The Changing Face of the House: Tom Malinowski, A Political Gor before the New Jersey Map and the Challenges of the 21st Century
Representative Tom Malinowski was considered a political goner last year when the New Jersey congressional map was redrawn.
Biden’s speech was deeply personal, reflecting his own view of the mission handed him by history. It was highly political given the fact that the polls are only five days away and that hundreds of pro- Trump candidates are spouting his stolen election nonsense. And it came days after the latest shocking example of political violence – the attack on the 82-year-old husband of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And since Biden launched his 2020 campaign as a quest to save America’s soul from what he sees as the aspiring autocracy of Trump, it was a statement of a mission unaccomplished – as well as a potential opening volley of a possible 2024 showdown for the White House between the 45th and 46th presidents.
Even though voters have absorbed the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion, there are signs that the national politics is shifting to a point that even this race, written off as a strategic sacrifice, is narrowing.
Any path to win back the House in the fall is cut through districts like Mr. Malinowski’s, where well educated voters helped Democrats win control of the House.
Democrats are attempting to hold onto the House of Representatives by playing defense in blue state strongholds, such as New York, Washington and Oregon. Republicans only need a net gain of five seats to win back control. A handful of swing state showdowns will decide the destiny of the Senate, currently split 50-50, including in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Republicans are also showing renewed interest in the race in New Hampshire between Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan and retired Army Brig. The Democrats brand Gen. Don Bolduc, a pro-Trump candidate, an election-denying Extremist.
The Democrats worry about their slim majority in the House and Senate as voters feel bad about Biden’s leadership due to soaring inflation, crime and a pessimism about the direction of the country. History suggests that Democrats, as the party in power, will suffer significant losses in the midterms.
Three states in particular — Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania — that are seen as the likeliest to change party hands have emerged as the epicenter of the Senate fight with an increasing volume of acrimony and advertising. In many ways, the two parties have been talking almost entirely past each other both on the campaign trail and on the airwaves — disagreeing less over particular policies than debating entirely different lists of challenges and threats facing the nation.
A critical factor is that many of the voter groups that Democrats use are more focused on issues where the public is more concerned about the intentions of Republicans, than on issues where the public is less concerned about Biden. “The blue team cares about abortion and democracy and the red team cares about crime and immigration and inflation,” says Whit Ayres, a long-time GOP pollster. “And there’s obviously a little overlap, particularly on the inflation front. The two different teams are motivated by different things, and we have become so angry that they care about the same things.
The dynamics that drove Republican losses in 1994 and 2010 are not something the White House is looking at. Whether that will hold, to some degree, is tied to the very construct Biden has identified.
Bryan Bennett is lead pollster for Navigator, a Democratic polling consortium and he said that this election is very weird because of that. “People are having to make this trade-off between the immediate economic concerns [where]…they might blame the incumbent party in power. At the same time, they realize that the same incumbent party is going to protect that fundamental human right on abortion.
A Conversation with Biden on Economic Issues, Jobs, and Values: Building a Bridge between Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives
Nor is Biden’s own standing, even as White House officials point to approval ratings that have him running slightly ahead of where then-Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump were at this stage of their first term.
In the latest CNN poll, 51% of those polled say economy and inflation will be the key issue determining their vote, followed by abortion (15%), voting rights and election integrity (9%), gun policy (7%), immigration (6%) climate change (4%), and crime (3%).
Given these disparities, Democrats everywhere are stressing issues relating to rights and values, particularly abortion, but also warning about the threat to democracy posed by Trump and his movement. CNN reported that Democrats have spent more money on abortion-themed ads than Republicans.
Biden’s speech made a case that when they come to full fruition, his policies will repair decades of declines in manufacturing and American industry. He said that the bipartisan infrastructure measure and another bill that builds a clean energy economy were his signature bills which he argued would bring jobs and prosperity. The social spending measure he pushed over the summer would make Americans wealthier since it would help with health care costs.
The openings are mostly still in the future, with only a few Democrats talking about them this year.
The Inflation Reduction Act, which allows for Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices, is one of the pieces of legislation that the Democrats stress has some relief for families. Democratic pollster Geoff Garin says that highlighting such specific initiatives can allow individual candidates to overcome the negative overall judgment on Biden’s economic management. His main concern is that too many Democrats are sublimating any economic message while focusing preponderantly on abortion.
One of the reasons that Democrats are able to mobilize Latinos for candidates is that Republicans haven’t convinced voters that they have specific answers to the economy. “The concrete is not set yet,” she said recently after a day of door-to-door canvassing in Phoenix. There is still a way to get people to know each other. Like Way to Win, her group stresses a message that tries to bridge the kitchen tables/values divide: Democrats are committed to providing people opportunities to help them meet their obligation to their families, while Republicans are focused on taking away rights.
In Portland, Ore., where the state’s Democratic Party has its headquarters, volunteers sat shoulder to shoulder at long tables while calling voters on their cellphones when President Biden showed up with a box of doughnuts.
The White House says Biden will be traveling throughout the next three weeks, but they are not certain which candidates or where he will appear with.
How has a Republican Candidate Electorated in Oregon? When Jesus Christ Wasn’t a President, And Why Does He Want to Win?
The history books show that the incumbent president is not good for the party in the midterms. If Jesus Christ was an incumbent president, members of his political party would probably try to get him out of office, according to a Democratic strategist.
Biden won the presidential election in Oregon. The volunteers gathered on a Friday night were told by Biden that it was nice to win by 16 points.
Democrats are worried about the tough three-way race for governor. There’s an independent candidate — a former Democrat — who could peel off enough Democratic votes to open the door for the first Republican governor of Oregon in more than a generation.
The next day, Biden attended a grassroots fundraiser for Kotek and the pair stopped at a Baskin-Robbins for some ice cream. There, when he was about to get a waffle cone with a double scoop of chocolate chip in it, Biden said he was confident Kogaku would win.
Biden has had a less frenetic campaign schedule than his predecessors. His event Tuesday evening in Florida will be his first rally this month, compared to the 16 that then-President Obama held in October 2010 and the 26 that then-President Trump held in October 2018.
There have been many official events held by Biden. The other presidents did this too, but for Biden, it’s his main mode of campaigning in the weeks leading to the elections.
He’s also been in high demand at events to raise cash for his party. At a Friday night fundraiser in a private home in Los Angeles, Biden helped raise $5 million, money that will help congressional candidates all over the country, including those in swing districts who at the moment wouldn’t want to be seen in public with Biden.
Some Democrats have said that there are conflicts when Biden comes to town. Republicans have roundly mocked Biden and his party for this. Smith, a strategist for the Democratic Party, said Democrats are just being smart.
What’s clear is that Biden has watched as his reputation as a Democrat who could venture places others could not has faded. Biden was frequently dispatched to red states to campaign for his party members when he was vice president, which was seen as friendlier than his current boss, Barack Obama.
There are some places where Biden can make a difference for the Democrats: places where they have a strong advantage in voter registration. Camp Hale, an important World War II training site, was designated as a new national monument by Biden. And at the picture-perfect site, he made sure to give a little extra love to Sen. Michael Bennet, who is running for reelection in a tougher than expected race.
“I want Michael to come back up here a second, because I need you to make a monument for me,” Biden said while regaling the crowd with a story.
Inflation: What does the Universe really tell us about elections? The case of LA Mayor Karen Bass, who was born on a robin’s egg
In Los Angeles, local officials lined up on a blue tape line on the tarmac to greet the president after he walked down the stairs of Air Force One. Karen Bass, the Democratic congresswoman running for LA mayor, got a well-documented hug with the signature robin’s egg blue plane in the background.
The next day, Biden touted the infrastructure law at a construction site for a new metro line, calling Bass the “soon-to-be Ms. Mayor” in a speech where he delivered the core of his midterm message.
“We’re always getting incoming requests,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters traveling with the president on Air Force One. Of course. Of course. We have a lot of good things to talk about.”
Here’s the thing about elections: When they break, they usually break in one direction. All the indicators on my political dashboard are blinking red, as if towards the Republicans.
Inflation has been a political force that causes desperation and leads to extremism as a way to respond to it. That is what politicians fear the most and why it is so odd that the White House initially claimed that there was a “transitory” problem caused by Covid-19.
A new New York Times/Sena poll shows that voters’ sour view of the economy has caused the downturn in the party’s prospects.
The Democrats had a great summer. The Dobbs decision led to a surge of voter registrations. Voters handed Democrats a string of sweet victories in unlikely places — Alaska and Kansas, and good news in upstate New York.
Sixty-two percent of Democrats have already voted, while forty-six percent of Republicans have said so. A majority of Republicans said they plan to vote in-person on Election Day.
The Transformation of the Tea Party into a Power Broker in the GOP: A First History of Donald J. Trump and the Case of Georgia Greene
Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author and editor of 24 books, including, “The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment.” If you follow him, you’ll find him on social media. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. There’s more opinion on CNN.
The Washington Post reports that almost 300 of the Republicans are election deniers who don’t accept that Biden won in 2020. While many of these candidates will lose, a large number have good odds of being victorious – potentially helping to create a path for former President Donald Trump’s reelection in 2024.
The midterms could turn supporters of election denialism into the new Freedom Caucus – the Tea Party Republicans who came to Washington after the 2010 midterms and organized into a powerful faction in the House GOP within a few years. They could be a driving force in a new majority that pushes anti-democratic policies to the very top of the Republican agenda.
According to FiveThirtyEight, 60% of Americans will not vote for a candidate in the election. Among the deniers are some hoping to be secretaries of state, which – if victorious – would allow them to run state elections in coming years.
The transformation that has been taking place in the party was captured in a recent New York Times Magazine profile of Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. In the piece, Robert Draper wrote about how Greene has quickly moved from being an outlandish, bomb-throwing maverick in her party – too right-leaning for even the most hardened conservative – to become a power broker in the GOP.
In other words, Republican success in the 2022 midterms will cement that Trumpism wasn’t some sort of aberration – it is the norm. Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney is no longer with us.
One of the best examples of how midterms can have this impact took place in 1978. Democrats retained control of the House and Senate, and Republicans didn’t, so on paper the results were not terrible for Jimmy Carter.
For conservatives, the 1978 election proved a critical moment in the direction of their party. Moderate Republicans like Tennessee Sen. Howard Baker changed their approach to issues as they read the way the political winds were blowing. Baker announced his opposition to the SALT II Treaty with the Soviet Union as hardliners wrestled control within the GOP.
Republicans gained six gubernatorial seats, an area where the Republican National Committee had heavily invested. Republicans celebrated securing control of 12 state legislative chambers, up from four. Bill Brock said in Time magazine that the most profound change for the RNC was this one.
The numbers were not as important as the inner substance. There were several up-and-coming Republicans, like Gingrich of Georgia, who championed a new generation of brash and aggressive conservatives and rejected the older generation of party leaders who believed in the need to stick to the center.
Republicans like Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi won seats that had been controlled by conservative Democrats for decades. James Eastland was one of the most famous opponents of civil rights and Cochran was named to his seat. Dick Clark was defeated by his abortion opponent in Iowa. There are Republicans who favor tax reductions and a stronger stance against communism.
There were new conservative political organizations that flexed their muscle. The National Conservative Political Action Committee, created in 1975 and one of the most important forces of what was being called “The New Right,” helped to unseat several prominent Democrats. With the PAC’s support, Republican Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire, a conservative abortion opponent, defeated Democratic incumbent Sen. Thomas McIntyre.
Newsweek noted that after the New Deal, America swung to Republicanism last week. The true message from the election returns was that the nation is ready for a new agenda, which is no longer partisan, and that is a consensus on inflation as the priority target.
If the Republicans gain control of the House and Senate next week, they’ll be in a strong position to continue their economic talking points for years to come. A strong showing will likely create some tailwinds for the GOP to unite behind Trump because of the number of election-denying candidates. Although there has been copious speculation about the rise of other Trump-like Republicans like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, it’s likely they will look “liddle” once the former President formally reenters the political arena – as his formidable opponents learned in the 2016 Republican primaries.
The former president had an anti-democratic theme as part of his effort to overturn a presidential election. He was unsuccessful in doing so, but his strategy lives on.
The Republicans will have to double down on this path in order to convince the voters that they have room at the table. If they’re triumphant in November, there will be no turning back in the next few election cycles from the new royalty of the party of Trump.
But it’s also a window into a view Biden and his top aides hold that there is a path to buck decades of electoral routs for a first-term president’s party – if only a few things can break Democrats’ way.
Some people in Biden’s own party are openly questioning his party’s message and are warning that there is a risk of the Republicans regaining the upper hand.
“The polls have been all over the place,” Biden said Monday in remarks at the Democratic National Committee. “Republicans ahead. Democrats ahead. Republicans are ahead. I think it will close with Democrats ahead in the closing days.
It was a candid acknowledgment of a moment that finds Democrats scrambling once more to zero in on a message to blunt GOP momentum because of differing views inside the party of where that message should actually land.
14 days is how long it will be before you know whether that optimism is justified. But for now, it’s the basis for Biden’s view as voters weigh two years of unified Democratic power in Washington.
Whether that will hold, particularly in a home stretch in which the small universe of undecided voters historically breaks toward the party out of power, is the definitive outstanding question.
“We’ve managed to suck ourselves back into our own circular firing squad,” one Democratic campaign official said. “It was never as good as people seemed to think it was (at the end of the summer), and it’s not as bad as some are acting now. It could be if it is not pulled together.
Biden and his advisers know the weight of the history and the economic unease that continues to rank first in voter concern in polls aren’t lost on them.
Biden’s sharpened message, after all, has been delivered in Washington – not standing on stage next to Democratic candidates in the midst of the most heated races across the country.
That will start to change in the days ahead, advisers say, with continued insistence that he will hit the road for bigger campaign events after weeks of intentionally smaller scale official events designed to highlight legislative accomplishments.
Joe Biden’s Midterm Pitch for a Democratic Congress, and How Democrats Can Fail to Get a Break from Democrat Electoral Committees
They point to two factors specifically on that front: gas prices, which have been on a steady downward trajectory for the last two weeks, and the third quarter GDP report, which analysts expect to show robust growth after two quarters of contraction.
Officials acknowledge that despite legislative achievements and a fast recovery from the downturn, the deficit on the economy won’t flip over the course of 14 days.
They see an opportunity to at least make some gains with undecided voters in the closing days if the election were to be decided by a draw.
In recent weeks, there has been a discussion among Republicans about whether or not to repeal individual provisions of Biden’s legislation that polls in favor of the Democrats when taken in isolation.
Biden has spent a number of weeks trying to highlight individual issues officials think are key motivators for base voters to turn out in large numbers, whether it be on abortion rights or his actions to cancel student loans.
Many in the West Wing saw the burst of optimism after a string of major legislative wins as overly optimistic.
In all but one of the Senate races, the Democratic candidates are polling with leads or within striking distance. The pathway to hold onto the Senate exists, even if a sharp break away from Democrats could imperil several of the party’s biggest new stars.
Joe Biden’s midterm pitch is increasingly stark and alarmist as he grapples for momentum in an election seemingly slipping away from Democrats that could land him with a Congress inflicting two years of misery on his White House.
The President was on the road Thursday – not in one of the most pivotal Senate swing states – but in New York to tout semiconductor manufacturing. His low approval ratings limit his power to help his party climb out of a hole, despite the fact that he won a state two years ago by over 20 points.
Biden has used the bright spots of the economy tout their benefits, claiming that they have reignited manufacturing, created high job creation and competed with China. He’s now warning that Republicans would gut Social Security and Medicare on which many Americans rely in retirement.
His approach reflected the extraordinarily testing election environment facing Democrats, who are in danger of losing their control of the House of Representatives as their hopes of clinging onto the Senate appear to ebb.
The loss of either chamber would be disastrous for the president, who is bracing for a flurry of Republican investigations focusing on his administration, his handling of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and his son’s business affairs.
It is far too early to judge the state of the race since there is enough uncertainty in the polling. But Biden’s speech on Thursday reflected Democrats’ burden in this election and suggested that the historical pattern of first-term presidents getting a midterm election drubbing may be reasserting itself, after his party nursed hopes of bucking the trend this summer in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
His speech demonstrated the political impossibility of highlighting undeniably positive aspects of the economy – including hopeful GDP growth figures released Thursday and a historically low jobless rate – when inflation is raging at near 40-year highs.
He has argued Republicans will hurt the economy and place popular entitlement programs at risk by threatening to raise the debt ceiling. With senior-laden Florida as the backdrop, Biden will host an official event before the rally, in which he will call attention to Republicans’ Social Security and Medicare proposals.
Unless we agree to cut Social Security and Medicare, America will go into default for the first time in American history.
President Obama admits that Democrats always charge that Social Security is at risk in elections but also argues that Republican proposals are threatening the retirement program.
But the issue is that all of those measures – if they succeed – will not unspool in time to be felt in this election. If Biden decides to run for reelection, there is a chance they will be able to help him in 2024.
In the final days of voting, the survey found that inflation, preserving democracy, abortion, immigration, healthcare, and crime are the top issues for voters.
The Inflationary Pain of the President and the White House: Why President Biden should be the scapegoat for the New York gubernatorial race
The latter has even made the gubernatorial race in New York – which hasn’t elected a Republican statewide in two decades – unexpectedly competitive. Hochul is running for the House of Representatives in Syracuse, which is also home to a competitive race.
The President finds himself in the familiarly difficult spot of trying to claim credit for the encouraging aspects of the economy while empathizing with the pain many Americans are feeling. The White House faced a similar problem when he was the vice president. The economy was slowly coming back after the Great Recession but many Americans didn’t feel it at a time of high unemployment. If Congress were to be wrested back from the Republicans, it would be like giving the keys of the car back to those who had wrecked it, according to Barack Obama. But voters weren’t happy and Republicans seized control of the House and made big gains in the Senate.
This election is turning out to be an object lesson in the pernicious political impact of inflation – a force that many adult Americans have never experienced since it last cast its dark shadow over everyday life back in the 1980s.
When a voter’s income is not keeping up with their costs, especially for the staples of everyday life like meat, bread, eggs and gasoline, they are bound to look for scapegoats. And Biden, as the president in power, gets the blame.
Biden blames factors outside of his control for the cost of living, including the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian President, and the supply chain disruption caused by the swine flu. Republicans say Biden flushed the system with billions of dollars in cash and sent the economy into an overheating cycle.
The President of the United States has the Right to shake a stick in Florida, and when is he going to deny DeSantis reelection?
In an interview with CNN’s Phil Mattingly on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen counseled patience since many of the measures the administration has taken to boost the economy will take time to come on line.
“And even though inflation is lower here than in most advanced countries, I know that’s no solace to someone sitting at the kitchen table, trying to put food on the table,” the President said.
Biden’s comment showed he knows the problem that is likely to doom Democrats this election season. There is nothing he can do about it in the short term.
Biden makes that argument to voters in Miami Gardens on Tuesday, a week from Election Day. The rally comes as Biden has sharpened his attacks on Republicans and painted an increasingly grim picture of America under a Republican majority in Congress.
The senior Biden adviser said that if you want to shake a stick in Florida, you have to hit a Republican. “So, it allows the president to really drive home what’s at stake and what the choice is.”
Scott, the head of the Republicans campaign arm, laid out a policy plan that would put Medicare, Social Security and other government programs up for a vote every five years. The state is also home to former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis, both likely 2024 presidential candidates whom Democrats have been eager to cast as the faces of a new, more extreme Republican Party.
A second senior Biden adviser thinks that the Biden argument is even more relevant in the last week of the election.
The President needs to draw that choice for the voters in Florida and the country as the Republican plan to either eliminate Social Security and Medicare becomes even more apparent.
Crist told CNN that the president was going to campaign with him in the final weeks of the election, as he hoped to deny DeSantis reelection.
Crist said that he was the most important man in the world. “The fact that he’s coming down to Florida with a week to go until the election says everything you need to know about how important Florida is.”
More than any other issue, Crist said he hoped – and expected – Biden to zero-in on the topic of abortion rights when the president headlines the rally for Crist and Senate nominee Val Demings. DeSantis’ record as governor on the issue speaks for itself, Crist said, adding that abortion rights is the “number one issue” in his race.
When Biden visited Florida last month to tour damage from Hurricane Ian, the president and DeSantis put aside their political differences to emphasize an effective response.
But a few weeks later, the governor made clear Biden was still in his sights as a potential rival, even as he demurred about a potential national run during a debate with Crist.
If the Democrat running to oust DeSantis is successful this week, they might be able to offer a glimpse of a Biden-DeSantis match up in four years. In a debate last week, DeSantis would not commit to a full four-year term if he were to win reelection.
The first and last question is:’what do I have to do to succeed?’ A senior adviser to the Democratic National Committee said that that conversation was the same thing that Trump had with himself.
What Does He Really Know About Political Processes and Campaigning for the United States? The Story of a Candidate who NEVER Known a Democratic Albatross
Biden has chafed at suggestions he is not in demand on the campaign trail, insisting to reporters that more than a dozen different campaigns had requested him in the final stretch of the contest.
“That’s not true. There have been 15. Count, kid, count,” he said last week when a reporter suggested he hadn’t been holding many rallies in the final stretch.
Biden accepts not every Democratic candidate will welcome him as a surrogate while his approval ratings remain underwater. He has told fellow Democrats he respects their political intuition when it comes to their own races and has joked publicly he would “campaign for … or against” his preferred candidates, “whichever will help the most.”
People familiar with the conversations said that he has grown frustrated with the coverage suggesting he is a political albatross.
Democrats familiar with the decision-making acknowledged that Biden is not in demand from campaigns in the most competitive races. They also argued that rallies are costly and less valuable from an organizing perspective than they used to be.
Now, it is the former president who appears to be the most sought-after Democrat for the nation’s marquee races. He held rallies in Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin over the weekend, and will visit Nevada and Arizona this week.
Earlier in the day, Biden shared the stage with former President Barack Obama in Philadelphia, the former running mates campaigning together for the first time since Biden took office. In New York, a former president was out defending his party.
On the event side, Biden scaled back battleground state political rallies in favor of political speeches in Washington and official events where he has called attention to his accomplishments – like infrastructure and manufacturing investments – and warned of the Republican alternative.
What Do Americans Want to Know About the 2020 Election? A Marist Poll reveals how many Americans are willing to vote for a candidate that isn’t
According to the NPR/ PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, some of Democrats’ key base voters are far below their Republican counterparts. Voting ends Tuesday, and it’s the last NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey.
Even if a candidate thinks the 2020 election was stolen, more than 4% of republicans said they would likely vote for that candidate.
The survey of 1,586 adults and 1, 46 registered voters was conducted by the Marist Poll and was sponsored by NPR and PBS. The result could be lower or higher than what is listed because there is a margin of error.
White evangelical Christians, older voters, Trump voters and rural voters are all revved up to vote at the same time. Those without college degrees are less enthusiastic about the election, but that’s driven by voters of color without degrees.
Republicans are trusted by wide margins on inflation (R+20), crime (R+16) and immigration (R+12), the three issues the GOP has focused on most in these elections.
Republicans were also less likely to say their preferred candidate should “definitely” concede if they were declared the loser in their race. While almost two-thirds of Democrats said so, only 39% of Republicans did.
Three-quarters of Americans said they have confidence in their local and state governments to conduct a fair and accurate election, though. Republicans were less likely to say that but still almost two-thirds of them said they have that confidence despite the rhetoric from candidates and people like Trump.
Now by a 53%-to-38% margin, they say it’s better for the government to be controlled by the same party. Democrats, who are seeing their majorities threatened this year, are driving that with 73% saying so, but a slim majority of independents and about half of Republicans feel the same way.
Also, overall, 27% of Americans say they have already voted with another 28% saying they plan to vote before Election Day. Forty percent of people say they will vote in person.
Why was Barack Biden so noxious in 2020? Why America was so great for 2021 that Donald Trump did not give up on winning but rather to feed a family
But outside the Beltway bubble of politicians and journalists, democracy feels like a far more distant, esoteric concept than the daily struggle to feed a family and to be able to afford to commute to work. From Pennsylvania to Arizona, the return to normality after the Covid-19 nightmare that Biden promised remains elusive to many as the economic after effects of the once-in-a century health emergency linger.
Biden’s speech Wednesday, delivered blocks from the US Capitol that was ransacked by ex-President Donald Trump’s mob on January 6, 2021, was a strong election-closing argument. There is an election taking place next week.
Biden said that winning is not enough to love your country. The president is right – the essence of democracy depends on the loser in an election accepting the verdict of the people. This is why Trump’s behavior was so noxious in 2020 since his refusal to admit defeat did not just ruin one election. It tore at the fundamental principle of the political system that made America great two-and-a-half centuries before Trump’s political career and caused damage that will long outlast the shockwaves of one administration.
Biden told voters the fate of the soul of America lies with the people, as it always does.
The elections should be more than one thing. Voters can chew gum at the same time. The threat to democracy feels more real in Washington, where just a glance of the Capitol dome reminds politicians of the January 6 horror.
In the heartlands of Pennsylvania, and the suburban areas of Arizona, the gut check issue is not as new as the concept of self-government would suggest. It’s the more basic one of feeding a family. This is an election more about the cost of a cart full of groceries or the price of a gallon of gasoline than America’s founding truths.
The Price of Everything was Good During Trump, and Why It Shouldn’t Be: The Implications of Trump’s Campaign on the Future of Democracy
As Scottsdale, Arizona, retiree Patricia Strong told CNN’s Tami Luhby: “The price of everything was better during Trump,” adding, “We were looking forward to retirement because everything was good.”
Declining stock markets have hurt retirement accounts and Americans with credit card debt took another blow Wednesday when the Federal Reserve raised its short-term borrowing rate by another 0.75%. There are fears that the Fed’s strategy could cause the economy to go into a recession, which in turn would cause the unemployment rate to go up.
Biden’s argument is implicitly that while inflation will fall, and economic damage can be repaired, the current election – and its legions of anti-democratic Republican candidates – could cause political wreckage that is beyond mending.
“This year, I hope you’ll make the future of our democracy an important part of your decision to vote, and how you vote,” he said. “Will that person accept the outcome of the election, win or lose?” he added, at the end of a campaign in which several GOP nominees have not guaranteed they would accept voters’ will.
Biden has been talking about high prices. Billions of dollars of spending in his domestic agenda will lower the cost of healthcare, lift up working families and create millions of jobs according to his pitch. It might be the case that things will happen in the future, but it isn’t enough to ease the pain being felt now.
The president gave a televised speech to bring attention to the threat democracy posed by Mr. Trump, just six days before the election, even though he already talked about it in previous speeches.
He put himself before the constitution by abusing his power. Biden was careful to not insult the GOP voters as he did earlier this year when he referred to “semi-fascists” in his remarks about the Big Lie.
The president argued that there was a far bigger threat now than there was in the previous election. “As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in America: for governor, Congress, for attorney general, for secretary of state who won’t commit – who will not commit to accepting the results of the elections they’re running in,” the president warned.
Biden warned that there was a lack of understanding of Trump’s supporters, who have embraced his anti-democratic, populist, nationalist appeal to mainly White voters, because of a backlash to the first Black presidency of Barack Obama. On the campaign trail, the 44thpresident made his own repudiation of Trump while making his own defense of democracy.
Mr. Biden was concerned about Republican’s efforts to intimidate voters in the name of election monitoring. The group that was planning on taking photos of voters, openly carrying guns and posting information about them online had their plans blocked by a federal judge in Arizona.
This will be “the first election since the events of Jan. 6, when the armed, angry mob stormed the U.S. Capitol,” he said. “I wish, I wish I could say the assault on our democracy ended that day. But I can’t.
Donald Trump, the Ultra-MAGA agenda, and the 2020 presidential campaign trail: How the GOP will run the presidency if Donald Trump does not win
There were costly communications mistakes along the way. The administration economists believed inflation to betransitory last spring. That assessment proved to be wildly optimistic, and Republicans have not let voters forget it.
In remarks on inflation in May, Biden tried out a new phrase: “the ultra-MAGA agenda,” referring to a plan by Senator Rick Scott of Florida that would require Congress to reauthorize spending for Social Security and Medicare. Scott is one of the Republicans who distanced themselves from the idea.
But that sentiment may have been an illusion: Polls also indicated that only a third of voters had heard of the new law and that the majority did not believe it would reduce inflation.
Biden has spoken about the economy in speeches far more often than any other subject; he has made 22 appearances since August for midterm-related events, according my count. Progressives complain that the Democratic candidates do not have enough resources to promote those achievements or to punish the Republicans who are in favor of them.
Donald Trump is rumored to be launching a bid for the White House. On Thursday, Trump told his followers to “get ready” for his return to the presidential campaign trail – and top aides have been eyeing November 14 as a potential launch date, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Since Grover Cleveland won two consecutive elections, Donald Trump is hoping to become the first since that man to do the same.
While Trump has been hinting at another run for months, the news would certainly send shockwaves through the political world. Trump is arguably one of the most controversial and destabilizing political leader in contemporary US history. And as we have seen with recent Supreme Court decisions like Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – as well as the toxic rhetoric and support for conspiracy theories within the GOP – his presidency was enormously consequential.
A GOP victory would be good for Trump. He has largely escaped accountability at this point. Despite ongoing criminal investigations and the House select committee investigating January 6, Trump is still a viable political figure.
And if Trump announces his candidacy, the Department of Justice is weighing the possibility of announcing a special counsel to oversee two sprawling federal investigations into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his alleged mishandling of national security documents kept at Mar-a-Lago. But that’s unlikely to stop Trump; we’ve seen his relentless attacks on former special counsel Robert Mueller, who oversaw the Russia investigation. And once Trump is formally a candidate, it will make prosecuting him all the more difficult. Trump, a master of playing the victim, is sure to claim (as he has in the past) that any investigation is simply a politically motivated “witch hunt” intended to take him out of the running.
If the president avoids prosecution, he would unleash a fierce assault on him, which would cause a lot of trouble within his own party. And if election deniers enter positions of power after the midterms, and Trump escapes any punishment for January 6, it’s likely he will take advantage of the loyalists who have infiltrated state and local election offices to make sure that victory is his. Trump will also come to the race having been to this rodeo before, which will mean he can perfect the technique and rhetoric that put him into office in 2016. Trump could be reinstated due to Musk’s purchase of twitter, giving him a way to direct and shape the media conversation once again. Since he was banned from Twitter, Trump has been active on Truth Social, but hasn’t said whether he will come back.
Of course, the fact that Trump poses a very serious threat in 2024 doesn’t mean he will win. The fate of Trump’s support inswing states is unclear because he turned off many independents and even some Republicans by 2020. And as we have seen with President Barack Obama’s run against Mitt Romney in 2012, presidents who have faced tough reelection campaigns can still find a path to victory.
A Time for a Change: After Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy Revisited, America Will Not Be Like It Used to Be Worst
Alice Stewart is a board member at the John F. Kennedy Institute of Politics at Harvard University. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. CNN has a lot of opinion on it.
I often say that there is no widespread voter fraud in the country, Joe Biden was elected president in 2020 and that the January 6 attack on the US Capitol was wrong. Those who think differently should face some level of scrutiny. The problem is, people in flyover states can’t afford the luxury of casting a ballot to feed the “democracy is in peril” narrative; they have to feed their family.
Republican candidates for president are focusing on the issues of lowering prices of food and fuel, keeping communities safe, and investing in education, which are top of mind for voters across the country.
Kevin McCarthy also outlined the GOP plan to fight inflation in his “Commitment to America” proposal. His plan would make America energy independent from gas prices, as well as implement pro-growth tax policies. McCarthy also outlined a plan to address safety by supporting law enforcement and securing the border to combat illegal immigration.
In Georgia, Republican candidate Herschel Walker is in a dead heat with incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. Walker addresses concerns about crime under the current administration in his closing ad. And in a statement to the Washington Examiner, he said, “Raphael Warnock and Joe Biden have made the lives of Georgians worse than they were two years ago.”
In New Hampshire, Republican Senate candidate Dan Bolduc was smart to focus on the “heating and eating” issues that weigh on Granite State voters in the final debate against Sen. Maggie Hassan.
Inflation, crime waves, reproductive rights debates, border battles, and racial conflicts are some of the topics we have today. Each issue is intertwined with anxiety for voters and elected officials.
The Republicans highlighted the “government is the problem” message to match the growing anti-Washington sentiment. People wanted change and looked to the GOP to provide that in 1994. I think that will be the case next year.
The GOP is poised to win back the House and Senate because they have listened to voters, heard their concerns, and offered solutions. Democrats have chosen to focus on the threats to democracy over the everyday concerns about food and gas, instead of addressing the real issues impacting Americans. This election is about the basic need to feed families rather than the fears of a fallen Democracy.
The Democrats closed their campaign Monday facing a nightmare scenario, with Republicans staging a referendum on the struggling presidency of Joe Biden and failure to tame inflation.
It’s too early to do postmortems. Forty million Americans are eligible to vote. And the uncertainty baked into modern polling means no one can be sure a red wave is coming. The Senate could still be protected by the Democrats even if the House fell.
On election eve, Democrats are defending blue areas such as New York and Washington state while the Republicans are talking about red areas.
A country that is split down the middle politically, which is united only by a sense of unhappiness, is getting into a habit of using election to punish the party with the most power.
The Democratic Party is Frustrated: Donald Trump’s Insurrection, Economic Security, Education and Inflation After the 2016 Midterm Primary
The chair of the RNC said that Democrats are crime, education and inflation deniers.
I am a democrat but I am not happy. I think that we did not listen to the voters in this election. And I think we’re going to have a bad night,” Rosen told CNN’s Dana Bash.
Washington, DC, has a deep emotional attachment to the scars of the US Capitol insurrection. And it is undeniably important because the survival of the world’s most important democracy is at stake. The tradition of peaceful transfers of power between presidents was in danger as a result of Trump’s inciting insurrection.
His entire career has been about restoring the balance of the economy and a measure of security to working and middle class Americans. His legislative successes could bring down the cost of health care for seniors and create a diversified green economy that shields Americans from future high energy prices amid global turmoil. The benefits from these measures will be years away. And millions of voters are hurting now and haven’t heard a viable plan from the president to quickly ease prices in the short-term.
There is no guarantee that plans by Republicans to extend Trump-era tax cuts and mandate new energy drilling would have much impact on the inflation crisis either. A stalemate between economic visions is likely to be caused by a divided government. The election has turned into a vehicle for voters to stress their frustration, with no hope of the situation getting better soon.
And in practice, there is not much a president can do to quickly lower inflation on their own. The Federal Reserve is in the lead and the central bank’s strategy of rising interest rates could trigger a recession that could further haunt Biden’s presidency.
The Republican Party was able to get what it wanted as Biden didn’t have the chance to shape this election like he did in 2020 since Trump delayed his campaign announcement until after the elections. The president might have had a chance to win over voters who dislike the former president and distract them from his low approval ratings.
Donald Trump warned that America would be destroyed if Republicans don’t deliver a massive electoral wave on Tuesday. Democrats, led by President Joe Biden and two other former presidents, are warning that abortion rights, Social Security and even democracy itself are at stake.
Millions of Americans voted on Saturday in Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial elections, and three of the six living presidents delivered dire closing messages, but their words echoed around the country as voters cast their ballots to determine control of congress and state capitals. Polls across America will close on Tuesday, but more than 39 million people have already voted.
Trump told the crowd in Pennsylvania that if they wanted to save the American dream, they must vote Republican on Tuesday.
Biden was in a political mess before he arrived in Pennsylvania, because he upset some in his party for promoting plans to shut down fossil fuel plants. The fossil fuel industry is one of the biggest employers in Pennsylvania.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the president owed coal workers across the country an apology. He characterized Biden’s comments as offensive and disgusting.
The White House said that Biden’s words were twisted to suggest a meaning that wasn’t intended and that he was commentary on a fact of economics and technology.
Predictions for a White House Run from Donald Trump and Implications for Healthcare, Social Security, and Medicare Under the Inflation Reduction Action
Trump was campaigning in Pennsylvania when he hit at Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida. After looking at recent presidential poll numbers on the large screens, Donald Trump called Ron DeSanctimonious.
Trump is going to Ohio with the weekend travels and will be in the state for a while. He’s hoping a strong GOP showing on Tuesday will generate momentum for the 2024 run that he’s expected to launch in the days or weeks after polls close.
Over and over on Saturday, Trump falsely claimed he lost the 2020 election only because Democrats cheated, while raising the possibility of election fraud this coming week. In part, because of such rhetoric, federal intelligence agencies have warned of the possibility of political violence from far-right extremists in the coming days.
“Everybody, I promise you, in the very next — very, very, very short period of time, you’re going to be happy,” Trump said of another White House bid. “But first we have to win an historic victory for Republicans on Nov. 8.”
The address was mostly the same as he has been giving for weeks, featuring a grab bag of his achievements, and warning that abortion rights, voting rights, Social Security and Medicare are all at risk if Republicans take control of Congress.
The president highlighted the Inflation Reduction Action, passed in August by the Democratic-led Congress, which includes several health care provisions popular among older adults and the less well-off, including a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket medical expenses and a $35 monthly cap per prescription on insulin. The new law also requires companies that raise prices faster than overall inflation to pay Medicare a rebate.
Election Eve Campaigning with Donald Biden, Barack Obama, Ronna McDaniel, and Marco Rubio: An Insight into the Economic Crisis of the U.S.
The Republicans are looking to win big in the elections, as they slam the Democrats over inflation and crime, while the President warns that GOP candidates could destroy democracy.
In a sign of the critical stakes and the growing angst among Democrats, four presidents – Biden, Donald Trump, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton – all took to the campaign trail over the weekend.
The ex-president is close to announcing a White House bid and will end his campaign on Monday in Ohio, where he used to be a big draw for grassroots Republicans. In a speech that concluded in pouring rain for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on Sunday, Trump predicted voters would “elect an incredible slate of true MAGA warriors to Congress.”
Biden, who was campaigning in the crucial Pennsylvania Senate race for Obama, warned that the country’s core values are in danger because Republicans denied the truth about the US Capitol insurrection and the attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband.
The president will no longer try to stave off a rebuke at the Democratic event in Maryland. The fact that he will be in a liberal area and not trying to help another candidate in a key race on the final night of the election reflects his weakened credibility and low approval ratings.
Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel predicted on CNN’s “State of the Union” that her party would win both the House and the Senate and accused Biden of being oblivious to the economic anxiety among Americans with his repeated warnings about democracy.
Republicans were warned in a speech by the president that their concern about the economy being a ruse, and that they would cut Social Security and Medicare if they got a majority.
They are all about people getting wealthy. And the wealthier staying wealthy. The middle class gets stiffed. The poor get poorer under their policy,” Biden said.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/07/politics/election-eve-campaigning/index.html
Donald Trump in the wilderness: “Whoop dee doo do vote for me?” a question that Clinton could have told Cotton on Sunday
There are fears that Republican candidates will try to ignore the will of their voters if they don’t win in the election, which is the first since the chaos and violence of Trump’s refusal to accept the result of the election. Ron Johnson raised concerns about the integrity of the vote.
In another development on Sunday, a staffer at the headquarters of Kari Lake, the pro-Trump nominee in the Arizona gubernatorial contest, opened a letter containing suspicious white powder. Lake’s opponent, current Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, condemned the incident as “incredibly concerning.”
But the Florida governor chose not to engage, turning his ire instead on Biden and calling his Democratic opponent, Charlie Crist, “a donkey” while taking credit for defying Washington officials and experts during the pandemic.
As he was campaigning for a candidate who is vying for reelection, Trump didn’t repeat the mockery he made of a candidate on Sunday, but he still teased the possibility of a presidential run. Tom Cotton said that he would not join the Republican primary, a sign that the next presidential race is heating up.
Former President Bill Clinton was also called into action on Saturday, stumping for New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in Brooklyn. The Empire state should be safe territory for his party but Hochul’s closer-than-expected reelection race against Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin underscores the toughness of the national environment for Democrats.
The average election rally is just “whoop dee doo do vote for me” but your life is at stake. Clinton told the young people in the audience that their lives were on the line.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/07/politics/election-eve-campaigning/index.html
Doing What the Left Wants: Demolishing the Donald Trump with a Senate Addresses the Judgment in the Senate
Republicans would use scores of their candidates who are in the extreme image of the president to damage him if they take control of congress. And a Republican Senate would frustrate Biden’s hopes of balancing out the judiciary after four years of Trump nominating conservative judges.