam and Ely Mayor Nathan Robertson, who said in a statement that the incumbent will “continue working hard in the Senate to champion issues important to all rural Nevadans.”

    In response to a question from CNN about Trump rallying with Laxalt in rural Nevada, Cortez Masto spokesman Josh Marcus-Blank said, “No one did more to overturn the 2020 election for Donald Trump than Adam Laxalt, and he is once again being rewarded.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

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

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

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    This headline and story have been updated.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Election denier Kari Lake has a real shot of winning a swing state governorship | CNN Politics

    Election denier Kari Lake has a real shot of winning a swing state governorship | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    One of the big questions heading into the 2022 cycle had been how Republican candidates would or not reflect the GOP base when it came to views of the 2020 election. Poll after poll has shown that a clear majority of Republicans falsely believe that President Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election.

    Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that a lot of Republicans running for office believe this as well. But could any of of those candidates end up running states where elections tend to be close? For the most part, the answer is no. Most election deniers running for governor have only a small chance of winning or are from states former President Donald Trump easily won.

    There is one big exception: GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake of Arizona. In the second-closest state of the 2020 presidential election, Lake is neck and neck with Democratic nominee Katie Hobbs.

    Three polls out this past week, which were all well within the margin of error, illustrate the point well. A CBS News/YouGov poll had Lake and Hobbs tied at 49%. Fox’s poll put Hobbs at 44% to Lake’s 43%. Marist College had Lake at 46% and Hobbs at 45%.

    These polls are representative of the average of all polling that has the candidates running basically even.

    Lake is running considerably stronger than Blake Masters, the the state’s GOP nominee for US Senate. Masters trails his Democratic opponent, Sen. Mark Kelly, by more than 5 points in in the average of all polling.

    You might be thinking that Masters is somehow more extreme than Lake. That’s not clear at all, at least when it comes to the 2020 election.

    On that issue, Lake – like Masters – is an election denier. Indeed, that’s what makes Lake so unique. There are other Republicans who are in a position to win the governorship of close 2020 states this year, and nearly all of them have either tried to have it both ways on the most recent presidential election (i.e. raising doubts about the legitimacy, but not saying it was stolen) or have accepted the 2020 results.

    The other full-out election deniers running for governor in 2020 swing states this year are Tudor Dixon in Michigan and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania. Both trail their Democratic opponents – Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, respectively – by double digits in the average of polls. Mastriano is now running well behind the Republican nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, Mehmet Oz, despite Oz stumbling out of the gate after the primary. (Oz, who was endorsed by Trump in the primary, said he would have voted to certify the 2020 election result.)

    In fact, 2020 election denial has been a hallmark of losing gubernatorial campaigns in swing or blue states. Blue-state Republicans Dan Cox in Maryland and Geoff Diehl in Massachusetts are getting blown out by their opponents in the polls, even though the current and departing governors of their respective states are Republicans.

    You might be tempted to think that Lake has a chance because voters in the Grand Canyon State believe the 2020 election was stolen. That does not appear to be the case. An August Fox poll found that only 28% of voters were not at all confident that votes in the 2020 election were cast legitimately and counted fairly.

    Additionally, the Marist poll showed that a mere 6% of voters are not at all confident that the 2022 election in Arizona will not be run fairly and accurately. Another 23% are not very confident; the vast majority (71%) are confident it will be.

    So what is Lake’s secret? Part of it may be that her past as a television anchor is paying off. She seems to be doing a good enough job reaching voters in the middle of the electorate.

    Lake needs merely to stay competitive with independents to win Arizona. Unlike many other battleground states, a plurality of Arizona voters are Republican. This means Democratic candidates usually need some mixture of winning more Republican voters than Republican candidates winning Democratic voters and winning independents by a wide margin. Put another way, Lake can win even if she loses independents and retains less of her base than Hobbs.

    In the Marist poll, for example, Kelly holds a 17-point lead with independents. Hobbs is up just 2 points among them.

    But Lake’s standing may have more to do with the fact that 2020 election denialism isn’t as much of an important factor to voters as we might think when it comes to voting in elections for state office. While just 18% of voters said in the CBS News poll that they wanted elected officials in Arizona to say Biden didn’t win in 2020, another 41% said it didn’t matter. This means the majority of Arizona voters (59%) don’t seem to mind or actually like it when someone running for office denies the reality of the 2020 election.

    A further look at the numbers indicates that the GOP could easily win the secretary of state races in Arizona (Mark Finchem) and in next-door Nevada (Joe Marchant). The Republicans running for both those posts have denied the results of the 2020 election as they aim to become the chief election officers in their given states.

    It’s also the case that Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson voted against certifying the 2020 election and is a slight favorite to win another term against Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes. Likewise, Nevada’s Adam Laxalt has raised questions about the 2020 election and played a leading role in post-election legal efforts to reverse Biden’s victory in the state. He’s in a tight race with Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.

    Neither of those GOP Senate candidates are vying to lead a swing state, though. And the name recognition for the aforementioned secretary of state candidates is significantly lower than it is for Lake.

    Lake is quite competitive as an election denier, despite being well known and running for a real position of power when it comes to elections. If she and Finchem win, the two officials in charge of election certification in Arizona will be on the record denying the reality of the 2020 election.

    That could be quite a big deal in two years’ time, if another close presidential election – like 2020’s between Biden and Trump – is on the line and Arizona is once again in the mix.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • The most important Senate race in the country | CNN Politics

    The most important Senate race in the country | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    The Senate playing field has narrowed in recent weeks, with both parties focusing heavily on Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania as the three races most likely to decide which party has the majority come January 2023.

    Picking which race is most critical of those three is a tough task. But for my money, it’s in Pennsylvania, where Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Dr. Mehmet Oz are competing for the seat being vacated by retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey.

    Why do I see Pennsylvania as the first among equals? A few reasons:

    1) Pennsylvania could well be the biggest battleground of the 2024 presidential race – especially if Joe Biden and Donald Trump run again.

    2) Oz is a candidate directly out of Trumpworld’s central casting. A longtime TV doctor and celebrity, he won the primary thanks to an endorsement from the former President. Now the question becomes whether Oz’s style of conservatism can sell in a general election.

    3) Fetterman is an unapologetic liberal. Rather than hedge those positions or hide them in a general election, he’s leaned into them. That’s a blueprint liberals have long argued can be successful, even in a swing state like Pennsylvania. Fetterman’s candidacy is a test case for that theory.

    4) Both national parties are heavily invested in this race – testing messaging for the inevitable fight to come in 2024.

    What’s clear about the race is that Fetterman led by mid-to-high single digits for much of the spring and summer as Oz was battered in a primary that he narrowly won – and struggled to united Republicans even after he became the nominee.

    But of late – thanks to a coordinated attack on Fetterman’s record on crime and lingering questions about his health following a stroke he suffered in the spring – Oz has crept back.

    The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, a nonpartisan campaign tipsheet, shifted its rating of the race to “lean Democrat” roughly six weeks ago. But on Tuesday, the rating moved back to “toss up.”

    Senate editor Jessica Taylor explained:

    “In conversations with several GOP strategists and lawmakers – who a month and a half ago had begun to put the Keystone State in the loss column – this has emerged as a margin-of-error race that they once again see winnable. Republicans and Democrats alike admit the race has tightened and that Pennsylvania could be the tipping point state for the Senate majority.”

    So, with exactly five weeks left in this campaign, we have a tie (or something close to it) in a critical swing state between two candidates who represent drastically different visions of what the future of the country should look like.

    That seems pretty important to me.

    The Point: The fight for Senate control now seems very likely to come down to just a handful of races that are nip and tuck right now. And none is more important than Pennsylvania.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2022 | CNN Politics

    The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2022 | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    The race for the Senate is in the eye of the beholder less than six weeks from Election Day, with ads about abortion, crime and inflation dominating the airwaves in key states as campaigns test the theory of the 2022 election.

    The cycle started out as a referendum on President Joe Biden – an easy target for Republicans, who need a net gain of just one seat to flip the evenly divided chamber. Then the US Supreme Court’s late June decision overturning Roe v. Wade gave Democrats the opportunity to paint a contrast as Republicans struggled to explain their support for an abortion ruling that the majority of the country opposes. Former President Donald Trump’s omnipresence in the headlines gave Democrats another foil.

    But the optimism some Democrats felt toward the end of the summer, on the heels of Biden’s legislative wins and the galvanizing high court decision, has been tempered slightly by the much anticipated tightening of some key races as political advertising ramps up on TV and voters tune in after Labor Day.

    Republicans, who have midterm history on their side as the party out of the White House, have hammered Biden and Democrats for supporting policies they argue exacerbate inflation. Biden’s approval rating stands at 41% with 54% disapproving in the latest CNN Poll of Polls, which tracks the average of recent surveys. And with some prices inching back up after a brief hiatus, the economy and inflation – which Americans across the country identify as their top concern in multiple polls – are likely to play a crucial role in deciding voters’ preferences.

    But there’s been a steady increase in ads about crime too as the GOP returns to a familiar criticism, depicting Democrats as weak on public safety. Cops have been ubiquitous in TV ads this cycle – candidates from both sides of the aisle have found law enforcement officers to testify on camera to their pro-police credentials. Democratic ads also feature women talking about the threat of a national abortion ban should the Senate fall into GOP hands, while Republicans have spent comparatively less trying to portray Democrats as the extremists on the topic.

    While the issue sets have fluctuated, the Senate map hasn’t changed. Republicans’ top pickup opportunities have always been Nevada, Georgia, Arizona and New Hampshire – all states that Biden carried in 2020. In two of those states, however, the GOP has significant problems, although the states themselves keep the races competitive. Arizona nominee Blake Masters is now without the support of the party’s major super PAC, which thinks its money can be better spent elsewhere, including in New Hampshire, where retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc is far from the nominee the national GOP had wanted. But this is the time of year when poor fundraising can really become evident since TV ad rates favor candidates and a super PAC gets much less bang for its buck.

    The race for Senate control may come down to three states: Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania, all of which are rated as “Toss-up” races by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales. As Republicans look to flip the Senate, which Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has called a “50-50 proposition,” they’re trying to pick up the first two and hold on to the latter.

    Senate Democrats’ path to holding their majority lies with defending their incumbents. Picking off a GOP-held seat like Pennsylvania – still the most likely to flip in CNN’s ranking – would help mitigate any losses. Wisconsin, where GOP Sen. Ron Johnson is vying for a third term, looks like Democrats’ next best pickup opportunity, but that race drops in the rankings this month as Republican attacks take a toll on the Democratic nominee in the polls.

    These rankings are based on CNN’s reporting, fundraising and advertising data, and polling, as well as historical data about how states and candidates have performed. It will be updated one more time before Election Day.

    Incumbent: Republican Pat Toomey (retiring)

    Sarah Silbiger/Pool/Getty Images

    The most consistent thing about CNN’s rankings, dating back to 2021, has been Pennsylvania’s spot in first place. But the race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey has tightened since the primaries in May, when Republican Mehmet Oz emerged badly bruised from a nasty intraparty contest. In a CNN Poll of Polls average of recent surveys in the state, Democrat John Fetterman, the state lieutenant governor, had the support of 50% of likely voters to Oz’s 45%. (The Poll of Polls is an average of the four most recent nonpartisan surveys of likely voters that meet CNN’s standards.) Fetterman is still overperforming Biden, who narrowly carried Pennsylvania in 2020. Fetterman’s favorability ratings are also consistently higher than Oz’s.

    One potential trouble spot for the Democrat: More voters in a late September Franklin and Marshall College Poll viewed Oz has having policies that would improve voters’ economic circumstances, with the economy and inflation remaining the top concern for voters across a range of surveys. But nearly five months after the primary, the celebrity surgeon still seems to have residual issues with his base. A higher percentage of Democrats were backing Fetterman than Republicans were backing Oz in a recent Fox News survey, for example, with much of that attributable to lower support from GOP women than men. Fetterman supporters were also much more enthusiastic about their candidate than Oz supporters.

    Republicans have been hammering Fetterman on crime, specifically his tenure on the state Board of Pardons: An ad from the Senate Leadership Fund features a Bucks County sheriff saying, “Protect your family. Don’t vote Fetterman.” But the lieutenant governor is also using sheriffs on camera to defend his record. And with suburban voters being a crucial demographic, Democratic advertising is also leaning into abortion, like this Senate Majority PAC ad that features a female doctor as narrator and plays Oz’s comments from during the primary about abortion being “murder.” Oz’s campaign has said that he supports exceptions for “the life of the mother, rape and incest” and that “he’d want to make sure that the federal government is not involved in interfering with the state’s decisions on the topic.”

    Incumbent: Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto

    02 democrat immigration legislation 0717

    CNN

    Republicans have four main pickup opportunities – and right now, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s seat looks like one of their best shots. Biden carried Nevada by a slightly larger margin than two of those other GOP-targeted states, but the Silver State’s large transient population adds a degree of uncertainty to this contest.

    Republicans have tried to tie the first-term senator to Washington spending and inflation, which may be particularly resonant in a place where average gas prices are now back up to over $5 a gallon. Democrats are zeroing in on abortion rights and raising the threat that a GOP-controlled Senate could pass a national abortion ban. Former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt – the rare GOP nominee to have united McConnell and Trump early on – called the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling a “joke” before the Supreme Court overturned the decision in June. Democrats have been all too happy to use that comment against him, but Laxalt has tried to get around those attacks by saying he does not support a national ban and pointing out that the right to an abortion is settled law in Nevada.

    Incumbent: Democrat Raphael Warnock

    Sen Raphael Warnock 10 senate seats

    Megan Varner/Getty Images

    The closer we get to Election Day, the more we need to talk about the Georgia Senate race going over the wire. If neither candidate receives a majority of the vote in November, the contest will go to a December runoff. There was no clear leader in a recent Marist poll that had Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who’s running for a full six-year term, and Republican challenger Herschel Walker both under 50% among those who say they definitely plan to vote.

    Warnock’s edge from earlier this cycle has narrowed, which bumps this seat up one spot on the rankings. The good news for Warnock is that he’s still overperforming Biden’s approval numbers in a state that the President flipped in 2020 by less than 12,000 votes. And so far, he seems to be keeping the Senate race closer than the gubernatorial contest, for which several polls have shown GOP Gov. Brian Kemp ahead. Warnock’s trying to project a bipartisan image that he thinks will help him hold on in what had until recently been a reliably red state. Standing waist-deep in peanuts in one recent ad, he touts his work with Alabama GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville to “eliminate the regulations,” never mentioning his own party. But Republicans have continued to try to tie the senator to his party – specifically for voting for measures in Washington that they claim have exacerbated inflation.

    Democrats are hoping that enough Georgians won’t see voting for Walker as an option – even if they do back Kemp. Democrats have amped up their attacks on domestic violence allegations against the former football star and unflattering headlines about his business record. And all eyes will be on the mid-October debate to see how Walker, who has a history of making controversial and illogical comments, handles himself onstage against the more polished incumbent.

    Incumbent: Republican Ron Johnson

    Sen Ron Johnson 10 senate seats

    Leigh VogelPool/Getty Images

    Sen. Ron Johnson is the only Republican running for reelection in a state Biden won in 2020 – in fact, he broke his own term limits pledge to run a third time, saying he believed America was “in peril.” And although Johnson has had low approval numbers for much of the cycle, Democrats have underestimated him before. This contest moves down one spot on the ranking as Johnson’s race against Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has tightened, putting the senator in a better position.

    Barnes skated through the August primary after his biggest opponents dropped out of the race, but as the nominee, he’s faced an onslaught of attacks, especially on crime, using against him his past words about ending cash bail and redirecting some funding from police budgets to social services. Barnes has attempted to answer those attacks in his ads, like this one featuring a retired police sergeant who says he knows “Mandela doesn’t want to defund the police.”

    A Marquette University Law School poll from early September showed no clear leader, with Johnson at 49% and Barnes at 48% among likely voters, which is a tightening from the 7-point edge Barnes enjoyed in the same poll’s August survey. Notably, independents were breaking slightly for Johnson after significantly favoring Barnes in the August survey. The effect of the GOP’s anti-Barnes advertising can likely be seen in the increasing percentage of registered voters in a late September Fox News survey who view the Democrat as “too extreme,” putting him on parity with Johnson on that question. Johnson supporters are also much more enthusiastic about their candidate.

    Incumbent: Democrat Mark Kelly

    Mark Kelly AZ 1103

    Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images

    Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who’s running for a full six-year term after winning a 2020 special election, is still one of the most vulnerable Senate incumbents in a state that has only recently grown competitive on the federal level. But Republican nominee Blake Masters is nowhere close to rivaling Kelly in fundraising, and major GOP outside firepower is now gone. After canceling its September TV reservations in Arizona to redirect money to Ohio, the Senate Leadership Fund has cut its October spending too.

    Other conservative groups are spending for Masters but still have work to do to hurt Kelly, a well-funded incumbent with a strong personal brand. Kelly led Masters 51% to 41% among registered voters in a September Marist poll, although that gap narrowed among those who said they definitely plan to vote. A Fox survey from a little later in the month similarly showed Kelly with a 5-point edge among those certain to vote, just within the margin of error.

    Masters has attempted to moderate his abortion position since winning his August primary, buoyed by a Trump endorsement, but Kelly has continued to attack him on the issue. And a recent court decision allowing the enforcement of a 1901 state ban on nearly all abortions has given Democrats extra fodder to paint Republicans as a threat to women’s reproductive rights.

    Incumbent: Republican Richard Burr (retiring)

    Sen Richard Burr 10 senate seats

    Demetrius Freeman/Pool/Getty Images

    North Carolina slides up one spot on the rankings, trading places with New Hampshire. The open-seat race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Richard Burr hasn’t generated as much national buzz as other states given that Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat in the state since 2008.

    But it has remained a tight contest with Democrat Cheri Beasley, who is bidding to become the state’s first Black senator, facing off against GOP Rep. Ted Budd, for whom Trump recently campaigned. Beasley lost reelection as state Supreme Court chief justice by only about 400 votes in 2020 when Trump narrowly carried the Tar Heel state. But Democrats hope that she’ll be able to boost turnout among rural Black voters who might not otherwise vote during a midterm election and that more moderate Republicans and independents will see Budd as too extreme. One of Beasley’s recent spots features a series of mostly White, gray-haired retired judges in suits endorsing her as “someone different” while attacking Budd as being a typical politician out for himself.

    Budd is leaning into current inflation woes, specifically going after Biden in some ads that feature half-empty shopping carts, without even mentioning Beasley. Senate Leadership Fund is doing the work of trying to tie the Democrat to Washington – one recent spot almost makes her look like the incumbent in the race, superimposing her photo over an image of the US Capitol and displaying her face next to Biden’s. Both SLF and Budd are also targeting Beasley over her support for Democrats’ recently enacted health care, tax and climate bill. “Liberal politician Cheri Beasley is coming for you – and your wallet,” the narrator from one SLF ad intones, before later adding, “Beasley’s gonna knock on your door with an army of new IRS agents.” (The new law increases funding for the IRS, including for audits. But Democrats and the Trump-appointed IRS commissioner have said the intention is to go after wealthy tax cheats, not the middle class.)

    Incumbent: Democrat Maggie Hassan

    Sen Maggie Hassan 10 senate seats

    Erin Scott/Getty Images

    A lot has been made of GOP candidate quality this cycle. But there are few states where the difference between the nominee Republicans have and the one they’d hoped to have has altered these rankings quite as much as New Hampshire.

    Retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, who lost a 2020 GOP bid for the state’s other Senate seat, won last month’s Republican primary to take on first-term Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan. The problem for him, though, is that he doesn’t have much money to wage that fight. Bolduc had raised a total of $579,000 through August 24 compared with Hassan’s $31.4 million. Senate Leadership Fund is on air in New Hampshire to boost the GOP nominee – attacking Hassan for voting with Biden and her support of her party’s health care, tax and climate package. But because super PACs get much less favorable TV advertising rates than candidates, those millions won’t go anywhere near as far as Hassan’s dollars will.

    A year ago, Republicans were still optimistic that Gov. Chris Sununu would run for Senate, giving them a popular abortion rights-supporting nominee in a state that’s trended blue in recent federal elections. Bolduc told WMUR after his primary win that he’d vote against a national abortion ban. But ads from Hassan and Senate Majority PAC have seized on his suggestion in the same interview that the senator should “get over” the abortion issue. Republicans recognize that abortion is a salient factor in a state Biden carried by 7 points, but they also argue that the election – as Bolduc said to WMUR – will be about the economy and that Hassan is an unpopular and out-of-touch incumbent.

    Hassan led Bolduc 49% to 41% among likely voters in a Granite State Poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. The incumbent has consolidated Democratic support, but only 83% of Republicans said they were with Bolduc, the survey found. Still, some of those Republicans, like those who said they were undecided, could come home to the GOP nominee as the general election gets closer, which means Bolduc has room to grow. He’ll need more than just Republicans to break his way, however, which is one reason he quickly pivoted on the key issue of whether the 2020 election was stolen days after he won the primary.

    Incumbent: Republican Rob Portman (retiring)

    Sen Rob Portman 10 senate seats

    TING SHEN/AFP/POOL/Getty Images

    Ohio – a state that twice voted for Trump by 8 points – isn’t supposed to be on this list at No. 8, above Florida, which backed the former President by much narrower margins. But it’s at No. 8 for the second month in a row. Republican nominee J.D. Vance’s poor fundraising has forced Senate Leadership Fund to redirect millions from other races to Ohio to shore him up and attack Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democratic nominee who had the airwaves to himself all summer. The 10-term congressman has been working to distance himself from his party in most of his ads, frequently mentioning that he “voted with Trump on trade” and criticizing the “defund the police” movement. Vance is finally on the air, trying to poke some holes in Ryan’s image.

    But polling still shows a tight race with no clear leader. Ryan had an edge with independents in a recent Siena College/Spectrum News poll, which also showed that Vance – Trump’s pick for the nomination – has more work to do to consolidate GOP support after an ugly May primary. Assuming he makes up that support and late undecided voters break his way, Vance will likely hold the advantage in the end given the Buckeye State’s solidifying red lean.

    Incumbent: Republican Marco Rubio

    Sen Marco Rubio 10 senate seats

    DREW ANGERER/AFP/POOL/Getty Images

    Democrats face an uphill battle against GOP Sen. Marco Rubio in an increasingly red-trending state, which Trump carried by about 3 points in 2020 – nearly tripling his margin from four years earlier.

    Democratic Rep. Val Demings, who easily won the party’s nomination in August, is a strong candidate who has even outraised the GOP incumbent, but not by enough to seriously jeopardize his advantage. She’s leaning into her background as the former Orlando police chief – it features prominently in her advertising, in which she repeatedly rejects the idea of defunding the police. Still, Rubio has tried to tie her to the “radical left” in Washington to undercut her own law enforcement background.

    Incumbent: Democrat Michael Bennet

    Sen Michael Bennett 10 senate seats

    DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/AFP/POOL/Getty Images

    Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet is no stranger to tough races. In 2016, he only won reelection by 6 points against an underfunded GOP challenger whom the national party had abandoned. Given GOP fundraising challenges in some of their top races, the party hasn’t had the resources to seriously invest in the Centennial State this year.

    But in his bid for a third full term, Bennet is up against a stronger challenger in businessman Joe O’Dea, who told CNN he disagreed with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. His wife and daughter star in his ads as he tries to cut a more moderate profile and vows not to vote the party line in Washington.

    Bennet, however, is attacking O’Dea for voting for a failed 2020 state ballot measure to ban abortion after 22 weeks of pregnancy and arguing that whatever O’Dea says about supporting abortion rights, he’d give McConnell “the majority he needs” to pass a national abortion ban.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Opinion: A piece of paradise lost | CNN

    Opinion: A piece of paradise lost | CNN

    [ad_1]

    Editor’s Note: Sign up to get this weekly column as a newsletter. We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets.



    CNN
     — 

    “Buy land,” the saying goes, “they’re not making it anymore.”

    Variously attributed to Mark Twain and Will Rogers, the advice fits well with the national fixation on real estate, home values and location, location, location. The scarcity of land that can be developed – and surging demand for desirable locations – drove US median home prices over $400,000 for the first time last quarter before interest rate hikes started cooling the market.

    In Florida, a warm climate, expansive coastline and low taxes helped fuel a long-term boom, making it the third most populous state. As Hurricane Ian carved an awful path of destruction through the center of the state last week, the damage to people and property was severe. At least 66 people died, homes and businesses were destroyed and for many people, power may be out for weeks.

    Florida tightened its building standards after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Andrew in 1992 but even with stronger structures, there’s little chance of avoiding catastrophic damage when 150 mph winds, torrential rain and steep storm surges hit a populated area.

    “The simple fact is that when more people are exposed to a natural hazard such as a hurricane,” wrote Stephen Strader, an associate professor of geography and the environment at Villanova University, “the odds for a major disaster to occur are greater. As our population and built environment grows and expands, we are more readily placing ourselves in harm’s way. The wetlands and mangroves that once acted as natural ‘buffers’ to the rising waters and waves that come with hurricanes are now shrinking or gone. They have been replaced by subdivisions.”

    Strader traces Florida’s boom back to the early 1910s, when “a man named Carl Fisher (best known as the automobile magnate responsible for building the Indianapolis Motor Speedway) decided to take a vacation on what is now known as Miami Beach.”

    “He quickly realized the moneymaking opportunity at hand, buying, clearing and filling in thousands of acres of swamps and mangroves to make way for new waterfront property where investors would line up for the foreseeable future to build homes and hotels for those seeking a piece of paradise,” wrote Strader.

    Clay Jones/CNN

    “There are very few things that test political leaders like natural disasters,” Julian Zelizer pointed out. “When mother nature wreaks havoc, presidents, governors, and legislators are forced to deploy resources to address the dire needs of those affected….”

    “At the federal level, President Joe Biden needs to demonstrate he has the leadership and rigorous governing skills that are necessary to help Florida out of this mess,” Zelizer added. “At the state level, Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is billed as a potential Republican presidential nominee for 2024, needs to show that he can achieve more than political stunts like the one he orchestrated earlier this month when he sent migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard.”

    As Jack Shafer, writing for Politico, noted, DeSantis sounded a different tone this week, promising to work with the Biden administration to help his battered state recover. “In throttling back on the vitriol, DeSantis proves himself a wiser politician than (former President Donald) Trump, the man who reset politics in 2016 to establish senseless fight-picking and name-calling as part of the normal political arsenal and allowing somebody like DeSantis to rise. Trump, unlike DeSantis, never figured out how to turn off the meshugana theatrics, even when it could have benefited him. Imagine if, for example, Trump had approached the Covid crisis with the reassuring cool of Barack Obama instead of roasting the issue in a bonfire every time he called a presser. He might still be president today.”

    Puerto Rico is still recovering from Hurricane Fiona, which was cited as a factor in at least 25 deaths, according to the island’s health department.

    “Nearly five years to the day since Maria slammed our island, on September 18 of this year, Hurricane Fiona delivered yet another knockout punch,” wrote Brenda Rivera-García, senior director of Latin America and Caribbean programs for Americares.

    “With Maria, we thought we experienced a 100-year flood. But, after only a half-decade later, it seems another century of water has enveloped us: Maria dumped more than three dozen inches of rain in some parts of the island over two days and last week Hurricane Fiona drowned us with 31 inches in a 72-hour period. A week after the storm, nearly 20% of the island was still without potable water, and nearly 60% still had no power, according to Puerto Rico’s government data. Once again, our air is filled with a familiar lullaby — the hum of generators.”

    “More and more,” Rivera-Garcia added, “I hear from family, friends, neighbors and people on the street saying, ‘I’m tired. It’s one crisis after another. I can’t take it anymore.’ With multiple generations often living together, family members have always been each other’s rock. But what happens when that rock is shattered?”

    05 opinion column 1001

    Drew Sheneman/Tribune Content Agency

    06 opinion column 1001

    Lisa Benson/GoComics.com

    After conducting a series of votes widely viewed as a sham, Russia is moving to annex regions of eastern Ukraine, and President Vladimir Putin is warning that attacks on these territories would be viewed as an assault on Russia itself. He’s raised the fearsome prospect that tactical nuclear weapons could be used to defend what he now claims is part of the homeland.

    That poses the huge question of how NATO should react. Hamish De Bretton-Gordon, former commander of the UK & NATO Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Forces, said that “the West must make it absolutely clear to Putin that any use of nuclear, or chemical or biological weapons is a real redline issue. That said, I don’t think all-out nuclear war is at all likely.”

    “NATO must direct that it will take out Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons if they move out of their current locations to a position where they could threaten Ukraine, and must also make clear that any deliberate attacks on nuclear power stations will exact an equal and greater response from NATO.”

    “This is the time to call Putin’s bluff. He’s hanging on by his fingertips, and we must give him no chances to regain his hold. Russia’s forces are now so degraded that they are no match for NATO and we should now negotiate, with this in mind, from this position of strength.”

    The UK’s new prime minister, Liz Truss, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng played starring roles in a week of market turmoil around the globe.

    As Frida Ghitis observed, “In the midst of a wave of inflation that is battering the world and prompting central banks to raise interest rates in hopes of cooling inflationary pressures, Truss’ plan to slash taxes, especially for the wealthiest, amounted to opening a firehose filled with gasoline into that raging economic fire.” The pound tumbled, nearly reaching parity with the dollar, and the Bank of England had to announce it would buy bonds to restore confidence.

    “Economists and politicians left and right largely agreed that, if not the policy itself, the abrupt rollout and the timing could not have been worse…”

    “They came at a moment when the world – and the West – stands on a knife’s edge, with Russian President Vladimir Putin annexing large pieces of Ukraine and hinting at using nuclear weapons as his invasion falters. With mysterious explosions causing leaks in the Nordstream pipeline applying further anxiety just ahead of a dreaded winter with gas supply shortages across Europe, all of this is happening when democracy finds itself under pressure the world over.”

    The prime minister’s policy is far from the only thing unsettling investors, as central banks around the world aim to tame inflation with rising interest rates, a strategy that risks choking off economic growth.

    02 opinion column 1001

    Bill Bramhall/Tribune Content Agency

    Bill Carter has a confession to make: he has not read all the books about Donald Trump.

    “I can’t even remember all the books about Donald Trump,” he wrote.

    “I know Bob Woodward has written three. So has Michael Wolff. Sean Spicer wrote one (or was it two?). “Mooch” – that is, Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s White House communications director ever so briefly – wrote one. So did Omarosa, for heaven’s sake.”

    “This week marks the release of yet another: New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman’s ‘Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.’” Carter cited a New York Times reference to an analysis by NPD BookScan, which found more than 1,200 titles about Trump were released over four years – not including the avalanche of books published since the 2020 election.

    “The robust sales for many of these books attest to the hunger among readers to hear every gobsmacking detail about a real-life character who is beyond the imagination of most fever-dreaming fiction writers.”

    “But even ravenous levels of hunger can be sated – eventually. After seven or eight – or 12 – courses, a bit of bloat is likely to set in … Every book seems to contain a sufficient number of ‘bombshell revelations’ to drum up media coverage, along with some combination of amusing, enraging or revolting personal details (previously unreported, of course, and almost always disputed by the former president)…”

    But do they have an impact anymore? A “defining aspect of the collected works on Trump,” Carter concluded, “is that virtually nothing in any of them – none of the ‘bombshells’ or details about his character – seems to have substantially changed people’s minds about him. That may be because Trump acolytes don’t tend to read critical accounts about him – and his opponents aren’t likely to read the hagiographies.”

    SE Cupp noted a Vanity Fair report that lifted the curtain on the rivalry between DeSantis and Trump, which included this description of Trump attributed to the governor: “A TV personality and a moron, who has no business running for president.”

    “The love loss seems to go both ways. According to reporting by Maggie Haberman, Trump has called DeSantis ‘fat,’ ‘phony,’ and ‘whiny.’”

    “As is often the case,” Cupp observed, “the courage to criticize Trump – even among Republicans who might want to run against him – is almost always reserved for private conversations. When will DeSantis get the spine to attack Trump frontally?”

    As the Supreme Court begins its new term Monday, the reverberations of its June decision on abortion are still playing out. As Fareed Zakaria wrote, “The Court has been growing more ideologically predictable – that is, politically partisan – in recent years. Judges appointed by Republicans now almost always rule in ways that Republicans want them to. Ditto for judges appointed by Democrats. It is all part of the hyper-polarization of American life.”

    “But it is also partly because of the strange way in which America’s highest court is structured,” observed Zakaria, who noted that “no other major democracy gives members of its highest court life tenure.”

    The court “has moved in a direction that has weakened its own legitimacy. It might be an occasion to begin a national conversation about what reforms could be put in place to make it less partisan, less divisive and more trusted by the vast majority of citizens. After all, that is the only way its rulings will be truly accepted in a diverse democracy of more than 330 million people.” (Watch Fareed Zakaria’s special report Sunday at 8 p.m. ET and PT: “Supreme Power: Inside the Highest Court in the Land.”)

    For more:

    Jill Filipovic: This Texas Republican in full sprint is a metaphor for the GOP’s stance on abortion

    Steve Vladeck: America’s most powerful court owes the public an explanation

    dusa eric adams

    One morning in 2016, Eric Adams, a former police officer turned politician – and now New York’s mayor – couldn’t see the numbers on his alarm clock.

    “I went to the doctor, who diagnosed me with Type 2 diabetes. He told me I might have my driver’s license revoked due to vision loss, and I might have permanent nerve damage in my fingers and toes.”

    After googling “reversing diabetes,” he connected with “Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn at the Cleveland Clinic, who told me I could treat my diabetes with lifestyle changes, including overhauling my diet and exercising.

    “I was skeptical at first. But reducing meat and dairy consumption in favor of fresh produce and grains made an immediate difference in my health … Within three months, I lost significant weight, lowered my cholesterol, restored my vision and reversed my diabetes.” But not everyone has the resources to get expert medical advice and turn their health around so dramatically.

    “The disproportionate effect of Covid-19 on Black and brown communities was tragically compounded by existing diet-driven health disparities. While higher-income neighborhoods have overwhelming options when it comes to fresh fruits and vegetables, low-income communities of color often live in nutritional deserts with fewer grocery stores and a higher concentration of processed foods, sugary drinks, and shelf-stable products…”

    “Now is the time for our country to make the shift from treatment to prevention, from feeding the illness to giving people the tools to build sustainable lifestyles and healthier, stronger communities.”

    04 opinion column 1001

    Dana Summers/Tribune Content Agency

    Michael Fanone: What my January 6 assailant deserves

    Ruth Ben Ghiat: Casting doubt on Brazil’s election, Bolsonaro follows Trump’s lead

    Matthew Bossons: My 5-year-old just confirmed our decision to leave China

    Peter Bergen: The British Empire – A legacy of violence?

    AND…

    01 opinion column 1001

    Bill Bramhall/Tribune Content Agency

    To fans of the New York Yankees, there’s an almost mystical connection uniting the team’s pantheon of heroes – including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Derek Jeter. And now by hitting 61 homers in a single season – tying Maris, who bested Ruth’s record of 60 home runs – Aaron Judge has arguably joined those ranks.

    As Billy Crystal’s 2001 movie, “61*” made clear, though, those ties have long been frayed – Mantle and DiMaggio had a frosty relationship and there were tensions between Mantle and Maris. But if you widen the lens beyond the Yankees and look at the entire history of Major League Baseball, as Jeff Pearlman wrote, the picture surrounding Judge’s achievement is even more clouded.

    “By allowing rampant steroid and human growth hormone usage throughout the 1990s and early 2000s,” Pearlman observed, “Major League Baseball ruined and disgraced its own record book, and Judge’s shot merely (yawn) tied the American League home run mark.”

    “When, in 2001, San Francisco’s Barry Bonds broke (Mark) McGwire’s record with 73 homers, we all knew it was nonsense. Not some of us – all of us. Here was a man, at age 36, with muscles growing atop muscles and a skull size that – as I reported in my Bonds biography, “Love Me Hate Me” – had actually increased in recent years (this is physically impossible without the help of HGH). I was in San Francisco the night Bonds passed McGwire, and it was…stupid. Just so damn stupid. The local fans stood and cheered, but it felt flat and meaningless and a bit embarrassing. Like spotting a magician’s fake thumb.”

    “All the while, Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association did … nothing. Home runs were great business, so team owners shrugged off PED suspicions while the union made clear it would refuse to have its players be tested in any sort of methodical, impactful manner. The result was temporary long ball excitement, followed by the quiet-yet-crushing realization (by most involved in the game) that the record book had been rendered meaningless.” Eventually, baseball woke up and instituted testing for performance enhancing drugs.

    As for Aaron Judge, according to Pearlman, “the 30-year-old slugger has had a season for the ages – he’s all but locked up the AL MVP award, and at this moment is in line to become the Yankees’ first triple crown winner since Mickey Mantle in 1956.

    “This should be an historic time for baseball.

    “This should be an historic time for Aaron Judge.

    “Instead, greed destroyed baseball – and took its history with it.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Tudor Dixon seeks a culture war in campaign against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer | CNN Politics

    Tudor Dixon seeks a culture war in campaign against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Tudor Dixon, the Republican taking on Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in November’s midterm election, is turning to tactics that have worked for other Republican winners in competitive governor’s races as she seeks to turn the race into a cultural battle over education, transgender athletes and more.

    But her clash with a well-funded Democratic incumbent governor – one taking place in a state where a referendum that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution has emerged as a dominant issue – is showcasing the limits of those efforts at cultural appeals to the moderate, suburban voters who could decide the race’s outcome.

    National Republicans have largely abandoned Dixon in the race’s closing weeks, leaving her outspent and floundering in one of the nation’s most important swing states.

    Dixon sought to change the race’s trajectory on Saturday when former President Donald Trump traveled to Michigan for a rally in Warren with Dixon and other GOP candidates, including Matthew DePerno, who is challenging Attorney General Dana Nessel, and Kristina Karamo, who is taking on Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. Dixon, DePerno and Karamo have all parroted Trump’s lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

    Trump called Whitmer “one of the most radical, most sinister governors in America,” criticizing her support for abortion rights and Michigan’s pandemic-related lockdowns.

    The former President, echoing Dixon’s focus on cultural issues and education, called Dixon “a national leader in the battle to protect our children by getting race and gender ideology out of the classroom.”

    Trump’s attack on Whitmer as “sinister” is the latest in a series of rhetorical escalations by the former President. On Friday, he said on his social media website Truth Social that the top Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell, had a “death wish” after Congress approved stopgap funding to avert a government shutdown.

    Dixon, meanwhile, spoke twice Saturday – once before Trump, and again when Trump invited her on stage. As she lambasted Whitmer, the crowd repeated a familiar Trump rally chant, this time directed at Whitmer rather than 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton: “Lock her up.”

    “We’re not going to let our kids be radicalized. We’re not going to let our kids be sexualized. We’re not going to let our law enforcement be demonized. We’re not going to tell our businesses they can’t expand,” Dixon said.

    Dixon, a conservative commentator and first-time candidate, emerged from a crowded primary after receiving the financial support of former Trump education secretary Betsy DeVos’ family. The Michigan GOP megadonors funded a super PAC bolstering Dixon’s campaign. And Trump waded into the race in the closing days of the primary with a Dixon endorsement that came after a handwritten letter from DeVos urged him to back Dixon, as reported by The New York Times.

    “The Dixon campaign is seeking to get its name ID up and MAGA base fully engaged to close the polling gap and that is what they hope to gain from a Trump rally in Macomb County,” said John Sellek, a Republican public relations adviser and head of Harbor Strategic Public Affairs in Lansing.

    However, she has struggled to raise money and gain traction since her August primary victory.

    Democrats on Saturday said Dixon’s comments at the Trump rally were an effort to distract from issues on which her positions are unpopular – particularly abortion rights.

    “Tonight, Michiganders saw a schoolyard bully on stage – not a leader,” Michigan Democratic Party chairwoman Lavora Barnes said in a statement. “Tudor Dixon hurled insults and rattled off a litany of grievances because she knows that her dangerous agenda to ban abortion and throw nurses in jail, dismantle public education, and slash funding for law enforcement is out-of-step.

    “Michigan families deserve a real leader who will work with anyone to get things done, and Tudor Dixon has shown time and again she will continue to divide and pit people against each other if it means she and Betsy DeVos gain political power,” Barnes said.

    Whitmer’s campaign and her supporters have dwarfed Dixon in television advertising spending – and Dixon’s campaign is currently off the air in Michigan, underscoring the reality that major Republican donors have shifted their focus to other races they view as more winnable.

    Since the primary on August 2, Democrats have spent about $17.6 million on ads in the governor’s race, while Republicans have spent just $1.1 million, according to data from the firm AdImpact. And over the next month through election day, Democrats have $23.4 million booked while GOP has just $4.3 million booked.

    Early voting is already underway in Michigan. And in the governor’s race, Whitmer is widely viewed as the favorite by nonpartisan analysts. The race is rated as one that “tilts Democratic” by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales. The Cook Political Report and University of Virginia Center for Politics director Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball rate it as “likely Democratic.”

    “The battle has been fought on the Democrats’ terms with millions and millions of dollars, and there’s been essentially no effort to fight back,” Michigan-based Republican strategist John Yob said on the Michigan Information & Research Service Inc.’s “MIRS Monday” podcast this week. “On the Republican side, we’ve never faced this before. And, you know, it doesn’t look very good in terms of a way out unless some serious money gets on TV pretty quickly.”

    The most dominant issue in the governor’s race has been abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Michigan’s Republican-led legislature has refused to change a 1931 law that would prohibit abortion in nearly all instances. Whitmer and other pro-abortion rights groups sued to block that law. And a Democratic-backed referendum that would amend Michigan’s constitution to guarantee abortion rights is on November’s ballot in the state.

    Dixon, who opposes abortion except when necessary to protect the life of the mother, has struggled to redirect the race’s focus.

    “You can vote for Gretchen Whitmer’s position without having to vote for Gretchen Whitmer again,” she told reporters last week, explaining that voters could support the referendum but oppose the incumbent governor.

    In an effort to shift the contest’s focus, Dixon’s campaign has borrowed tactics from Republican governors who have won in battleground states in recent years.

    For months, she has focused on parental control of schools’ curriculum, as well as school choice. It’s a message built on that of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the Republican whose 2021 victory was an early harbinger of a potentially favorable political landscape for the GOP in this year’s midterm elections.

    “That’s why Gov. Youngkin’s message resonated,” Dixon said in an August interview on Fox News alongside Youngkin, who was campaigning in Michigan.

    “He said, ‘I’m listening to you. I want parents involved. And I’m going to bring you back into the schools,’” Dixon said. “That’s what people want to hear right now.”

    In her latest move to redefine the race, Dixon this week proposed two policies aimed at the LGBTQ community and schools.

    In Lansing on Tuesday, Dixon proposed a policy modeled after the controversial measure Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law earlier this year that critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

    “This act will require school districts to ensure that their schools do not provide classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in grades K through three, or in any manner that has not age- or developmentally appropriate,” Dixon told reporters, blasting what she called “radical sex and gender instruction.”

    Florida’s HB 1557, the Parental Rights in Education bill, passed earlier this year effectively bans teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms for young students. LGBTQ advocates say the measure has led to further stigmatization of gay, lesbian and transgender children, causing more bullying and suicides within an already marginalized community.

    Then, on Wednesday in Grand Rapids, she unveiled her proposal for a “Women’s Sports Fairness Act,” which would ban transgender girls from competing in sports with the gender they identify with.

    “As a mother of four girls, nothing infuriates me more than the prospect of my daughters losing their friends and their teammates, losing opportunities in sports or otherwise, because some radically progressive politicians decided one day that they should have to compete against biological men,” she said. “Gretchen Whitmer has embraced the trans-supremacist ideology, which dictates that individuals who are born as men can be allowed to compete against our daughters.”

    Whitmer’s campaign has largely ignored Dixon’s proposals, and did not respond to a request for comment on them. Instead, Whitmer has in recent days emphasized her economic message and her support for abortion rights.

    Whitmer is leaning into policies enacted by Democrats in Washington in recent months, including the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden in August.

    Whitmer in September signed an executive directive capping insulin costs at $35 per month and out-of-pocket costs at $2,000 a year for Medicare recipients.

    And last week, Whitmer announced that student loan borrowers will not be taxed on the debt relief that Biden had ordered.

    What has dominated media coverage of the race in recent days, though, are a series of jokes Dixon has made about the 2020 kidnapping plot against Whitmer.

    A federal jury in August convicted two men of conspiring to kidnap Whitmer at her vacation home in 2020. They were also convicted of one count of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction after prosecutors detailed their plans to blow up a bridge to prevent police from responding to the kidnapping of the governor. The men now face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

    “The sad thing is that Gretchen will tie your hands, put a gun to your head, and ask if you’re ready to talk,” Dixon said at an event last week in Troy alongside Kellyanne Conway, a former Trump White House aide. “For someone so worried about being kidnapped, Gretchen Whitmer sure is good at taking business hostage and holding it for ransom.”

    After her comment drew backlash, Dixon joked again about the kidnapping plot at a second event Friday, this time with Donald Trump Jr., the son of the former President.

    She told a crowd that, at a stop with President Joe Biden at the Detroit Auto Show last week, Whitmer looked like she’d “rather be kidnapped by the FBI.”

    “Yeah, the media is like, ‘Oh my gosh, she did it again,’” Dixon said, anticipating the reaction to her second reference of the day to the 2020 kidnapping plot.

    As she told the crowd that her earlier remarks about the plot to kidnap Whitmer had been characterized as a joke, Dixon said: “I’m like, ‘No, that wasn’t a joke.’ If you were afraid of that, you should know what it is to have your life ripped away from you.”

    Whitmer’s campaign and Democratic groups condemned Dixon’s remarks Friday.

    “Threats of violence and dangerous rhetoric undermine our democracy and discourage good people on both sides of the aisle at every level from entering public service,” Whitmer campaign spokesperson Maeve Coyle said in a statement.

    “Governor Whitmer has faced serious threats to her safety and her life, and she is grateful to the law enforcement and prosecutors for their tireless work,” Coyle said. “Threats of violence – whether to Governor Whitmer or to candidates and elected officials on the other side of the aisle – are no laughing matter, and the fact that Tudor Dixon thinks it’s a joke shows that she is absolutely unfit to serve in public office.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Trump launches direct attack on McConnell a month out from midterm elections | CNN Politics

    Trump launches direct attack on McConnell a month out from midterm elections | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump on Friday night directly ridiculed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, saying on his social media platform that the Kentucky Republican had a “death wish” for supporting “Democrat sponsored bills.”

    Trump, in his Truth Social post, also mocked McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao – who was born in Taiwan and served as Trump’s secretary of transportation – referring to her as McConnell’s “China loving wife, Coco Chow!”

    Trump’s broadside at McConnell and mockery of Chao came hours after Congress approved and President Joe Biden signed a stopgap funding bill to avert a federal government shutdown. The bill cleared the Senate on a 72-25 vote Thursday and the House on a 230-201 vote Friday.

    In addition to money to keep government agencies afloat, the short-term funding measure provides around $12 billion for Ukraine, and it includes funding for disaster relief. The measure funds the government through December 16.

    “Is McConnell approving all of these Trillions of Dollars worth of Democrat sponsored Bills, without even the slightest bit of negotiation, because he hates Donald J. Trump, and he knows I am strongly opposed to them, or is he doing it because he believes in the Fake and Highly Destructive Green New Deal, and is willing to take the Country down with him?” Trump wrote. “In any event, either reason is unacceptable. He has a DEATH WISH. Must immediately seek help and advise from his China loving wife, Coco Chow!”

    Trump has described congressional Republicans as having a “death wish” before. In late 2020, he backed Democrats’ push for $2,000 coronavirus stimulus checks instead of the $600 checks Republicans had sought. He said on Twitter then: “Unless Republicans have a death wish, and it is also the right thing to do, they must approve the $2,000 payments ASAP. $600 IS NOT ENOUGH!”

    It was not clear what bills Trump was criticizing on Friday, or what he meant as he accused McConnell of believing in the Green New Deal, a package of progressive proposals that McConnell blocked from coming to the Senate floor for a vote when he was majority leader.

    McConnell this week said he would support legislation that would make it harder to overturn a certified presidential election, an endorsement that will bolster its chances for passage in his chamber and puts him at sharp odds with Trump.

    McConnell’s office did not comment on Trump’s remarks on Truth Social.

    CNN has reached out to representatives for Trump for comment.

    The former President’s attack on McConnell comes just weeks away from the midterm elections, with early voting already underway in some states.

    McConnell’s hopes of becoming Senate majority leader depend on whether the candidates Trump endorsed in Republican primaries in several key states – including Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania – win in November.

    In a veiled jab at the GOP nominees Trump helped elevate, McConnell at an August event in Kentucky cited “candidate quality” as he downplayed the party’s chances of winning control of the Senate.

    Still, McConnell’s political arm, including a McConnell-affiliated super PAC, has pumped tens of millions of dollars into those races, while Trump has largely refrained from spending money to help the candidates he endorsed.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • GOP congressional candidate Joe Kent’s ties to white nationalists include interview with Nazi sympathizer | CNN Politics

    GOP congressional candidate Joe Kent’s ties to white nationalists include interview with Nazi sympathizer | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Despite disavowing White nationalism last spring when one of its adherents endorsed him, a US House candidate in Washington subsequently gave a previously unreported interview in June to a Nazi sympathizer and White nationalist.

    While Republican Joe Kent touted his support for prominent far-right figures like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green and Paul Gosar and supported MAGA policies, he was speaking with Greyson Arnold, a Nazi sympathizer.

    Kent’s exchange with Arnold is all the more notable because just weeks later Kent’s campaign worked to distance him from Arnold after photos surfaced of the pair together. A Kent campaign strategist told the Associated Press in July that the campaign did not do background checks on those who took selfies with the candidate.

    Arnold has a well-documented history of making White nationalist, racist, antisemitic and pro-Nazi statements, including once calling Adolf Hitler “a complicated historical figure which many people misunderstand.”

    In a statement to CNN, campaign spokesperson Matt Braynard said, “Joe Kent had no idea who that individual was when he encountered him on the street and Joe Kent has repeatedly condemned the statements that the individual is accused of making.”

    Braynard added that the campaign screens all interview requests and that Arnold approached Kent on the street by what he assumed was a local journalist. “None of the questions gave Joe any indications that the individual had any racist or antisemitic views and, if he had, Joe would have cancelled the interview immediately,” said Braynard.

    The campaign said that Arnold “is not in any way part of our campaign nor would we allow our campaign to be associated with someone who has that background. We also have no record of any contribution from that individual and if we had received one, we’d return it.”

    Kent, a former Green Beret and gold star spouse endorsed by former President Donald Trump, ran in this summer’s primary against Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, one of ten Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in 2021.

    In August, Kent advanced to November’s general election against Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez under the state’s top-two primary system after edging out Beutler, who placed third. Inside Elections recently redesignated the race as more competitive, moving it from “Safe Republican” to “Likely Republican.”

    On a since-suspended Twitter account and active channel on Telegram called “Pure Politics,” Greyson, or “American Greyson” as he calls himself, has shared posts that called Nazi men the “pure race” and that the US should have sided with the Nazis during World War Two. Arnold has falsely claimed there were “Jewish plans to genocide the German people,” and in a post, he shared a quote that said the “Jewish led colored hordes of the Earth” were attempting to exterminate White people.

    Arnold was pictured in multiple photographs with Kent at a fundraiser in April and has been canvassing for Republican candidates with Washington State Young Republicans, with one recent photo showing Arnold in a Joe Kent shirt according to photos on their public Instagram.

    Speaking with Arnold, Kent praised Gosar’s stance on illegal and legal immigration in a friendly five-minute interview.

    “Paul Gosar has been excellent, obviously immigration – border state down there. He took me down to the border, so I got a firsthand feel of all the crises we face there,” said Kent. “Representative Gosar also has some awesome legislation he’s proposed about getting rid of a lot of the legal immigration.”

    Arnold was at the Capitol during the January 6, 2021, riot, posting a video of himself leaving the steps of the front of the building saying they were being “chased out by communists,” calling the riot “an American baptism,” as he said police were deploying tear gas. There is no indication he entered the building, and he has not been charged with any crime.

    While Kent has tried to shift his campaign rhetoric toward the center – including by removing calls to adjudicate the 2020 election from his website sometime between June and July – his campaign has been bogged down by associations with white nationalists and extremists, whom Kent has repeatedly had to distance himself from.

    Back in March 2022, Kent disavowed Nick Fuentes, a 24-year-old far-right white nationalist, after Fuentes endorsed Kent in the primary. Fuentes is the architect of the America First Political Action Conference, a white nationalist conference held annually that received intense backlash this year after Gosar appeared at the event and Greene attended it.

    Kent said at the time that he was unfamiliar with Fuentes despite a brief call with him in spring 2021 about the candidate’s social media strategy. In April 2021, Kent tweeted in defense of Fuentes after he was banned from Twitter.

    “Many are glad that their political rivals are targeted by the state & big tech, they hate Trump, @NickJFuentes & MAGA. This short side thinking has led to some of the greatest tragedies in human history. We must fight for all speech & fight the confluence of gov & big tech.”

    He later said he stood by his comments but reiterated he did not want Fuentes’ endorsement because of Fuentes’ “focus on race/religion.”

    Kent’s website also features an endorsement from Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers who was censured by the Republican-controlled Arizona senate after she gave a speech to the white nationalist conference calling for public hangings.

    [ad_2]

    Source link