Some states went in different directions during the midterms.

The challenge of changing the Senate map with the coming year’s Democratic presidential nominee Chris Sununu (R-Missanu)

Down to the finish line, people. Elections just about a month away. A ton of races to keep track of, but if you’re looking for diversion, you’ll find some of the Senate campaigns really … unusual.

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. After his primary victory,Bolduc told WMUR he would 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. According to Bolduc, the election will be about the economy and that Hassan is an unpopular incumbent in a state that Biden carried by 7 points.

The excitement some Democrats felt toward the end of the summer on the heels of Biden’s legislative wins, and the high court decision, has been offset by the much anticipated tightening of key races as political advertising ramps up on TV and voters watch after Labor Day.

The challenge of the Democrats in the final days of the election is persuading those undecided voters who voted for Biden two years ago to switch their support to the president. That’ll be easier said than done. Just 41% of US adults approved of Biden’s performance, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS and released Wednesday. Republican voters were more likely to engage with this year’s elections than Democrats were.

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. The GOP has spent less trying to portray Democrats as extremists when it comes to abortion in comparison to Democratic ads that feature women talking about a national abortion ban should the Senate fall into GOP hands.

The Senate map has not changed despite the issue sets changing. Biden carried states such as Nevada, Georgia, Arizona and New Hampshire in 2020 for the Republicans. The GOP has some problems in two states, although the states 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. The national GOP wanted a nominee like Gen. Don Bolduc. 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.

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.

Mehmet Oz, the Republican who made it through a nasty primary with Trump’s endorsement, is pushing the race tighter. Democrat John Fetterman, the current lieutenant governor, held a slim lead over the celebrity surgeon in a recent New York Times/Siena poll. But that was notably conducted in large part before their late October debate, when the visible effects of Fetterman’s May stroke raised some concern, even among his supporters, that he might not be able to win over undecided voters. Still, only 3% of voters in a new Monmouth University poll said the debate had caused them to reconsider their choice in the race. In a post debate survey, 39% of registered voters said they were concerned Fetterman wasn’t healthy enough to do the job effectively, a 5-percentage point increase since they were asked about it in September.

The Republicans are linking Cortez Masto to a variety of concerns, all with the notion that she is a rubber stamp for Biden. Laxalt was attacked by Democrats because he supports a right to an abortion in Nevada, although he says he does not support a national ban. They tried tying Laxalt to the president and highlighting his efforts as the Nevada campaign co-chairman of Trump in the filing of lawsuits related to the 2020 election. But perhaps in a recognition that economic concerns outweigh abortion or democracy as issues that are important to voters, Democrats – including Obama, who rallied the party faithful in Nevada on Tuesday – have tried to flip the script on higher gas prices, blaming them on corporations and tying Laxalt to “big oil.”

The Ted Budd Story of a Black State Senator Flipping a Republican Senate Candidate to the 2019 General Seiberg Wahlfoam

A seat Democrats flipped last year could be the most important race. If neither candidate receives a majority of the vote in Georgia on November 8, the race will advance to a December 6 runoff. And if Senate control hinges on the Peach State – as it did in 2020 – we’ll have to wait another month to learn which party holds the majority.

Budd, who was the first non incumbent Senate endorsee of the cycle, has been outraised by his opponent. The Democratic campaign has been able to take advantage of more favorable advertising rates because of the outside spending that they have benefited from. A former state Supreme Court chief justice, who would be the state’s first Black senator, Beasley has been trying to run as the outsider. “Washington politicians like Ted Budd aren’t listening,” she says in a recent spot about high prices and stagnant wages. Her ads don’t mention that she is a Democrat, or that her party has power in Washington. Besides hitting Budd on abortion, Democrats are also trying to make an economic counterargumen. Budd “voted against lowering drug prices for people like us,” one senior says in a Beasley ad, referring to a provision in Democrats’ health care, climate and tax package that allows Medicare to negotiate certain prescription drug prices.

Republicans watch what happens here. Walker had a lot of money after the news, but Republicans say there is no chance that he will be elected again. Despite its swing-state status, this is still a place that leans toward Republicans despite having no other GOP options, because Brian Kemp will likely do well in his governor’s race, and that could help Walker in the end. But this is the kind of allegation that would have sunk previous campaigns. It will show a lot about our politics, even though Republicans voted for a candidate who bragged about assault and sexual harassment and who was accused by almost two dozen women. Previous: 2

The August survey had Barnes with a 7-point edge over Johnson, but the September poll shows neither of them as the clear leader, with Johnson at 50% and Barnes at 42%. 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.

Barnes moved through the August primary unscathed, but as the nominee his past words about ending cash bail and redirecting funding from the police budget were attacked, especially on crime. Barnes has been attempting to answer those attacks with his ads, like this one where a retired police sergeant says that Mandela doesn’t want to defund the police.

Spending for the American Dream: The Campaign of a Candidate Who Hassan, Masters, and Cheri Beasley, and the Army of New IRS Agents

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 was ahead of Masters by a large margin among registered voters in a September Marist Poll, although that gap narrowed among those planning on voting. A Fox survey from earlier in the month show Kelly with a 5-point edge over opponents, just within the margin of error.

Masters has been trying to moderate his stance on the issue since he won the August primary, 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.

The Senate race in North Carolina was less well known than contests in other states, maybe because the campaign had lesser-known candidates.

Beasley, the first Black woman to serve as chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, has run a fairly nonantagonistic campaign, with a high number of right-leaning independents. She’s focused on the people of cities and abortion rights in rural areas, like other Democrats in the country.

Budd is leaning into the current inflation crisis, going after Biden in some ads that have half-empty shopping carts, without mentioning who he was referring to. 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. The SLF and Budd are targeting her over her support for Democrats in the 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. According to Democrats and the IRS commissioner, the intention is to target tax dodgers, not the middle class.

Republicans got their candidate – and it’s not the one the establishment wanted. Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan looks to have an easier path than before the Republican primary, as she faces off against controversial Retired Army Brig. The general is Don Bolduc. He supports Trump, denies the election results and has boosted the vaccine conspiracy.

In his bid to win a seat in the US Senate, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan tried to appeal to working class voters who felt abandoned by establishment Democrats. The blue collar voters that supported Trump in 2016 and again in 2020 were previously members of his party.

Democrats face a tough battle against GOP Sen. Marco Rubio in a red state where Trump carried by 3 points in 2020.

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 has a background in law enforcement that is important to her; it is prominently featured in her ads, and she is against de funding the police. Still, Rubio has tried to tie her to the “radical left” in Washington to undercut her own law enforcement background.

Michael Bennet is a veteran of tough races. He only won reelection by 6 points against a GOP opponent who was abandoned by the national party. 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.

O’Dea is being attacked by Bennet for voting for a failed 2020 state ballot measure to ban abortion after 22 weeks of pregnancy and he argues that if O’Dea supports abortion rights, he would give McConnell enough votes to pass a national abortion ban.

Can the 2020 Election Deniers Suggest That President Joe Biden Did Not Win The State Election? The Case of Hobbs and Lake

The question of how the Republican Party will reflect its base in the 2020 election was a big one heading into the 2020 cycle. Poll after poll has shown that a clear majority of Republicans falsely believe that President Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election.

It shouldn’t be a big surprise that Republicans running for office also believe in this. Is there a chance that any of those candidates will run states where the elections are close? For the most part, the answer is no. Donald Trump easily won the presidency, so most election deniers running for governor only have a very small chance of winning.

Even though Lake is known as an election denier, the town still has a good chance of having a real position of power. 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.

The Arizona governor’s race between Lake, one of the most prominent election deniers on the ballot this year, and Hobbs, remains tight, with Hobbs clinging to a 34,000 vote lead as of late Saturday with an estimated 290,000 votes to be counted.

The libertarian nominee dropped out of the race Tuesday, which may have provided Masters with an assist. With voters already voting, it is not certain how much of a difference the move will actually make. This is another state where the governor’s race could affect the Senate contest since Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake is considered a much stronger candidate than Masters. The Republicans will see Masters doing well in this race as proof the environment is even better than they had expected.

The 2020 deniers have not been a total failure in the polls. CNN projects that four Republican candidates who tried to overturn President Joe Biden will be elected state elections chief, all of them in Republican-dominated states. CNN believes at least 18 such candidates will be elected as governor or senator.

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. According to the CBS News survey, just 18% of voters wanted officials in Arizona to say that Biden wouldn’t win in 2020, but another 41% 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.

The poll showed that no more than 6 percent of voters are confident that the Arizona election in 2022, will be fair and accurate. The majority of people are confident that it will be.

When Governor Lisa Lake and the GOP lost their democracy: The case of Arizona, where Gov. Mark Finchem and Walker will be next secretary of state

Lake only supports election results she agrees with, and had she been governor in 2020, she has said that she would have refused to certify Biden’s victory. Lake is basically telling anyone who will listen that she is prepared to use the levers of government to overturn the will of the people.

Masters’ defeat in Arizona came after prominent Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, swooped into the state in the final days of the election, warning that the very fate of the nation’s democracy was on the ballot. Voters in the Grand Canyon State rejected the bid of a GOP state representative to become Arizona’s top elections official. Instead, they will elect Democrat Adrian Fontes as Arizona’s next secretary of state, CNN projected Friday night.

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

Control of the Senate – which will come down to Nevada, Arizona and possibly the December runoff in Georgia – was expected to be a toss-up going into Election Day. The closer-than- anticipated contest for control of the House has made it more difficult for McCarthy to become speaker even if Republicans win the majority.

Except — whoops — the Republicans have assembled a trove of truly terrible candidates. You’d almost think the party honchos met in secret and decided that running the Senate was too much of a pain, and that they needed to gather some nominees who would guarantee they could keep lazing around in the minority.

A few days ago, Georgia looked like a prime possibility for a turnover. Walker seemed like a normal Republican candidate by 2022, and it tilts very heavily towards the G.O.P. His autobiography vividly described a spectacular rise to sports, school and business success after a childhood in which “I was an outcast, a stuttering-stumpy-fat-poor-other-side-of-the-railroad-tracks-living-stupid-country boy.”

Editor’s Note: Geoff Duncan, a Republican, is the 12th Lieutenant Governor of Georgia. The views that are expressed are of his own. Read more opinion articles on CNN.

The State of the Art: Resolving Abrams’ Problem in the U.S. Senate and Implications for the Growth of Business in Georgia

According to the New York Times, a woman said that Walker urged her to have another abortion two years later. She refused, which she says ended their relationship. Walker denies this allegation as well. The details of some stories have not been confirmed by NPR. Walker is against abortion rights and his responses to the scandal have not been very clear.

Now, members of a nervous GOP infrastructure must hold their breath and hope Walker can weather the storm. To his credit, Walker has had to face a number of serious allegations including domestic abuse and an exaggerated business career. He has had a Trump-esque Teflon quality of surviving scandals. Walker’s test in October is the most serious he has ever had, by nature and timing.

Meanwhile, the Georgia governor’s race offers Republicans a better path forward as a party. The gubernatorial re- match was supposed to be a great one but it has turned into a snoozer. Abrams has so far failed to re-capture the magic of her 2018 run when she raised nearly $28 million dollars and became a rising national Democratic star.

This time around, she did not have the same support and enthusiasm from the public that she had in the past. It is unfortunate, but for her to lose by such a big margin shows a lot more.

Yet Kemp is breathing easier this year for factors that extend beyond Abrams’ flaws. He has his own record to fall back on, and it is one of accomplishments and results. Georgia has been named the best state in business for the ninth year in a row. Kemp’s decision to re-opened our state from the Pandemic faster than others, angering even the president, has been with us for quite some time. As more people and businesses have re-located to our state for our business-friendly climate, Georgia has taken meaningful strides toward becoming the technology capital of the East Coast.

Recent Progress in Walker’s Anomaly: The Case for a Change in the State of the Art and the Challenges Faced in the Senate

Both Walker and Warnock survived November 8 to fight another day despite different strong headwinds facing each of them. According to Marist, Biden has a low favorability rating, with 40% nationwide and only 38% in Georgia. For Walker, it has been the steady drumbeat of personal allegations rolled out over the past few months, some admitted to and others staunchly denied.

If we want to get the public’s attention, we need to get the candidates they should take seriously. The process goes all the way beyond fame or celebrity. It is necessary that leaders are able to win elections with a conservative vision for governing.

Even if Republicans win a majority in the House, it will be more slender than they’d hoped.

No matter what party you claim, there were positive signs coming out of the midterms. Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs voted against the Oz transplant and sent John Fetterman to the US Senate. Pennsylvania voters also rejected an election denier, Doug Mastriano, in the race for state governor, and made history by electing Democrat Summer Lee as the state’s first Black woman to serve in Congress.

The field has been in Republicans’ direction, but is now reversed because of a natural widening of the gap between the races as more people focus on them and also because of a lot of TV advertising supporting GOP candidates.

The Senate Leadership Fund has spent over a half million dollars on TV ads in the last two weeks.

A new group aligned with former President Trump has just appeared and started to spend a lot. They have poured in about $2 million in two states — Pennsylvania and Ohio, places where Trump-endorsed Senate candidates are struggling.

The Democrat Party’s Best Pick in the Keystone State: Sen. Pat Toomey and the Economic Impact of the Pandemic

After CNN projected Democratic victories in Arizona on Friday and Nevada on Saturday, Democrats now have 50 Senate seats to Republicans’ 49 seats. The Georgia Senate will determine how big the Democrats’ majority is.

The Keystone State rounds out the cycle where it began – as the Senate seat most likely to flip. The race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey represents Democrats’ best pickup opportunity. Biden narrowly won the commonwealth in 2020, after Trump had carried it in 2016, making it a pivotal battleground for the midterms and the next presidential contest.

It may be a natural and expected tightening, but following a month of millions of dollars in TV ads spent in the past month by Republican outside groups, the significant lead once held by Democrat John Fetterman over Republican celebrity TV doctor, Mehmet Oz, has shrunk considerably.

CNN has projected that Republican Adam Laxalt will lose to Democratic Sen Catherine Cortez Masto, a former prosecutor and state attorney general in Nevada.

Laxalt acknowledged that the mail-in votes that arrived over the past couple of days had broken in higher Democratic margins than the team had calculated. “This has narrowed our victory window,” he tweeted. He said the race was coming down to the more than 20,000 Election Day Clark County drop-off ballots. We can still win if they are GOP or DEM leaning. If they continue to trend heavy DEM She will overtake us.

A big reason for the Republican opportunity here, though, is the economy. Some Democrats worry that the party is concentrating too much on abortion and not enough on the economy. There is a high population of white people, Latino people and Asian people in the state that are still trying to recover from the economic effects of the Pandemic.

There is a group to watch that is Latinos. Republicans claim to have been able to appeal to the group over the economic and crime effects of the disease in order to get them to turn their backs on the Democrats.

Democrats in Nevada have historically done well with the base voters who turn out for them, and this time they think they have a good chance at victory thanks to the Hispanic community and the fact that they are airing Spanish-language ads. There are questions about whether the party can get out the vote. Democrats believe they have the manpower and resources to win but this election is a big test of whether they are able to keep theNevada turnout machine going.

Masters then appeared to modulate his tone about the 2020 election results as well as the conservative stances he had sought out during the primary on abortion – in what initially seemed like an effort to appeal to broader swath of the Arizona electorate. Independents make up a third of the electorate and sway close elections in Arizona, despite the fact that Republicans make up a plurality.

Earlier in the race, Masters, a first-time candidate, was able to navigate the GOP primary gauntlet with significant financial backing from conservative tech billionaire Peter Thiel, his former boss. He appealed to Republicans by promising to prioritize immigration issues, but also by echoing Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. In one campaign video released last year, he said he believed Trump won.

That said, North Carolina, a Republican-controlled seat, has trended up the top 10, and both sides expect a close finish between Democrat Cheri Beasley and Trump-backed Rep. Ted Budd. The Democrats believe they have enough resources to win this race and push Beasley over the finish line in this state that has leaned toward the Republican side in recent presidential and Senate elections. There’s been a bit of an increase in Democratic spending recently. We’ll see if it makes a difference.

Budd’s campaign, on the other hand, has confounded many Republicans. Budd does not appear to be doing much to court independent voters, even though a former Republican governor called his campaign “risk averse.” He has hugged Trump, talked of immigration, calling every county a “border county” and accused Beasley of being “deceptive” in painting herself as a moderate.

It’s going to be difficult to sell that in this state, where 40% of the population is independent and even Republicans acknowledge abortion as an issue. According to a report, the National Republican Senatorial committee has stopped advertising in the state and redirecting the funds to other areas. Previous: 6

The Democratic candidate for Congress, Val Demings, has raised a lot of money but Marco Rubio has held a steady lead in this race. Something else to watch in this race, though, is what effect Hurricane Ian will have, which is unclear at this point as the cleanup continues.

There are a lot of Republican places, which took a direct hit from the hurricane, but also places that are reeling and dealing with the aftermath, like Disney World, where the police chief is a Republican. The campaigns and committees are adjusting with only a month left in the election. Next: 10

Inside Elections with Dean Obeidallah: When Patty Murray and Sammy Smiley fought and lost: The Toss-up

The Senate race in Washington state between the incumbent Democrat, Patty Murray, and the republican, Tiffany Smiley, is currently in single digits in a number of polls. Murray has led in all of them and touted her tenure and items in recent Democratic-passed legislation, even as Smiley has tried to use those very things against her, saying they’ve led to inflation. Republicans are even running an ad showing Murray morphing into President Biden. Murray fought for lower prices for prescription drugs and for diabetes control in her legislation.

Editor’s Note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program “The Dean Obeidallah Show” and a columnist for The Daily Beast. Follow him @DeanObeidallah. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has more opinion on it.

Dangerously, Lake has also called for imprisoning her Democratic opponent Katie Hobbs — Arizona’s secretary of state — for unspecified alleged election offenses. There is no evidence that he committed any crimes. Lake is crime enough for standing up for democracy.

Lake claimed on election night that the vote was being rigged again, but this time she presented no evidence.

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

There is a clear choice for voters of Arizona to make, between Lake and Hobbs, who both fight for election integrity.

The Pennsylvania Senate race is much more competitive, with Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz leading Democrat John Fetterman 51% to 45% in a CNN poll.

The Senate race is very close, with Republican candidate Adam Laxalt and Democratic candidate Catherine Masto in a dead heat according to the CBS News/YouGov poll.

• Democrats are beginning to point fingers in Wisconsin, where Lt. Gov Mandela Barnes has watched his lead over GOP Sen. Ron Johnson slip away over the last two months. People are hitting their heads against the wall. Tom Nelson ran for the Senate nomination and said “How do we let this happen?”

Shapiro and Mastriano: The Unconventional Campaign of a 2020 Democratic Governor in the Pa. Post-Labour Day Election

Combine that with the fact that the governor of the Pennsylvania has wide latitude when it comes to election oversight – the governor appoints the state’s top election official – and you can begin to grasp why controlling this seat matters a whole lot.

According to the new CNN polling, Attorney General Josh Shapiro is in a race with state Sen Doug Mastriano that is close to winnable for him.

People closely following the governor’s race likely aren’t terribly surprised. An unusual campaign was run by Mastriano, one of the most prominent 2020 election deniers.

“As he tours the Commonwealth, Mastriano has essentially walled himself off from the general public, traveling within a bubble of security guards and jittery aides who aim to not only keep him safe, but ensure he only comes into contact with true believers. …

Mastriano’s unconventional campaign was supposed to evolve over the summer and begin reaching out to undecided voters. Instead, the opposite has happened. Labor Day came and went.”

It was no easy task to beat him. Even as it was evident that there were major doubts about his willingness and ability to reach out beyond the hardcore GOP base in a general election, national Republicans did not try to sway primary voters away from Mastriano.

Cyber Ninjas: What the GOP is upholding about the 2020 election in Maricopa County and why they are showing up at the ballot boxes?

The voters who came to hear former President Barack Obama speak were looking to send a message of defiance.

They said they are determined to win the election and will not allow their state voters to be intimidated by activists who turned up.

Obama said that if Republicans win key offices in the state it may not survive. That’s not an exaggeration. That is a fact.

Cyber Ninjas conducted a partisan review after the 2020 election in what was called an “audits” in Arizona’s Maricopa County. Both political parties are now girding for another potential battle over the election results in a state Biden won by less than 10,500 votes. The top of the ticket are setting that tone.

Rodriguez, a registered Democrat, said she was concerned that radical Republicans in her state were able to elevate candidates like Lake and Masters, who won their primaries in part by matching Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.

What are they doing, aside from Trump talking about the election being fraudulent? Rodriguez said. A lot of Trumpers are still driving their trucks with the Trump flags in their neighborhoods. “And they’re walking around with guns on their hips, showing up at the ballot boxes or showing up at the election sites – for what reason? Do they believe their intimidation tactics are going to work?

Democratic State Senator Kamala Obama: Why the 2020 Arizona Supermajority Election is Prejudiced and the American Nazi Party is Left Behind

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

The state was on edge as Obama arrived in Arizona less than a week before the midterm election to campaign for fellow Democrats, including Sen. Mark Kelly, who is in a close race with Masters. The fact that those top statewide contests may be decided on a razor’s edge and the fact that young voters and Latino voters will be critical to victory in Arizona makes Obama come to the Grand Canyon State.

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

The political climate and concerns about the integrity of the election results were what broughtKeith Greenberg, a registered Republican fromMaricopa County, to obama’s rally. He stated in an interview that he was voting against the Trump ticket, rather than voting for Democrats.

Greenberg said the 2020 election would be fair and honest and that he was no longer a member of the Republican Party. I can’t put up with that, it’s more like the American Nazi Party.

Voters filed complaints to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office after some activists were taking pictures of voters and their license plates – apparently inspired by debunked conspiracy theories about so-called “mules” who stuffed ballot boxes in 2020. A federal judge on Tuesday banned members of a group called Clean Elections USA from openly carrying guns and wearing body armor in front of 250 feet of drop boxes because they lied about the 2020 election being rigged.

The group has been banned from speaking to or yelling at voters who drop off their ballots, as well as taking photos or filming voters at the drop boxes, because of the ruling. The Justice Department had weighed in on the case that was brought by the League of Women Voters. The DOJ did not formally take sides, but in a legal brief, federal prosecutors said the right-wing group’s “vigilante ballot security efforts” were likely illegal and “raise serious concerns of voter intimidation.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/03/politics/arizona-election-deniers-kari-lake-obama-midterms/index.html

The Democratic Party in Wisconsin: A Battleground for a Trump-Defying Candidate Electoral Race in the Era of Congressional Deliberations

That dynamic is even more pronounced in a state like Arizona, where Trump loyalists control the Republican Party and have censured Republicans like outgoing Gov. Doug Ducey for not being loyal to him.

People showed up to see Obama Wednesday night so they could feel hopeful about the democratic process amid all the noise, says a registered Democrat.

It is important to hear from someone that we believe in and trust that we will be hopeful about this election, she said. “You can see all these people out here. There are many people waiting. I just want to believe that people want to believe in something better – that they have morals and values that we all should have as human beings and not elect these liars and con people.”

On Election Day, the race will matter the most, as Republicans aim to take control of the chamber and curtail the second half of President Joe Biden’s term.

In 2020, battleground states on the Senate map were mostly won by Biden, thus giving Democrats a chance. Even though Biden is unpopular in many of those states, Democratic incumbents and challengers have huge sums of money that they were able to spend on their campaigns throughout the summer while their Republican opponents faded out of the race. Candidates get more favorable advertising rates than the super PACs and outside groups that have had to come in and make up the difference for some Donald Trump-backed GOP nominees who have lackluster fundraising.

One of the most closely divided states is Wisconsin, with both the GOP senator Ron Johnson and Democratic governor Tony Evers facing competitive reelection campaigns. Johnson, who made statements relating to the disease and the attack in January, is competing against Barnes, a democrat who at one point backed removing police funding. Evers faces TimMichels, who won Trump’s support in the primary by aggressively hyping the former president’s 2020 election lies. Milwaukee is a historically blue-collar city and supports Democrats the most. The GOP base is found in the more affluent northern and western suburbs of Milwaukee, as well as in less populated counties in central Wisconsin.

Running for a Cause: Hassan, Biden, and O’Dea in a State with Long-Range Demographic Demography

Still, Hassan’s closing ad, in which she talks about “standing up to the president – whatever it takes,” speaks to her vulnerability this year given the national environment, which even her massive fundraising advantage may not be able to erase.

It could be helpful for O’Dea in a state where Biden carried more than 13 points in 2020. The O’Dea campaign has become a point of divergence between Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has supported the candidate. The Senate Leadership Fund gave $1.25 million to a pro-O’Dea super PAC – the same amount it gave to a group supporting Republican challenger Tiffany Smiley in Washington state. Biden won Washington by 19 points in 2008, so it is more likely that he will flip a seat if the national environment gives Republicans a chance.

The biggest thing she shares in common with Trump is that election denialism sits at the core of her messaging. She said if she’d been the governor she wouldn’t certify the result in the state.

Arizona is a litmus test to see if election denialism is something voters are willing to accept in their candidates. Is it something that makes people vote for these candidates?

And if the likes of Lake and Finchem are in control of the election machinery come 2024, is there any hope of a fair and transparent result in one of the likely swing states of the next election?

Secretary of state contests — typically low-profile races that determine who helps administer elections in a state – have drawn national attention and millions of dollars in political spending this year as several Republican nominees who doubt the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election pursue the jobs.

Voting rights advocates are worried that the presence of election deniers on general election ballots in key battlegrounds will have a negative impact on the outcome of future elections like a potential race between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

Georgia: The Georgia contest features one of the country’s best-known election chiefs – Republican Brad Raffensperger, who refused Trump’s request to “find” the votes needed to overturn his loss in the Peach State. A special grand jury in Georgia is investigating the campaign of Trump and his allies.

The race in Michigan pits a leading national voice against a Republican who has made false claims about the 2020 election and is behind the attack on the US Capitol.

Karamo, a community college professor who secured an endorsement from Trump last year, has said he won the election, and she signed on to an unsuccessful Supreme Court lawsuit that challenged Biden’s victory in four states.

The GOP Wave in California and the Sixth District: A Tale of Two Battlegrounds for the United States, the Senate, and the House of Representatives

California, where there is a lot of mail-in ballots, and states like Oregon and Arizona could be the deciding factors on which party will get 218 seats in the House.

Polls close at 6 p.m. ET in most of Indiana and Kentucky. It’ll take time to see if the Democratic senator from Indiana will survive the challenge from Republican businessman Mike Braun.

It might not be a good sign for the nation. In an unusual twist – in part due to the brutal ads Barr has aired – the race has largely become about McGrath and whether she is too progressive for the district, rather than a referendum on Trump or the incumbent congressman. A Barr loss would give Republicans cause to be worried.

The Supreme Court in Pennsylvania decided to change the state’s congressional district lines and Democrats are expected to pick up at least four seats. One to watch as a sign of a Democratic wave is whether Republican Brian Fitzpatrick holds on to his seat. The GOP is in dire straits if Scott and Mike start to sweat.

Democrats saw one more district in Virginia emerge as competitive late in the cycle: the 5th District, where former journalist Leslie Cockburn takes on Republican Denver Riggleman, an Air Force veteran and distillery owner. A Democratic win here would be a sign of a tidal wave threatening to wipe out Republicans whose races weren’t even on the national radar.

The Atlanta suburbs feature two wave-maker districts – if Democrats win either, it’d mean they’re in for a big night. In Georgia’s 6th District, Republican Rep. Karen Handel – who won a ballyhooed special election against Jon Ossoff last year – faces Lucy McBath, a challenger whose unarmed son was shot and killed over a dispute about loud music. Republicans in the 7th District are upset that Rob Woodall never took his race seriously. “If you don’t think it behooves you to put paid media on air, we’re not going to come help you. We’re not a welfare organization,” a Republican official said.

House battleground: Miami. South Florida is the location of two House battlegrounds. In the 26th District, GOP Rep. Carlos Curbelo has run well to his party’s left on issues like climate change and immigration, and Republicans need him to survive. In the 27th District, what should be an easy Democratic pick-up has become daunting, as former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala – the non-Spanish-speaking Democratic candidate in a majority Hispanic district – faces former Spanish-language broadcast journalist Maria Elvira Salazar.

In Florida, a small portion of the panhandle is in Central time, so we’ll need to wait an extra hour for full results to come in for the governor’s race between Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, a progressive favorite, and DeSantis, who has aligned himself so closely with Trump that this is a potential preview of 2020.

Is this a Midwestern state-level resurgence? Richard Cordray is a Democrat who is running for governor of Ohio, a state that Donald Trump carried by 9 percentage points in the 2016 election. He is competing against Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine. It is the first of several tests that the Democrats hope will reverse GOP gains in several states.

Tennessee is a great pick-up opportunity for Democrats. In an attempt to gain the support of moderate Republicans away from the GOP Rep. Marsha Blackburn, the ex-governor pledged to work with Trump.

Missouri, where McCaskill is up against the Attorney General, is one of the best pick-up opportunities for the GOP.

The most crucial hour for House control. This could also be the hour in which the next House begins to take shape. The two major battlegrounds are Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Democrats need to win the open 2nd District and the 11th District if they are to have any chance of victory in New Jersey.

But it’s the next two that would clearly show Democrats on their way to a huge House majority: Republican incumbents Leonard Lance and Tom MacArthur, one of the architects of the House’s health care repeal bill who also backed Trump’s tax bill, are also in the fights of their political lives. It would show how important health care is for the Democrats if MacArthur were to lose.

Democrats could also pick off House seats in Illinois. Sean Casten is their best bet – he faces GOP Rep. Peter Roskam in the Chicago suburbs. Lauren Underwood was in the vicinity of Chicago to campaign with former President Barack Obama. The 12th and 13th Districts are two more wave-maker types with GOP incumbents Mike Bost and Rodney Davis.

– Mississippi Senate: Does Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith hold off conservative Chris McDaniel and advance to a one-on-one runoff against Democratic former Rep. Mike Espy?

An 8:30 p.m. ET House race: In Arkansas, Democrats got their strongest possible challenger in state lawmaker Clarke Tucker to take on Republican Rep. French Hill. It’s another member of the wave-maker category of districts that would signal a huge Democratic night.

Democrats are confident that they will win the 2nd and 3rd districts, even though Republicans have largely written off the two races. But Republican Jim Hagedorn in southern Minnesota and Pete Stauber in the northern reaches of the state are both on offense and party operatives are hopeful they can be two bright stops in what could otherwise be a tough night.

The poll closing could mean that this is the year of the suburban revolt against Republicans. Republicans have all but written off Kansas’ 3rd and Colorado’s 6th districts, both suburban seats currently held by Republicans, but Democratic wins in suburban Dallas with Colin Allred, Houston with Lizzie Fletcher and Detroit with Elissa Slotkin and Haley Stevens could cement House majorities for Democrats.

With wins in deep red districts without large population centers, Democrats could make this a really outstanding night for them. There are two examples of that, in upstate New York and Kansas City, where Democrats are running against Republicans.

What is history in Texas like? Since 1988, Texas has not elected a state-wide Democrat. But Rep. Beto O’Rourke, fueled by Democratic enthusiasm and a Brinks Truck worth of cash, has given Sen. Ted Cruz a real race. Polls have the upstart Democrat down and Republicans believe the state’s Republican tendencies will be evident on Election Day, but staggeringly high early voting numbers and national attention on the race have given O’Rourke a chance. A win here would be earth-shattering for Democrats.

The Democrats could lose a lot of votes at the closing of the polls. According to the polls, Sen. Heitkamp is likely to lose on Tuesday night because of a few campaign gaffes. She had a mistake in her campaign ad, where she wrongly identified victims of sexual assault.

Democrats hope that a loss in North Dakota (or earlier in the night) could be erased by a win in Arizona, where two congresswomen – Democrat Kyrsten Sinema and Republican Rep. Martha McSally – are fighting in a state Trump won in 2016.

Is Scott Walker done? In states other than Wisconsin, Democrats are on offense in governor’s races, but Tony Evers is challenging Walker, a Republican who has lost three times.

The race has become a judgment on Walker, who is asking voters for a third term in the state, an ask that even Republicans admit makes his re-election difficult.

The dark horse gubernatorial race of the 9 p.m. ET hour is in South Dakota, where Republican Rep. Kristi Noem is in a surprisingly tough fight against Democrat Billie Sutton, an anti-abortion, pro-gun Democrat who is running to oversee a state that backed Trump by 30 percentage points in 2016.

While Democrats are fighting in competitive races in the Central Valley, they will focus their attention on the south of the state, particularly Los Angeles and Orange County.

Katie Hill, Gil Cisneros, Katie Porter, Harley Rouda and Mike Levin are the five Democrats looking to flip seats in the traditionally Republican area. If there are some races earlier in the night, these seats in Southern California may be the cherry on top of a good night for the Democrats or the focus of attention over the next weeks.

Governors’ races wrap with a late night in Alaska. In Nevada, Democrat Steve Sisolak and Republican Adam Laxalt are fighting over the governor’s mansion which is currently held by Republicans, and in Iowa, Democrat Fred Hubbell is looking to oust Republican incumbent Kim Reynolds.

Control of the Senate, the House and state governments can be determined by these critical races. What happens in these states will impact issues like abortion rights, economic policy, education and the climate crisis — not just within their borders, but across the country.

Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales gives nonpartisan analysis of campaigns for Senate, House and governor, which is used by CNN.

The GOP Way to Win in 2020: How Much Will the State Vote and Where Will They Come From? The Case of Georgia, Nevada, and Indiana

When Biden won Georgia in the 2020 presidential election, he became the first Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1992 to win the state’s electoral college votes, the only times Democratic presidential nominees have won the state since native son Jimmy Carter was on the ballot.

Nevada voted for every presidential winner from 1980 to 2012. That streak ended when Hillary Clinton won the Silver State in 2016, but it returned to form by voting for Biden in 2020. Clinton’s improved performance nationally did not matter to Biden, who won the state by a smaller margin. Democrats have won every presidential election since 2008, but their margin of victory has narrowed each time.

Biden moved Pennsylvania back to the Democrats in 2020. Prior to the 2016 election, the state had voted for the Democrats in six consecutive presidential elections.

Then there’s the other side of the spectrum. Most people are anticipating that we won’t know who wins the Senate until days, if not weeks, after Election Day. That may be the case, but it’s far from a certainty.

There are a number of ways we could get a call quickly. The easiest way for it to happen is if the Republicans win both Georgia (with a majority to avoid a runoff) and Pennsylvania. We probably don’t depend on what could be longer counts in Arizona and Nevada.

It is possible that this will happen if there is a surprise result in the east. If Republicans have a very good night, they could win the New Hampshire Senate race, where Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan is running for reelection against Republican Don Bolduc. Democrats could win the open Ohio Senate race if they have a good night, as Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan is facing off with Trump supporters.

Heavy mail voting can be found in states like California, Oregon and Washington. This can delay the vote count, especially in California, where ballots only need to be postmarked by Election Day and the law allows for an extended period of vote counting.

The election in California’s 21st District was not decided until December 6, nearly a month after the November 7 election, because of the ballot count.

If it’s a big Republican night, we could also see Democratic Rep. Frank Mrvan go down in Indiana. Voters must have an excuse to vote in Indiana, unlike a lot of other states.

My guess is that this one won’t happen due to the Republicans’ enthusiasm for the generic congressional ballot. Still, it is a statistical possibility that the House ends up being really tight.

Ranking Choice Voting in New York City and on Long Island: Observational Results for a Candidate in Arkansas & New York

There are two states that ranked choice voting. Voters can rank the candidates on their ballot from the least favorite to the most favorite. The supporters of the candidate who had the least first round votes have their second choice reallocated if no candidate is a majority vote winner. This sequence continues until one candidate has a majority of votes.

The election for the 2nd District in Maine happened nine days after this. It takes 15 days for ranked choice voting results to be known in Alaska.

But if you want to get an idea of which way things might be headed, we’ve identified several races that might give you a sense of the way the political wind is blowing (organized by poll close time):

Expect a poll-close call in favor of Republican John Boozman to be re-elected to the Senate – and, yes, for Sarah Huckabee Sanders to be governor of Arkansas. According to reports, the daughter of Mike Huckabee is set to become the governor of the state. Sanders underwent surgery last month after a biopsy revealed she had thyroid cancer. She said after her surgery that she was “cancer-free.”

You can see the races north of New York City and on Long Island. Moderate areas in New York have a strong correlation with control of the House over the last fifteen years or so.

The Countdown to the 2020 Midterm Election: The Case for Ron DeSantis and the Future with a National Majority, Senator Mike Crapo and Ron Wyden

Expect poll-close calls in favor of California Sen. Alex Padilla, who would be elected for the first time – he was appointed to replace Kamala Harris in 2021; for Gov. Gavin Newsom, Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo and Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sent a clear message to every Republican voter Tuesday night: My way is the path to a national majority, and former President Donald Trump’s way is the path to future disappointments and continued suffering.

DeSantis’ decisive victory offers a future where the Republican Party might actually win the popular vote in a presidential contest – something that hasn’t been done since George W. Bush in 2004.

CNN exit polls show that if Trump were to win a third time, he would be facing a serious challenge from the left in the general election.

In the second half of the 20th century, a key observation was made: President Trump commanded huge support among Hispanics, compared to that of his opponent, Congressman Ron DeSantis.

Biden won the county by more than 14 points. The county was secured by DeSantis by nearly seven points.

A former special assistant to President George W. Bush and a former campaign adviser to Sen.Mitch McConnell, Scott is a CNN contributor. He is a partner at RunSwitch Public Relations in Louisville, Kentucky. Follow him on Twitter @ScottJenningsKY.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/opinions/outcome-us-2022-midterm-election-roundup/index.html

The Let It Go: The Importance of Youth’s Voting in the United States During the Preliminary Midterm Election Roundup

Let it go. If election night confirmed anything for me it is this: We can all – voters, doomscrollers, pundits and election deniers included – stop believing every election revolves around former President Donald Trump. When asked in exit polls across the country, younger people, women and other voters said their top concerns were inflation, abortion rights, crime and other quality of life issues

It was a relief. It seems like a majority of Americans want politics to be more focused on what’s important rather than what’s in the news.

Maryland voters, meanwhile, elected Democrat Wes Moore as their state’s first Black governor. And in New England, Maura Healey became Massachusetts’ first female governor. She’s also the first out lesbian to win a state governorship anywhere in the US.

In unfinished business, voters tackled slavery, permanently abolishing “involuntary servitude” in four states – Vermont, Oregon, Alabama and Tennessee. Louisiana maintained its slavery clause under its constitution.

Despite efforts to limit voting rights across the nation, voters in Alabama approved a measure requiring that any change to state election law goes into effect at least six months before a general election. The amendment that voters in Kentucky defeated would have removed the protections for abortion rights in the state’s constitution.

It was especially encouraging to see voters of younger generations turn out in droves. The Institute of Politics at the JFK School has a pollster, John Della Volpe, who said that the youth vote had surged in the last three national elections. And their votes mattered: Drawing upon exit polls, Volpe estimates that voters over 40 were likely to vote for Republican candidates while voters under 40 went for Democrats – and those under 40 were the determining factor.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/opinions/outcome-us-2022-midterm-election-roundup/index.html

Next-to-Midterm 2016 Presidential Roundup: Outcomes, Fun and Money for the ‘Fake’ Donald Trump

Roxanne Jones, a founding editor of ESPN The Magazine and former vice president at ESPN, has been a producer, reporter and editor at the New York Daily News and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Jones is co-author of “Say it Loud: An Illustrated History of the Black Athlete.” She talks politics, sports and culture on Philadelphia’s radio station.

Donald Trump had his worst night as President on Tuesday. Despite his efforts, many of his favorites not only lost but denied the GOP the usual out-party wave of wins that come in midterm elections. The challenge is figuring out what to do next for Trump.

The man who goes back to his familiar game plan is once more attempting to ruin Americans’ trust in the election of his team. “Protest, protest, protest,” he told his followers, even before all the polls closed. His power waned in a sign of his decline.

Nevertheless, false claims of election fraud will likely be a major theme if he follows through on his loudly voiced hints that he plans to run for the White House again in 2024.

There is a question regarding to run or not to run. It can be difficult to choose. Bush and Carter retreated from politics, and devoted themselves to new interests, after being ridiculed by Trump for being one-term presidents. He has options of his own. He could revive his television career – Fox News? – or return to his businesses. He could be put in charge of an organization that will allow him to grab the attention of people, while leaving him plenty of time for golf.

The legal problems he is facing could be mitigated if he ran, but he has lawyers who could do the same. Fox News’ businesses are now being watched by a court-appointed overseer, since he is unlikely to pay enough. He gets a combination of easy work, raising money andpontificating, along with his favorite pastimes: fame, money and fun. What’s not to like?

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/opinions/outcome-us-2022-midterm-election-roundup/index.html

The U.S. Midterm Election Roundup: Twenty Two Years After the Clinton-Carlson Surprisingly Made Its Way

The co-author of the book “Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success” is also the author of the book “High Crimes: The Corruption, Impunity, and Impeachment of Donald Trump.”

For many Americans deeply worried about the future of our democracy, Tuesday’s elections brought a glimmer of hope. Instead of chaos, we had an orderly process of voting. So far, the streets have been free of violence, the courts are not clogged with petitions to overthrow the results and many election deniers have been cast aside. The election repudiated the extremists and rallied the friends of democracy. That is good news, no matter what your political beliefs are.

This was also an election, of course, that will go down in history as a huge surprise. Give credit where it is due – President Joe Biden pulled it off even though his approval ratings were fairly abysmal. The question is whether his success can be used to make progress in governing, as other Democrats have done. He was well aware of how his opponents can be so he reached out to Republican leaders within hours.

The Americans can breathe a sigh of relief that there are still people who are hungry for us to get together again, even though tough days still lie ahead.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/opinions/outcome-us-2022-midterm-election-roundup/index.html

New Yorkers voted for what we want: Changing the politics of New York, while standing up against anti-democratic tyranny

David Gergen has been a White House adviser to four presidents of both parties and is a senior political analyst at CNN. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he is a professor of public service at the Harvard Kennedy School and co-founded its Center for Public Leadership.

The issue of abortion was a major focal point of the gubernatorial campaign between Gov, Gretchen Whitmer and her Republican challenger, Tudor Dixon. pro-Whitmer groups have highlighted her support of a near-total abortion ban and her past comments that a rapist’s baby could help a victim heal. Whitmer’s resounding win in the purple state of Michigan is certainly due, in part, to backlash against Dixon’s extreme positions on the issue.

Zeldin was endorsed by the National Rifle Association when he was in Congress. He voted against certifying the 2020 election in Congress after texting with a former White House chief of staff and is planning to contest the result of the 2020 election before it happens.

The polls were imperfect. It turns out that New Yorkers are, in fact, New Yorkers: Not cowed by overblown claims of crime (while I think crime is indeed a problem Democrats should address, New York City remains one of the safest places in the country); determined to defend the racial, ethnic and sexual diversity that makes our state great; and committed to standing up against the tyranny of an anti-democratic party that would force women into pregnancy and childbirth.

Hochul’s job now is to address voter concerns, while standing up for New York values: Openness, decency, freedom for all. In New Yorkers, the majority of us didn’t cast our ballots from a place of fear, but from a place of hope and optimism. We voted for what we want. And we now want our governor to deliver.

The Difficulty of Black Women in the Senate: What Happened in Budd’s Inflation, Rubio’s Red Flag, and the Charge of a Black Man

Jill Filipovic is a journalist based in New York and author of the book “OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind.” Follow her on social media.

Perhaps more than in any other Senate campaign, the issue of crime loomed large in North Carolina, with Budd claiming in his speeches that it had become much more dangerous to walk the streets in the state. His focus on inflation helped propel him to victory in Tuesday’s vote.

While she focused a lot on abortion, she also prioritized workplace protection and equal pay in her campaign.

Douglas Heye is the ex-deputy chief of staff to former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a GOP strategist and a CNN political commentator. Follow him on social media.

Had Abrams succeeded, she would have been the first Black woman to become the governor of a US state. After her second straight electoral loss, America is still waiting for that breakthrough.

It is hard for a democrat to win statewide in the deep South. And as Demings, Beasley and Abrams have shown, it’s particularly tough for a Black woman to win statewide in the region: In fact, it’s never been done.

All three women were well-qualified and well-funded stars in their party. But, when we look at the final vote tallies, it tells a familiar story. For example, the former law enforcement officer that is now the police chief in Orlando, Demings, didn’t get the big law enforcement endorsements. Rubio did, although he never wore the blue.

It was a red flag for me because it showed how much race and gender were important to people of my generation and older. For Black women, a double burden of both race and gender at play. It is the nagging story of our lives.

Reflections on the morning after Election Day can be a little fuzzy: Chalk it up to a late night, incomplete data and a still-forming narrative. Still, as a longtime Pennsylvania election-watcher, I see three clear takeaways:

The state that delivered wins to center-right and center-left candidates like my father Gov, Dick Thornburgh, Sen. Bob Casey and Gov, Tom Ridge gave establishment Democrat Josh Shapiro a wipeout double-digit victory.

2) “You’re not from here and I am” and “Stick it to the man” proved to be sufficiently powerful messages for alt-Democrat John Fetterman to win his Senate race, albeit by a much smaller margin.

The two simple themes are part of the quirkiness and stubborn authenticity of Pennsylvania’s politics, thanks to the fact that the state has the most expensive Senate race in the country.

3) In the home of Independence Hall, independent voters made a significant difference. Pretty much every poll since the beginning of both marquee races showed the two party candidates with locked in lopsided mirror-image margins among members of their own party.

Most polls showed Shapiro and Fetterman with whopping leads among independent voters. They may not have been the same independent voters as Fetterman could potentially be a young voter for the abortion rights issue and Shapiro could potentially be a former GOP voter disaffected by Trump.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/opinions/outcome-us-2022-midterm-election-roundup/index.html

David Thornburgh, the University of Michigan student voter’s enthusiasm for Prop 3: The issue of reproductive rights in the midterm election roundup

A civic leader in Pennsylvania is David Thornburgh. The former CEO of the Committee of Seventy is currently leading the ballot PA initiative to repeal closed primaries. Dick Thornburgh was the GOP governor and the US Attorney General.

The line of students registering to vote on Election Day stretched across the University of Michigan campus, with students waiting for over four hours. There was a palpable sense of excitement and urgency around the election on campus. The issue of abortion rights was a motivating one for many young people.

Though the courts have prevented that old law from taking effect, voters were eager to enshrine reproductive rights in the state constitution, and overwhelmingly voted in favor of Prop 3 with over 55% of voters approving the proposal. This is a big accomplishment because of the campaign against the proposal. Both pro-life groups and the Catholic Church strongly opposed it, and many ads claimed it was “too confusing and too extreme.”

The University of Michigan has a Ford School of Public Policy. She works for College Democrats on her campus and has served as a UMich votes fellow to promote voting.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/opinions/outcome-us-2022-midterm-election-roundup/index.html

The Rise and Fall of the Left: A Case Study of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Legislator Candidate Eliminating Right-Wing Extremism

The Republicans swept the statewide offices of Ohio, including the elections for justices on the Supreme Court who hadn’t previously had their party listed next to their names on the ballot. There is an ongoing fight over the drawing of state and federal legislative districts, so this will give the Republicans a solid majority on the state’s highest court.

Two years from now, the Democratic seat held by Brown will be on the ballot. The Republicans will no longer have a problem recruiting a quality candidate to run for the seat that Brown won in the last election, even if it is a Republican seat.

Sracic is the coauthor of “Ohio Politics and Government” and a professor at Youngstown State University. You can follow him on social media.

Pennsylvanians clearly rejected the worst of right-wing extremism on Nov. 8, sending a strong message to former President Donald Trump that his endorsement doesn’t guarantee victory in the Keystone State.

Trump lost two elections this election cycle in the Commonwealth, despite stirring his base with loud calls for Republican candidates.

Dr. Oz, meanwhile, couldn’t shake his carpetbagger baggage, and Oprah’s rejection – on November 4, she endorsed his rival and now-victorious candidate in the Senate race, John Fetterman – seems to have carried more weight than Trump’s rallies, at least in the feedback I’ve received from readers and community members.

In a widely-watched House race, Harrisburg City Councilwoman Shamaine Daniels made a valiant Democratic effort to unseat GOP Rep. Scott Perry, after the party’s preferred candidate pulled out of the race. But her lack of name recognition and inexperience on the state or national stage impacted her ability to establish a base of her own. He will come back to Washington, though perhaps with a clipped wing, since he played a part in the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Joyce M. Davis is the opinion editor for PennLive. She is a veteran journalist and author who has lived and worked around the globe, including for National Public Radio, Knight Ridder Newspapers in Washington, DC, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague.

Edward Lindsey was a Republican member of the Georgia House of Representatives. He works for a law firm in Atlanta concentrating on public policy and political law.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/opinions/outcome-us-2022-midterm-election-roundup/index.html

Getting Out of the Rust Belt: What Happened When John Glenn and Howard Metzenbaum Courted a Democratic Senator

It was a predictable ending for a candidate who threw away the traditional approach of campaigning and instead courted the almost non-existent, moderate Trump voter. It is a shame. Had Ryan won, Ohio would have had two Democratic senators. The last time that happened was over 30 years ago, when John Glenn and Howard Metzenbaum represented our state.

His ads appeared to show that approach. In a campaign spot in which he is shown tossing a football at various computer screens showing messages he disapproves of, he hurls the ball at one emblazoned with the words “Defund the Police” and dismisses what he disdainfully calls “the culture wars.”

A new ad shows Ryan hitting his mark at target practice, and the words “not too bad for a Democrat” can be seen on the screen. It is hard to imply you are pro-gun rights when majority of Americans support a pro-gun control stance. Ryan’s ads on the economy began to parrot the anti-China rhetoric taken up by Republicans. And when President Joe Biden announced his student debt plan in an effort to invigorate the Democratic bringing economic relief to millions of millennial voters, Ryan opposed the move.

As a Black woman living in a metropolitan area, I would have liked to see him reach out to communities of color, perhaps by making an appearance with African American members of Ohio’s congressional delegation Rep. Joyce Beatty or Rep. Shontel Brown. But I would have settled for one ad addressing the economic or social concerns of people who don’t live in the Rust Belt.

Brianna N. Mack is an assistant professor of politics and government at Ohio Wesleyan University whose coursework is centered on American political behavior. Her research interest is the political behavior of minority groups. She tweets at @Mack_Musings.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/opinions/outcome-us-2022-midterm-election-roundup/index.html

What Happened to Tony Evers in Wisconsin After the 2010 Wisconsin Abortion Control Voting Campaign: A Conversation with Tim Michels and Ron Johnson

Wisconsin remains as split as ever with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers surviving a challenge from businessman Tim Michels and Republican Sen. Ron Johnson barely holding off a challenge from Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes.

According to a survey, Johnson was viewed favorably by only 32% of voters in Wisconsin. He was viewed unfavorably by 45% of the electorate with 21% saying they didn’t know what to think of him or hadn’t heard enough about him. He finished the election season unfavorably, with no majority of the voters holding a favorable view of him.

The 1849 Wisconsin abortion ban was put back into effect after the Wade decision. Michels supported the no-exceptions law but then flip-flopped and said he could support exceptions for rape and incest. Johnson was able to completely ignore the issue by saying he wanted the abortion law in Wisconsin to be put to a referendum.

The issue of a culture of sexual harassment within his company may have soured women voters who had previously supported him. Evers argued that the culture comes from the top. The training and culture of the company were not present in the allegations. Harassment in the workplace should not be condoned, nor tolerated, nor was it under Michels Corporation leadership.”) Michels didn’t appeal to women voters because of his fight with Kleefisch in the primary.

James Wigderson is the former editor of RightWisconsin.com, a conservative-leaning news website, and the author of a twice-weekly newsletter, “Life, Under Construction.”

Election Day 2019: Where Are the 20,000 Ballots? Where are the Distant Candidates in Arizona, Illinois, and Arizona? What Are They Waiting for?

The most obvious differences appeared to be the abortion and democracy issues that were at stake, state by state. In Pennsylvania, the Republicans nominated a candidate for governor who was central to efforts to overturn the presidential election results. Democrats were worried that a Mastriano win could lead to a constitutional crisis. It might have threatened another long-held right as well; Mr. Mastriano is a strident opponent of abortion, and Republicans controlled the state Legislature.

There are exceptions like Republican strength in Texas and Democratic strength in Colorado. Most of the most impressive showings fit together.

There’s the Republican landslide in Florida, where the stop-the-steal movement never sought to overturn an election result and where Gov. Ron DeSantis refused to go further than a 15-week abortion ban. There are some Democratic victories this year where abortion referendums were on the ballot and where Democrats swept the most competitive House districts.

The razor-thin elections for Nevada’s Senate seat and Arizona’s governorship have yet to be called. Large counties in both states are working to whittle down the tens of thousands of ballots that still need to be counted.

Regardless of the ultimate makeup of both chambers next year, Republicans’ lackluster midterm performance has prompted a backlash against House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, while a handful of Senate Republicans are calling for a delay in next week’s scheduled leadership elections.

When races are within a percentage point or two, those outstanding ballots are enough to keep the election from being projected. The lag was expected after a massive increase in mail-in voting caused news organizations to declare Joe Biden the victor in the presidential race on Saturday after Election Day in 2020.

In Pima County, Arizona’s second-most populous and home to Tucson, a new batch of 20,000 ballots was reported Thursday evening. In an interview with CNN, the elections director stated that the county had been able to report batches of 20,000 ballots per day and expected another 20,000 ballot drop on Friday.

Gloria said Friday that election workers will tabulate results from 15,900 mail-in votes around 9 p.m. ET Friday. He predicted that the rest of the mail-in votes would be finished by Saturday. Some of the ballots could be reported Friday night, Gloria said.

The delay in calling the races in Arizona have prompted criticisms and conspiracies – some of which are reminiscent of the wild and baseless allegations that were made in the state after the 2020 election, such as false claims about felt-tipped Sharpies.

Right-wing social media users spread false claims that a woman wearing glasses in the counting facility was Secretary of State Chris Booker, who is the Democratic nominee for governor.

The Silver State Election Commission is Counting More Ballots, as announced by Gloria Gates at a News Conference on Thursday (Monday, Nov. 24)

At a news conference Thursday, Gates said, “Quite frankly, it is offensive for Kari Lake to say that these people behind me are slow-rolling this when they are working 14-18 hours.”

More than 15,000 additional ballots could also eventually be counted if they meet eligibility requirements. Voters have until Monday to provide additional details in order for the Clark County elections department to cure their ballots. Gloria said 9,659 are eligible to be cured. Once they are verified, another 5,555 in-person ballots could be added.

There are roughly 12,000 remaining ballots and the count was over by Friday, according to CNN.

The county disqualified about two thirds of the mail-in ballots it received because they were late.

Washoe County, which includes Reno, still has about 22,000 ballots left to count, Rodriguez said, and the county expects to get through most of them on Friday.

Key races in the Silver State, including the Senate contest between Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican challenger Adam Laxalt and the governor’s race between Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak and Republican Joe Lombardo, have not been called as of Friday morning.

The Arizona Freedom Caucus meets with Governor Scott Perry, a Trump Supporter, and the Governor’s Candidate Jena Griswold

McCarthy’s desire to get a majority in the full House is important to him, since it requires 218 votes, not just a majority of the party in control. If Republicans take power, McCarthy might lose a few defectors. But a slim majority gives single members – and the Freedom Caucus – more power to make demands and threaten to withhold support.

House Freedom Caucus Chair Scott Perry met with McCarthy in his office on Friday. He said later that the meeting “went well” but wouldn’t say if McCarthy has his – or the caucus’ – support for speaker.

Jena Griswold, Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state, told CNN’s Kate Bolduan on Friday that it was still “too early to tell” whether the race would go to a recount, as the state has to certify the results first. Under Colorado law, a recount is triggered if the race is within 0.5%. It may also be conducted if a candidate chooses to pay for one.

The race for attorney general is in the middle of the ballot, and Mr. Hamadeh is a Republican who railed against the news media. Mr. Finchem, a Trump supporter, is behind Adrian Fontes, the former recorder of the state’s largest county, in the race for secretary of state.

On Twitter, Ms. Lake and Mr. Masters have projected victory. Ms. Lake told Fox News that she was confident that she would be the next governor of Arizona. After taking a small lead in his race, Mr. Hamadeh posted a photo on his personal account on the social networking site, thanking the people of Arizona for their trust. He has lost ground and is somewhat behind.

In an email to supporters on Thursday, the Masters campaign said it had seen “troubling” issues during the election and asked for contributions: “We’re expecting a contested road forward and legal battles to come.”

On Twitter, Mr. Finchem jokingly asked his followers to “make sure” Ms. Hobbs and Mr. Fontes weren’t “in the back room with ballots in Pima or Maricopa.” Mr. Fontes fired back, writing, “Stop with this conspiracy garbage.”

Both Ms. Hobbs and Mr. Fontes are urging supporters to respect the vote-counting process. The election-denying opponent is attempting to spin the results, but the pattern and cadence of incoming votes are exactly what we expected.

The confrontation in Cochise County has led to worries of potential delays in determining the winners in a state where key races remain too close to call. The deadline for Arizona counties to certifies results is 20 days after the last day of voting.

The win by Kelly, who was elected in 2020 to fill the term of the late GOP Sen. John McCain, is a critical victory that edges Democrats one step closer to their goal of maintaining control of the US Senate – which would be a stunning feat given the low approval ratings of President Joe Biden and the unfavorable economic climate that seemed to be driving momentum toward the GOP.

Reply to “Comment on a long delay in hand counting in Pima County, Arizona” by M. R. Hargove

A group of groups that spent months helping people to vote in Nevada’s Senate contest are now focusing on fixing flawed mail-in ballots.

Hargove said that she hopes by Monday that Pima County will have the majority of the remaining votes counted. She had told CNN that they would count every single vote by Monday. On Friday night, however, she explained that the case would be different because there were more than 80,000 votes received from the recorder’s office that day.

Gates said that he would prefer for the RNC to communicate their concerns to us here. I’m a Republican. Three of my colleagues are Republicans. Raise these issues with us and discuss them with us, as opposed to making these baseless claims.”

“The suggestion by the Republican National Committee that there is something untoward going on here in Maricopa County is absolutely false and again, is offensive to these good elections workers,” he said.

On Friday night, the RNC and the Republican Party of Arizona tweeted a statement criticizing the county’s process, and demanding that it require “around-the-clock shifts of ballot processing” until all of the votes are counted, along with “regular, accurate public updates.” The groups also threatened that they would “not hesitate to take legal action if necessary.”

Gates stated that the people who were saying that the count was taking too long have not paid attention to the history of how we counted votes in Arizona for decades now. The average time for us to complete our count is 10 to 12 days.

After suffering setbacks in court, Arizona officials who have sought to conduct a hand count audit of a rural county’s election results are considering a scaled-down version of their plan that could still inject chaos and delay into the process of certifying the state’s results.

On Thursday, the appeals court decided in a split vote that they would not reverse the court decision to bar the hand count in time for the election. A lawyer for Cochise County. The recorder said that the county isn’t giving up on conducting a hand audit that goes beyond usual procedures.

The Lombardo Disaster: Blaming the GOP and the Maricopa County Elections Department for Voting in Nevada after the Covid-19 Pandemic

Trump, who saw several key endorsed candidates fizzle out in the general election, is trying to cast blame on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and gin up opposition to the Kentucky Republican ahead of Senate GOP leadership elections next week, CNN reported Friday.

The one bright spot for Republicans was in Nevada, where voters elected Republican Joe Lombardo as the state’s next governor – tossing out Democrat Steve Sisolak, CNN projected. The popular Clark County sheriff reminded voters of their struggles during the Covid-19 pandemic when unemployment hit nearly 30% in Nevada. Sisolak had been accused of limiting the state’s economic recovery, though the economy has rebounded.

A spokeswoman for the Maricopa County Elections Department tells CNN that the county office has certain procedures in place to ensure every legal ballot is counted once.

The total ballots against check-ins are reconciled to ensure they match the results from specific locations. This is done with political party observers present and is a practice that has been in place for decades,” the spokesperson said.

Bill Gates, the chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, rejected Masters’ suggestion that the county should wipe the slate clean and start counting over again, stating that “is simply not allowed for under Arizona law.” The pace of ballot counting has been in line with previous years.

Gates said that if they choose to take the issues to court, they have every right to do that.

Counting the 2020 Vote: What You Want to Know About The Candidates Who Aren’t Running on Political Gravities: CNN Projects of Nine Democratic Senators in Arizona and Nevada

The votes are still being counted Saturday in pivotal races across the country. As Election Day turns into Election Weekend, here is what you should know.

According to CNN, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly is expected to win in Arizona and Republican Gov. Steve Sisolak is expected to lose in Nevada.

The Republican Party of Arizona, Masters and the Republican National Committee criticized the tabulation process on Friday.

But many of the candidates who were most aggressively dishonest about the 2020 election will lose, CNN projects — notably several candidates who ran for posts with critical powers over elections in states expected to be competitive in the 2024 presidential campaign. The defeated candidates, CNN projects, will include gubernatorial nominees Doug Mastriano of Pennsylvania and Tudor Dixon of Michigan, secretary of state nominees Mark Finchem of Arizona, Jim Marchant of Nevada and Kristina Karamo of Michigan, and US Senate nominee Adam Laxalt of Nevada.

Senate: CNN counted 19 Republican nominees for the US Senate who rejected, questioned, tried to overturn or refused to affirm the 2020 results. Although senators have less power than governors or secretaries of state, they still have the power to certify the election results and vote on elections legislation. CNN has projected 10 of those candidates as winners and eight as losers. One is in a race too early to call.

Democrats’ defied political gravity to deliver a surprisingly strong midterm showing. Of voters who disapprove of Biden but still voted for him, 42% of them voted for the Democrats, and 32% of them voted for the Republicans.

The outcome is a huge boost to President Joe Biden over the remaining two years of his first term in the White House. It means the Democrats can confirm Biden’s judicial nominees without having to deal with the situation where Obama had his Supreme Court nominee refused a vote by McConnell. Senate Democrats have the ability to reject bills from the House and set their own agenda.

“I think it’s a reflection of the quality of our candidates,” Biden told reporters in Cambodia shortly after CNN and other news outlets projected Democrats would keep their Senate majority. The runners are all on the same program. Wasn’t anybody who wasn’t running on what we did,” Biden went on.

Trump vs. Laxalt: An Analysis of the 2020 Democratic Senate Runoff in Pennsylvania and the Case for a Woman’s Right to Choose

Both candidates cleared 50% of the vote on Tuesday, and now they will face off on December 6.

Biden said he was “looking forward to the next couple of years” with Democrats, and said he was now focused on the Senate runoff in Georgia, acknowledging it would be better to have 51 seats in the Senate.

Schumer said the Democrats held onto the Senate because it amounted to a rejection of the anti-Democratic, extremist Republicans in Congress.

“Oh and one other thing we did, which I cannot forget, we staunchly defended a woman’s right to choose,” Schumer said, referring to the battle over abortion rights after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

The election of the Democrats in the Senate has made it harder for the Republicans to push for a nationwide abortion ban.

In the 2020 Senate elections, there is one seat that hasn’t changed hands so far: Pennsylvania, where Democrat John Fetterman defeated Republican Mehmet Oz after recovering from a stroke.

Republicans successfully defended seats in hard-fought races in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin, while Democrats retained their seats in competitive contests in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Hampshire.

The Nevada attorney general was a co-chairman of Trump’s presidential campaign in Nevada and played a prominent role in the legal efforts to reverse the results of that election. Cortez Masto had argued that the lies and election conspiracy theories embraced by Trump and allies like Laxalt led to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The fate of the upper house will be decided by December’s runoff in Clark County, Nevada, after Democrat Masto defeated Donald Trump

Democrats could take control of the Senate if Masto wins. If she loses, the fate of the upper house will be decided in December’s Georgia runoff.

Clark County in Nevada, the most populous and portion of Las Vegas, will release its results from the remaining 22,000 mail ballots tonight.

This batch of results will be released “sometime this afternoon or early evening,” he said, and he estimated that this could happen around 7 p.m. ET at the earliest.

The battle for control of the House is the biggest unanswered question of this year’s elections after Democrats kept their narrow Senate majority.

In Washington, the 3rd District, CNN projected that Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez would beat Republican Joe Kent, who had aligned himself closely with former President Donald Trump.

Her victory came largely as a result of Trump’s efforts to punish Republicans who voted to impeach him. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a moderate who was widely viewed as a lock for reelection, did not finish in one of the top two slots in the primary and therefore didn’t advance to the general election.

He said the Democratic Senate candidates beat some flawed challengers who did not have faith in democracy, truth or honor. Our candidates never gave up and never lost their faith when the polls were not good.

The Senate control being decided will allow the television advertisements to take some of the national attention away from the Georgia Senate race.

But the December 6 race between Warnock and Walker is still important. A win would give Democrats a meaningful majority, rather than the power-sharing agreement currently in place with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as a tie-breaker in the 50-50 chamber. It would also give them a pad ahead of a 2024 Senate battle in which the party must defend several seats in states that typically back Republican presidential candidates.

The Game of Election Night in Georgia after the January 6, 2021, when Lisa Laxalt and Kelly Tshibaka confronted by Donald J. Murkowski

A narrator says in the spot that it’s about who can represent us and who has the knowledge needed for the job.

It’s the second straight election in which overtime in Georgia, which is triggered when no candidate tops 50% of the vote in the general election, will be necessary.

He said he was confident that about 95% to 99% of those votes will be recorded by Tuesday. He said the county will continue to report about 85,000 votes per night until they are done.

In Alaska, the state’s at-large House seat and one of its Senate seats will hinge on ranked-choice results. The Democratic lawmaker is in a good position to pass the 50% mark. But Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski faces a stiffer challenge from Republican Kelly Tshibaka, who is backed by Trump as part of his bid for retribution against Murkowski and others who for his impeachment after the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

“We’re taking ballots in that we’re required to take in according to the law, there’s no way that we can find ballots,” Gloria said. “They’re brought here by the United States Postal Service. We process those ballots if they are postmarked by Election Day.

Laxalt struck a different tone than Trump Saturday. Shortly before the Saturday evening ballot drop from Clark County, Laxalt was in front by a small margin over Masto.

Masters said he would make sure that every legal vote was counted for his people who knocked doors in the heat. “If, at the end, Senator Kelly has more of them than I do, then I will congratulate him on a hard-fought victory. Voters are the ones to decide, let’s count the votes.

Masters had claimed that the vote count in Arizona was moving too slowly, but the election officials of the most populous county pushed back on that.

“It’s really, really unfortunate that some candidates, some activists are deciding to spread this misinformation,” Gates told CNN’s Jim Acosta. It was important that people not anticipate the result on election night or the next day. That it does take some time.