The 2022 Mid-Term Elections Thread

[Webster]

Might as well have one....we'll start with next=door neighbor Georgia, the Peach State!

(The Guardian) The race for the Senate seat in Georgia currently occupied by Democrat Raphael Warnock is among those considered pivotal to deciding who controls the chamber following November’s midterm elections, and the incumbent seems to be prevailing, at least when it comes to money.

As the Associated Press reports, Warnock raised $17.2 million in the second quarter running from April through June, much more than the $6.2 million Republican Herschel Walker brought in. From the AP’s report: The dueling Senate campaign numbers underlined two truths. Georgia is again going to be one of the most expensive races to run for office in 2022, and Democrats are building a strong fundraising advantage.

Like Warnock, Democrat Stacey Abrams heavily outraised incumbent Republican Brian Kemp in the race for governor, collecting almost $50 million compared to the $31 million Kemp has brought in over a longer period. Abrams and Warnock plan to run closely linked campaigns, echoing many of the same themes.

Warnock is one of several Democratic Senate incumbents in swing states who is trying to cling to their seat amid President Joe Biden’s deep unpopularity. Republicans had long dominated statewide races until Georgia helped elect Biden to the presidency and enabled Democrats to control the Senate by electing Warnock and fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff in a January 2021 runoff.

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

Who are you voting for in the mid terms @Webster?

 

[Webster]

Who are you voting for in the mid terms @Webster?

Every Democrat I see on the ballot; there's maybe one or two Republicans running for local office I might vote for but otherwise, all Dems.

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

Every Democrat I see on the ballot;

yeah! I don't even care who they are or what they stand for. If I see dem, I'll vote for them. Just to spite @WHO IS SERAFIN just kidding.

 

[Webster]

If I see dem, I'll vote for them. Just to spite @WHO IS SERAFIN

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

I will

 

[Webster]

 

[Webster]

(MSN News) Assuming he lands a pair of breakthrough deals pumping new life into Democrats' languishing agenda, a Democratic strategist says Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer may get some breathing room next year as the political battlefield shifts from his narrowly-divided chamber to a GOP-led House aiming its newly reclaimed weapons at the Biden administration.

"A majority leader Schumer might have a little bit less pressure on him and a little bit less attention, because should the House flip … it literally becomes House Republicans versus the White House. That would be next year's story," Rodell Mollineau, a former aide to late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the cofounder of political consulting firm Rokk Solutions, told Insider in an interview. Mollineau added that in that scenario "the Senate will probably be an afterthought."

The months Schumer spent trying to hammer out bipartisan agreements on a China-related business investment bill and a revamped reconciliation package that centrist Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia could actually go along with (after torpedoing earlier efforts) seemed to finally pay off on Wednesday with the passage of the CHIPS package and Manchin's surprise endorsement of the swirling Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

The stunning maneuvers, along with new polling projections from Decision Desk HQ showing that Senate Democrats have a 56.8% chance of keeping control of the 50-50 Senate next year — a 12-point swing in their favor over the past month — might grant Schumer a temporary reprieve in 2023, Mollineau said.

Mollineau said losing the House, which appears likely given historical trends and Biden's dismal approval ratings, would redirect the spotlight toward GOP efforts to usher one of their own back into the Oval Office.

"They are going to overreach. And I'm sure it's going to be entertaining to watch, if not also harmful to the country," Mollineau said of the anticipated retaliatory investigations against members of the January 6 select committee and a potential flood of "ridiculous pieces of legislation that have no chance of ever passing in the United States Senate" from MAGA devotees looking to flex their majority powers.

 

[Webster]

 

[Webster]

 

[Webster]

(The Guardian) With control of Congress at stake, the White House said the president, vice president and cabinet officials are preparing to fan out across the country to sell voters on their healthcare, climate change and tax bill.

The bill, which passed the Senate over the weekend and is poised to pass the House on Friday, achieves only a fraction of Democrats’ long-sought policy ambitions, but nevertheless amounts to a significant and once-unimaginable legislative victory. Biden, who is on vacation in South Carolina, is expected to sign the bill into law with great fanfare after it arrives on his desk.

In a new memo, White House communications director Kate Bedingfield and senior advisor Anita Dunn previewed their pitch to voters, which includes touting their efforts on health care, gun control and climate while accusing Republicans of siding with special interests and pushing a nationwide ban on abortion.

“The president and congressional Democrats beat the special interests and delivered what was best for the American people,” the memo says. “Every step of the way, congressional Republicans sided with the special interests — pushing an extreme MAGA agenda that costs families.”

The Democrats’ economic policy bill caps an unusually productive stretch for Congress, which is better known for inaction than action. Amid a flurry of legislative victories, Biden is also breathing a sigh of relief as new economic indicators suggest inflation has cooled in July and painfully-high gas prices are easing.

Republicans are still poised to do well in the midterms, thanks to historic trends in which the president’s party tends to lose ground. And the GOP is already hammering Democrats over their plan, which they say amounts to reckless spending at a time when Americans face decades-high inflation – a top concern for voters.

But the picture has brightened somewhat for Democrats as they attempt to seize on this burst of momentum. “This is the choice before the American people,” the memo states. “President Biden and congressional Democrats taking on special interests for you and your family or Congressional Republicans’ extreme, MAGA agenda that serves the wealthiest, corporations and themselves.”

 

[Webster]

Could Marco Rubio somehow be at risk in Florida this year?

(The Guardian) It’s not just celebrity Republican candidates who may be in trouble.

A University of North Florida poll released today showed Val Demings, a Democratic House lawmaker who is considered the frontrunner for the party’s Senate nomination, beating incumbent Republican Marco Rubio with 48 percent of the vote compared to his 44 percent. Democrats have struggled to win statewide office in Florida lately, and unseating Rubio could help them maintain control of the Senate in the November midterms.

However, Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor who is considered a potential candidate for president, maintains an advantage in his battle to lead the state. He wins the support of 50 percent of registered voters against both Democratic frontrunners for the party’s nomination to challenge him.

https://www.unf.edu/uploadedFiles/aa/coas/porl/UNF%20PORL%20August%20Survey.pdf

*points above* Thoughts, @WHO IS SERAFIN?

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

I’m having severe doubts that Rubio is any trouble here. But November is rapidly ascending on us.

 

[Webster]

I’m having severe doubts that Rubio is any trouble here. But November is rapidly ascending on us.

I think we could see in Florida something akin to what happened here in North Carolina back in 2020: both Roy Cooper and Cal Cunningham were seen as running away with the election yet when Election Night ended, Cooper won by 4.5 percent (51.5 to 47.0) while Cunningham barely lost (48.6 to 46.7).

Voters often times will split their votes depending on the particular election and people here saw Cooper as a Democratic version of Larry Hogan and Charlie Baker whilst Cal Cunningham was seen as a milquetoast morals hypocrite (to wit, Serafin: Cunningham was running on a morals campaign and got busted in a sexting scandal right as early voting began; worse, Cunningham did it while being on active-duty as an Army Reservist).

That said, I don't see the same happening in Florida but if America could elect Trump...

 

[Webster]

(The Guardian) Back on the topic of whether voters are beginning to drift towards Democrats despite Biden’s poor approval ratings, The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter has today published a piece that looks at just that question.

It confirms that there are signs of a shift in voters’ perceptions, but that has less to do with Democrats than Republicans. “It’s not that voters think Democrats are doing better; it’s that they think Republicans are as out-of-touch as as Democrats,” according to the report.

Here’s more from the story: For the last six weeks or so, the media spotlight has been off of Biden and focused instead on issues that put Republicans on the defensive, like abortion, January 6th and Donald Trump. That has helped to erode Republicans’ previous advantage as the party that is more in tune with voters’ day-to-day concerns. “Each week that goes by, more and more people see the GOP as increasingly focused on the wrong things,” veteran Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson told me. “They’re focused on what ignites right-wing social media and what pleases the former President, not on what matters to the American people. It’s like a CEO promising to rehab a company by focusing on renovating the executives’ parking spaces.”

But that doesn’t mean the potent forces working against Biden have gone anywhere, or that voters are necessarily getting over the inflation wave that’s pushed costs up across the economy. It concludes with an anecdote: Earlier this week, I was able to see how this match-up of messages might play out with voters this fall. At a focus group of white male swing voters, the moderator presented a list of Democratic accomplishments, including things like the infrastructure bill, the Recovery Act, and, of course, the newly passed Inflation Reduction Act. Also noted were low unemployment and strong job growth. When asked to respond, a man from Georgia replied, “I don’t disagree with anything here. But, I am paying double for lumber and groceries than I was three years ago.”
-Read more: https://www.cookpolitical.com/analysis/national/national-politics/vibe-shift

 

[Webster]

(The Guardian) Signs are mounting that Roe v. Wade’s overturning could have a transformative effect on the dynamics of the midterm elections and potentially give Democrats an advantage, Lauren Gambino reports: For years, Democrats warned that abortion rights were under grave threat. Across the US, antiabortion activists in red states chipped away at access and pushed for conservative judges to secure their gains. Yet for many Americans, the prospect of losing the constitutional right to abortion that had existed since 1973 remained worrying but remote.

That all changed in June, when in Dobbs v Jackson, the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, the 49-year-old ruling which had established the right. Since then, bans have taken effect in at least 10 states. Republicans are rushing ahead with new restrictions and stirring fears that other rights, including same-sex marriage and access to contraception, could be vulnerable too.
-Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/22/democrats-abortion-rights-midterms-november

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

It won’t.

When you have empty wallets and struggle to feed your family that is a transformative change. What this article is doing is grabbing for straws.

 

[Webster]

It won’t.

When you have empty wallets and struggle to feed your family that is a transformative change. What this article is doing is grabbing for straws.

Elections have changed for stranger reasons and we're still what, about three months away from Election Time.
If people are motivated enough (as they were in 2020) they won't care about economics.

Again, fat dumb and happy is no way for Americans to go through life.

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

Elections have changed for stranger reasons and we're still what, about three months away from Election Time.
If people are motivated enough (as they were in 2020) they won't care about economics.

Again, fat dumb and happy is no way for Americans to go through life.

No, money in the wallet and the feeling they can provide for there family comes first. It’s not about being fat and dumb, even though we have plenty of those. Economy throughout history in any nation ever is peoples number one concern. I mean unless Brandon gets some unknown miracle like aliens announcing they are here it’s over in November

 

[Webster]

No, money in the wallet and the feeling they can provide for there family comes first.

That was the fat & dumb reference above.

Just remember: for all the broader issues affecting the country, don't be surprised if individual races here and there go pear-shaped for Republicans depending on the circumstances.