Schumer in Georgia: “We are going downhill in Pennsylvania,” he told the New York Times on the tarmac before the midterm election

Schumer expressed some concern about Democratic prospects in Georgia in the final weeks before the referendum, but he remained optimistic about Pennsylvania, despite the debate performance of their nominee.

“The state where we’re going downhill is Georgia. The Democratic leader said it was hard to believe the Republicans would go for Herschel Walker, but that the early turnout in Georgia was huge.

Of Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s high-stakes debate performance against Republican Mehmet Oz, Schumer said: “It looks like the debate didn’t hurt us too much in Pennsylvania … so that’s good.”

During a discussion between Schumer, Biden and Hochul on the tarmac of a New York National Guard base, they were heard saying something that wasn’t true. Biden gave a speech in the state as part of his closing message, where he painted Republicans as a threat to Americans pocketbooks.

With two weeks before Election Day, the Democrats have a chance to retain their majority in the Senate if Vice President Harris votes against them. Georgia and Pennsylvania are critical to the mission because of their potential to flip a seat.

The leader of the Democratic Party said the party is picking up steam in Nevada, where Catherine Masto is a vulnerable incumbent.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/27/politics/schumer-georgia-pennsylvania-democrats-senate-midterms/index.html

Earlier this year, the Georgia senator stood up against a woman who had been told by Walker that abortion wasn’t a ruse

The Georgia race was rocked this week by allegations from a woman who claims she was in a years-long romantic relationship with Walker. She stated at the press conference that he had coerced her into having an abortion. Walker has denied each claim as a lie and says that he encouraged the woman to have the procedure in the first place. CNN has not independently verified the allegations of the first woman. She has not been named in public reports.

Most polling shows Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who’s running for a full six-year term, with a modest lead over Walker in the final stretch of the campaign.

Without clear carve outs for ectopic pregnancies that pose a direct threat to the life of the woman and robust support for the health care of pregnant mothers, anti-choice legislation will struggle at the ballot box. Pro-life conservatives should proceed accordingly, emphasizing a legislative strategy and adopting an all-of-the-above approach to support women facing unplanned pregnancies.

Fetterman said that he couldn’t afford to give a clown a vote and that Oz actually believes in abortion.

But while Democrats immediately seized on Oz’s comments in their paid advertising, most of the post-debate attention was focused on the effects of Fetterman’s stroke.

We wanted to be there and we thought that was important. And we showed up,” the Democrat told Reid. “And getting knocked down, I always got back up. It is the essence of our campaign that we are running for people who have been knocked down and needs to get back up. And that’s really what we’re running on.”

What are the important issues in state abortion laws? A critical look at the debates in the U.S. Senate, Minnesota, and Vermont

Patrick T. Brown is a fellow at the ethics and public policy center, a right-wing think tank in Washington DC. He is also a former senior policy adviser to Congress’ Joint Economic Committee. Follow him on social media. His views are his own in this piece. View more opinion on CNN.

And for conservative politicians, this year’s crop of state referenda offers cautionary, but useful, insights. Retaking the House, and maybe the Senate, will be treated a win. If the state amendments are passed by the voters, it will remind conservatives to change their political strategy from being a dedicated opposition to playing a more active role. Picking which battles are worth fighting and supporting policies that could help voters could lead to more priorities being passed by conservatives.

Voters in nearly three quarters of the states are faced with a variety of ballot initiatives, ranging from questions on rainy day funds to hot-button cultural issues this year. The most consequential questions relate to abortion.

Michigan’s proposed constitutional amendment would allow abortions to be restricted after fetal viability. Opponents say that the text would likely make Michigan one of the most permissive abortion regimes in the country, by giving the right to abortion to women under 17 years old.

The amendment has wide-ranging implications for matters like parental consent in gender-reassignment surgery for minor and the ability of health care professionals to decline to participate in procedures that violate their religious beliefs, and opponents worry that it has wide-ranging implications in Vermont.

The side supporting abortion rights is favored in many of the debates, especially in deep blue California and Vermont. A bipartisan anti-abortion coalition in California continues to raise alarm bells, and opponents of the Michigan amendment hope they can close the wide gap shown in some recent polls.

But as Kansas’ resounding defeat of a state referendum that would have banned abortion showed, even red-leaning states can vote against pro-life initiatives.

Other progressive-headed referenda are a little more woolly-headed. Oregon’s proposed amendment would declare “affordable health care as a fundamental right,” a promise no state government can keep without endless increases in taxes. In addition to its extreme abortion amendment, California proposes a new tax on multi-millionaires to pay for climate initiatives, and not one but two proposals on expanding in-person and online gambling.

Colorado will vote on whether to decriminalize psychedelic drugs for medical use. Opponents are right to worry that, regardless of the intended safeguards, legalization will eventually lead to a cultural normalization of these drugs could lead to more usage across the population, in the same way that legalizing marijuana for medical purposes apparently led to higher rates of illicit usage.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/02/opinions/conservatives-challenged-by-state-ballot-initiatives-brown/index.html

What Happens if a Conservative Party isn’t Preventing Elections: State Referenda in the Era of Nationalized Politics

Safe elections are not a good sign for the long term health of conservative principles, because some of the most prominent proponents of voter ID laws tend to spend more time on a narrative based in baseless claims of stolen.

State referenda remind people of the importance of a federalist system in our era of nationalized politics. Save for the authority expressly delegated to the federal government, states retain general police power to shape the health, well-being and general welfare of their citizens. America is great because states are allowed to experiment with different approaches to the minimum wage, taxes, and health care.