Herschel Walker, a high-profile Republican candidate backed by Donald Trump, is running against Sen. Raphael Warnock
Editor’s Note: Geoff Duncan, a Republican, is the 12th Lieutenant Governor of Georgia. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has more opinion articles.
The Senate race in Arizona is still too close to call, and there is a candidate picked by Donald Trump that is competing against Mark Kelly. Herschel Walker, another high-profile candidate backed by Trump, finds himself headed for a runoff in Georgia on December 6 against Sen. Raphael Warnock. In states like Ohio where the Trump campaign won, it took a large amount of money from national Republicans to get the job done.
Walker had already been endorsed by Donald Trump. He was (and is) a celebrity in Georgia due to his football accomplishments. The other potential high-profile GOP candidates, like Perdue and loeffler, did not run.
The pro-Trump nominee has faced allegations that he paid for a woman to terminate her pregnancy despite having said during the campaign that he would support a national ban on the procedure with no exceptions. The furor over the allegations highlighted the seriousness of a candidacy that probably wouldn’t have happened without his friendship with Trump.
Now, members of a nervous GOP infrastructure must hold their breath and hope Walker can weather the storm. Walker has faced other allegations, including domestic abuse, an exaggerated business career and an erratic personality. So far, he has had a Trump-esque Teflon quality of surviving scandals that would sink mere mortals. Walker’s latest test is his most serious, not just by its nature, but in its October timing.
In the end, the rematch against Abrams was hardly close. As of Thursday evening, Kemp had received over two million votes, making him the first gubernatorial candidate in Georgia to do so. Meanwhile, the Trump-backed Walker ran several points behind Kemp and has been forced into a runoff against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. (Kemp’s campaign is teaming up with a super PAC aligned with Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell to help turn out the vote for Walker in the December 6 runoff.)
Her stock has since taken a sharp fall. She refused to concede her defeat. A week ago, a federal judge tossed out the group’s lawsuit regarding the election. She also faced an investigation by the State Ethics Commission about her fundraising practices in 2018, which was dismissed this past summer.
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 was recently named the best state for business for the ninth consecutive year by Area Development magazine. In a decision that has lasted well over time, Kemp re-opened our state from the swine flu quicker than many others and angered President Trump. Georgia has made great strides toward becoming the technology capital of the East Coast as more people and businesses choose to relocate to the state.
Josh Holmes: What Do You Need to Know Before Running for office? The Case Of Herschel Walker, a Democratic Senator who Never Arises
The incumbent senator has a small but steady lead over Walker. Despite voting in favor of the President more than 99% of the time, he still has not been approved of by 50% of voters in the state.
Biden not only defeated an incumbent president, but was “able to move a formidable legislative agenda through Congress, overcoming fierce Republican opposition and even winning a few GOP votes along the way. The American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act stand up as a historic trifecta – a legislative track record arguably more significant than any that we have seen since President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.”
If we want the American public to take us seriously, we need to take the first step by nominating candidates they should take seriously. That process goes beyond celebrity or fame. It requires leaders capable of winning elections by articulating a conservative vision for governing.
The last week of Herschel Walker’s senate campaign was an utter disaster because of a report that he paid for a woman to have an abortion over a decade ago.
And it’s been made worse by the fact that smart Republican strategists have known for the better part of a year that Walker was a) deeply untested and b) deeply unpredictable as a candidate.
More than a year ago, in response to an Associated Press story detailing Walker’s turbulent past – including reportedly threatening his ex-wife and exaggerating his business successes – Josh Holmes, a longtime confidante to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, was blunt in his assessment of the situation.
McConnell was working behind the scenes to get Walker out of the Senate race in Georgia.
“McConnell has suggested to allies that former Georgia senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler should take another look at running again, according to three sources familiar with the matter, after their narrow losses in January flipped the Senate to Democratic control.”
But those initial doubts that led him – and one of his top political consiglieres – to be skeptical of Walker never went away. It was a classic instance of, if you can’t beat them, join them.
Blake Masters and Hunter Warnock: The Case for a Man Whose Voting History is Rigorous (and with a Different Candidate)
Similarly, in Arizona, Blake Masters won the Republican nomination for Senate with the help of Mr. Trump’s endorsement, which arrived months after Mr. Masters recorded a social media video in which he looked directly into the camera to tell viewers, “I think Trump won in 2020.” At the time, Mr. Trump clearly snubbed the Republican who the former president believed did not do enough to support the lie that the election was rigged.
Mr. Masters agreed with the other man that Mr. Biden had been elected. He said that Mr. Biden had probably won because social media companies suppressed negative news about Hunter Biden, the president’s son.
Three days after the debate, Mr. Masters mingled with attendees before a Trump rally in Mesa, Ariz. In a brief interview as he shook hands and posed for pictures, Mr. Masters said he stood by his position on election fraud.
Throughout the hourlong matchup in Atlanta, Mr. Warnock stepped out of character, opting for direct attack lines over the thinly veiled criticisms he has leveled at Mr. Walker for most of the campaign. He answered questions with a variety of policy points and full-throated rebuttals of what Mr. Walker had said. He described Mr. Walker’s “well-documented history of violence” in reference to reports about Mr. Walker’s domestic violence against his ex-wife, Cindy Grossman, calling them “disturbing.”
The Senate race’s lesser-known contender, the Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver, did participate in the debate, bringing up policy points like supporting L.G.B.T.Q. rights and keeping the government out of health care and energy investments. He found common ground with Mr. Warnock as both hammered their opponent for his absence from the debate stage.
Naked pursuit of power in the Democratic presidential party: The case of K.C. McConnell, M.K. Lee, and K.J. Cheney
The party’s single-minded pursuit of power is not new. It is a feature of Washington politics, a period that culminated in a bargain with the president who delivered a Supreme Court majority but didn’t share the moral codes of social and religious conservatives.
Given that Virginia governors are not allowed to serve consecutive terms, Youngkin is freed from the need to keep his coalition together for a reelection run. He has designs on becoming a national GOP figure and knows that his ability to appeal beyond Virginia Republicans could be crucial to a future presidential run.
Youngkin exhorted Republicans to support Lake, but also to remember the ideological choice he has to make for a future in the party.
There is nothing wrong with focusing on winning power in a political party. Politics is the art of the possible. Victorious parties and leaders believe election victories are the most important. The Democratic presidents of the time were known for making changes to their own principles in order to win. Johnson, who served as the Senate’s majority leader, was ruthless in wielding his authority. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not dominated the House without being determined to use her power for nearly 20 years.
This is a big deal for a party that used to be proud of promoting global democracy against tyranny. The party of Lincoln was fond of defending such values against Trump, but now it is against him. Cheney, the vice chair of the House select committee investigating January 6, 2001, lost her primary this summer to a Trump-backed challenger after giving up her reelection bid. Meanwhile, extremists who promote conspiracy theories and question the election, like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, are superstars in the party because the Trump base loves them.
When House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy came to Mar-a-Lago to reconcile with President Trump after he criticized him for the Capitol insurrection, it was an example of naked pursuit of power. The California lawmaker knew that his party’s hope of a House majority and his own dreams of being speaker hinged on a rapprochement with Trump and his base voters.
McConnell was able to ride out the crazy of Trump because he was already annoyed with his selection of questionable candidates and interference in key races, and it has complicated the party’s attempt to gain control of the Senate.
McConnell has not taken kindly to Trump’s social media posts against his wife. He’s done more than keep quiet. The Senate Leadership Fund, which is related to the minority leader, has spent tens of millions of dollars on key races in a bid to bail out misfiring candidates who were crowned as party nominees by Trump.
McConnell’s affiliated super PAC is even spending in New Hampshire, where the GOP nominee has said he wouldn’t vote for the Kentucky Republican for leader. There are two pickup opportunities that have the chance to bolster a GOP majority.
The impulse to win control of Congress at all costs – even if it appears to compromise values the GOP professes to stand for – was on display when several US senators flew into Georgia earlier this month to rescue controversy-swamped Senate nominee Hershel Walker.
Walker’s two surrogates – Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who heads the GOP’s Senate campaign arm, and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton – behaved as though Walker was just any other Republican candidate.
With Trump naming Kemp and Georgia as targets, the Governor’s team realized that he could have serious political problems on his hands.
So while his endorsement may be valuable to Lake in a close gubernatorial race, her rising star power in Trump world also offered a strong incentive for his trip. And it explains the hug after his speech in which he embraced the kind of political personality who wouldn’t have been let anywhere near his events last year.
Pennsylvania Sen. Shapiro is Unusual: The 2016 Labor Day Campaign Against the Democratic Candidate in the House of Representatives
Pennsylvania has been at the forefront of the last two presidential elections, with Donald Trump narrowly winning in 2016 and Joe Biden doing the same four years later. And it’s expected to be among the most competitive states again in 2024.
That huge edge for Shapiro comes even as Pennsylvania’s US Senate race is much more competitive, with Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman leading Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz 51% to 45% in CNN’s poll.
People closely following the governor’s race likely aren’t terribly surprised. Mastriano, who is among the most prominent 2020 election deniers seeking office this year, has run an unusual campaign.
Mastriano has barricaded himself off from the general public as he tours the Commonwealth in order to ensure that he only gets in contact with true believers. …
Republican leaders around the state were hoping that Mastriano would begin to reach out to undecided voters in the summer. Instead, the opposite has happened. Labor Day came and went.”
It was no easy task to beat him. Even as it was obvious 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 very little to try and sway primary voters away from Mastriano.
Jay Bookman and the Georgian Vote: What Will It Mean? How Did the Early-Voter Abundance Surplus Go to Elections?
The article has an Editor’s Note. Jay Bookman is an author and national award-winning political columnist from Georgia who has written for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other newspapers. He writes for the Georgia Recorder. Follow him on Twitter at @jaysbookman. His own views are expressed here. CNN has more opinion.
The state of Georgia has seen record numbers of voters turn out to vote, with early voting totals approaching those of a presidential election year. In a closely watched, high-stakes, bitterly fought campaign season like this one, the question is natural: What does it mean?
In terms of predicting outcomes, it’s hard to say. In the Trump era, high turnout is not the advantage Democrats used to have, and it isn’t clear how much the early-voter surge represents newly motivated voters or are merely voters who would have cast their ballots anyway. High-profile candidates in the Senate and governor’s races are no doubt driving voters to the polls, and with so many wild-card factors in play this year – from the overturning of Roe v. Wade to inflation to changes in state election law – it’s impossible to know what the 2022 electorate is going to look like.
It’s a nightmare for pollsters. Predicting how people will vote is pretty easy. Predicting whether they’ll vote is where things get complicated – and results get misleading. It’s a caution to the rest of us about putting too much faith in pollsters’ work product.
Gov. Kemp, who signed the law, and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger conceded that voter fraud played no role in recent election outcomes. In Raffensperger’s words, “we had safe, secure, honest elections,” a conclusion shared by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, federal officials in former President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, and state and federal judges. What was the real reason for those changes?
The fear and anger of voters may have swamped the impact of the law last year, as evidenced by the number of voters going to the polls.
The Problem of 2020: When Democrats and Republicans Reappraise the Bad-Fidelity Narrative of the Voting Electoral System
Democrats have built an effective, well-funded voter-protection apparatus to help people overcome whatever bureaucratic hurdles are placed between them and the ballot box.
The last point is very important. The Republicans have said the changes made in Senate Bill 202 are necessary to fight voter fraud. That reason makes no sense.
The voting fraud industry has been a bad-faith invention by its right to serve as cover for voter suppression. We know that because every Republican administration in the last quarter of a century has tried desperately to find evidence of such fraud on a scale sufficient to swing elections, and every such investigation has failed abysmally. Kemp tried to find such fraud while he served as Georgia secretary of state. Florida’s governor has been unsuccessful in his efforts to find it, so far.
The consequences of the bad-faith narrative ought to worry us. As we witnessed in 2020, Trump took the suspicion and distrust of the electoral system that the GOP had nurtured over decades and he repurposed it to an even more nefarious goal, transforming it from an excuse to suppress voting into an excuse to treat election outcomes as illegitimate altogether.
At his rallies in the fall, Trump told his supporters that he didn’t believe we’d have a fair election. I don’t think it’s true.
In SB 202, for example, Georgia Republicans added a clarifying sentence to a section of state law regarding how a voter, or elector, can legally challenge the eligibility of other voters to cast ballots. It now says that “There shall not be a limit on the number of persons whose qualifications such elector may challenge.” Local election boards need to hold a hearing on the challenges within 10 business days.
Around the state, conservatives are attempting to challenge the eligibility of tens of thousands of legally registered voters on extremely flimsy grounds and are growing frustrated that those challenges keep failing.
“We are doing your job,” one frustrated activist told the Gwinnett elections board at its October 19 meeting. “Get your county in order or get your things in order.”
For the second time in less than two years, the Peach State, which elected two Democratic senators in the last election cycle, is home to a contest that has gripped both national parties and potentially holds the key to the fate of President Joe Biden’s agenda.
Underscoring his party’s mix of ambivalence and political practicality, former Vice President Mike Pence, after not mentioning Walker during his remarks at a rally in Cumming, Georgia, on Tuesday for GOP Gov. Brian Kemp, told reporters he is “supporting the whole (Republican) ticket here in Georgia.”
Zelizer: What Walker and Warnock have (don’t) Have to (Mean About The Problems in Washington)
Initially, he sought to avoid directly addressing the controversy. But late last month, he launched a television ad titled “Hypocrite.”
In his play to undecided voters and moderates he focused on his efforts to expand access to health care and his bipartisan record in the Senate.
In another ad, he says, “if it means helping Georgia, I’ll work with anyone.” The senior pastor at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church has made the same point many times at rallies and his lone debate with the Republican.
“There is very little evidence that he has taken any interest, bothered to learn anything about or displayed any kind of inclination towards public service or volunteer work or helping people in anyway,” Obama said of Walker at a rally for Warnock last week in College Park.
“For those of you who are concerned about voting for me, a non-politician,” Walker said during their debate, “I want you to think about the damage politicians like Joe Biden and Raphael Warnock have done to this country.”
Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. The Presidency of Donald J. Trump was his first book as an author and editor. Follow him on Twitter @julianzelizer. His views are not reflected in this commentary. CNN has more opinion on it.
The 2018 Presidential Campaign: Donald Trump’s return to the White House and the prospects for the next 2024 elections in the GOP – as predicted by CNN
It looks like former President Donald Trump is going to launch another 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. Trump, it seems, is hoping to be the first person since President Grover Cleveland to win two non-consecutive elections.
While Trump has been hinting at another run for months, the news would certainly send shockwaves through the political world. One of the most controversial and destabilizing leaders in US history has been Donald Trump. His presidency was consequential, as we have seen with Supreme Court decisions like Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and toxic rhetoric within the GOP.
But the 2024 election will be as much about Biden as it will be about Trump. While Biden can tout a successful legislative record that includes the Inflation Reduction Act and the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package, he will go into 2024 with the baggage that plagues any incumbent. The problems that he has struggled with, including inflation and the fallout from the withdrawal from Afghanistan, will be part of the conversation in a way that they were not four years ago. If he runs, Biden will no longer be campaigning to be the new boss – he is the boss.
If the Democrats have shown anything, it’s that the Republicans are still a strong united party. Very little can change that unity. After Trump left the White House, the party didn’t change in substantive ways and the “Never Trump” contingent failed to emerge as a dominant force. Congresswoman Liz Cheney was one of the officials who were thrown out of the party.
Control of the House of Representatives is up for grabs as of this writing. The expected result is a GOP majority that is nowhere near the predicted red wave. And after Republican losses in Nevada and Arizona, the Senate will remain in Democratic control.
If Republicans do well next week, possibly retaking control of the House and Senate, members of the party will surely feel confident about amping up their culture wars and economic talking points going into 2024. The GOP will have a hard time unifying behind Trump because of the number of candidates who are not in favor of him. 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.
A GOP win would embolden Trump. At this point, he has largely escaped accountability. Despite ongoing criminal investigations and the House select committee investigating January 6, Trump is still a viable political figure.
The Department of Justice may want to appoint a special counsel to investigate investigations into whether or not the 2020 election was overturned because of Trump’s alleged handling of national security documents at Mar-a-Lago. Trump has been attacking the former special counsel Robert Muller, who oversaw the Russia investigation. It will be difficult to prosecute Trump after he becomes a candidate. Trump is a master of playing the victim so he is sure to say that an investigation is a political witch hunt to take him out of the running.
The President could very well be struggling with a shaky economy and divisions within his own party if Trump avoids prosecution. If election deniers enter positions of power after the midterms, then it is likely that Trump will take advantage of the loyalists who have penetrated election offices to ensure his victory. The fact that Trump will come to the race having been to the rodeo before will bode well for him because he could perfect the technique and rhetoric that put him in office. And now that Elon Musk has purchased Twitter, Trump could be reinstated – giving him a way to direct and shape the media conversation once again. (Trump, who founded Truth Social, where he has been active since he was banned from Twitter, has not publicly indicated that he will return).
Is Donald J. Kemp a Democrat? The false theories about Georgian Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign have been misconstrued
The midterms have shown that the Democrats’ focus on the radical nature of the GOP and the dangers posed to democracy are not necessarily enough to rally voters. Biden outlined the dangers in his closing speech, but Democrats are struggling to maintain power.
It is not true that Trump will win in 2024. Trump had turned off many independents and even some Republicans by 2020 and it remains unclear if he can win their support in crucial swing states. 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.
“Kemp didn’t need Trump, but he took care to make sure Trump partisans felt like they could be a part of the Kemp coalition,” said David Kochel, a Republican strategist and presidential campaign veteran. Ignore Trump and you’ll get away with it. It is not necessary to praise him if you are running that kind of campaign. Praise the policies, results of the administration, but don’t personalize them; it’s what Trump wants.
Stephen Lawson, a Republican consultant in Georgia, said that the plan was laid out. I think there are going to be lessons for other people in the aftermath of this recent attack by the president. You have a good chance if you don’t take the bait.
“I think it also accrued to his benefit financially. He was able to get a lot more resources from across the country,” said Marc Short, who served as chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence and also advised Kemp’s campaign this year.
If we don’t hold the governor’s race in the future, there is no hope for a Republican to win the presidency. I think we have that path now.
A person close to Kemp said it is unlikely that Kemp will run for president of himself, and that he may try to find a role at the Republican Governors Association.
The governor has not done anything. He’s done absolutely nothing. I’m ashamed that I endorsed him,” Trump said on Fox News just days after Georgia certified Biden’s win there in 2020.
The calls came from people who have been making calls for years, such as donors and voters, with different levels of false theories about the Georgia election. Kemp directed his political team to write up a scripted response he could text or email concerned donors. He also developed a response ready to deliver at meetings with local party organizations and activists.
Kemp, an ally said, had served nine years as secretary of state and knew both the state’s election laws, and he wouldn’t back down from his refusal of a request from Trump.
What looked to Trump’s opponents like obsequiousness was a deliberate attempt to deny the former president, out of office and without his Twitter feed, the punching bag he was looking for.
The War Between The All-Star Game, MLB, and the Georgia Senate: Insights from David Perdue and the 2020 Presidential Candidate
Protests and boycotts reached a fever pitch when the MLB announced in April that it would remove the summer’s All-Star Game from Atlanta’s Truist Park. The MLB’s decision, which Kemp called “ridiculous,” gave the Georgia governor a prime opportunity to play the hero, not the villain, for the Republican base.
The All-Star game gave Brian the chance to voice his displeasure with the person whom he dislikes, which galvanized his supporters around him. John said that it gave him a foil.
Trump, meanwhile, looked out of step with conservatives when he criticized Kemp and the new law as “far too weak and soft.” Kemp had his biggest online fundraising haul on the day of the MLB announcement according to a person close to the governor. In the spring of 2021, he conducted more than 100 interviews defending the law, with conservative media casting Kemp as a fighter against the “woke mob.”
The person close to him stated that the elections law and All-Star Game were political gifts. The Republican voters were given a bogeyman who wasn’t the governor.
Despite bolstering his credibility with conservatives on elections, Kemp still had to deal with a potential challenger in the Republican primary in 2022: David Perdue, the former US senator who had lost one of the two Senate runoff elections in January 2021.
Kemp’s operation quickly realized that Perdue was a threat and tried to get some people in his camp, including former Perdue aides and the state’s GOP donors.
Trump’s own effort to boost Perdue was lackluster, with his outside group Save America transferring just a few million dollars to an anti-Kemp PAC. And after holding a rally in March for Perdue and other candidates on the “MAGA slate,” Trump avoided the state before the May 24 primary.
The result was unequivocal. Kemp won the primary with a large number of votes. The defeat of Trump in the Republican primary by Kemp, who was picked by the former president to run for Senate, was one of the most embarrassing losses of the cycle.
Pat O. Toomey: What Happens When President Trump Chooses to Enter a Democratic Party? The Case of Trump in the Electoral Campaign
Republican Pat Toomey is retiring from his Pennsylvania Senate seat at the end of the term. He is giving his party some hard truths before he leaves.
Noted Toomey: “We were in a moment, we were in a cycle, we were at a time when it’s good for Republicans for the race to be about President Biden, who is not popular, whose policies have failed. And instead, President Trump had to insert himself and that changed the nature of the race.”
Tudor was defeated in the state by 11 points, and the outcome led to a blue wave down-ballot. In Illinois, the Trump-backed gubernatorial candidate lost by 10. In the Maryland governor’s race, the Trump-backed candidate lost by 25.
Trump, for his part, is entirely unwilling to consider that he was – and is – anything but an unalloyed good for his party, declaring a “Big Victory” on his Truth Social website Friday.
There is a portion of the Republican Party that believes that, and is willing to follow Trump wherever he leads them.
The fact that he has one foot already out of the door makes it hard for him to be celebrated for his bravery in speaking out against Trump. But his voice is part of a growing chorus of Republicans suggesting that Tuesday’s election was the final straw for Trump. Will base voters listen to what they are told?
The Best Opinion Take of the Week: A Tale of Two Racehorses and Two Disappearances: Growing Up in Michigan, Probing Abortion Rights
You can sign up to get the weekly column as a newsletter. We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets.
In Arthur Conan Doyle’s story, “Silver Blaze,” Sherlock Holmes investigates the disappearance of a famous racehorse and the “tragic murder of its trainer.” A police inspector asks the detective, “Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”
Republicans failed to achieve the resounding midterm victory typically won by an opposition party against a president with a low approval rating. Democrats not only held on to control of the Senate but could increase their number by one if Georgia Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock defeats Republican Herschel Walker in a runoff election next month. A few seats will be up for grabs if the Republicans win a majority.
It was only a little more than a week ago that Republicans thought they would win, and the Democrats were starting to blame each other for what they feared would be a disaster.
According to the New Yorker, GOP campaign strategists said their candidates, including Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and Walker in Georgia, would beheading for a clean sweep. Wallace-Wells wrote, “The word that kept coming up in these conversations was ‘bloodbath.’”
The junior at the University of Missouri-Kansas City wrote that people sometimes wondered what it would take to get young people to vote. After the 2022. midterms, they no longer have to guess.
“Place in front of us an existential issue that could determine our future. Give us the knowledge that we can have a say about issues that affect us with our votes, and we will turn out in droves.” The Gen Z friends thought that abortion was an important issue.
At the University of Michigan, student activist Isabelle Schindler noted that the line of students seeking same-day registration to vote “on Election Day stretched across … campus, with students waiting for over four hours. There was a palpable sense of excitement and urgency around the election on campus. For many young people, especially young women, there was one motivating issue that drove their participation: abortion rights.”
Nationally, exit polls showed that voters between the ages of 18 and 29 supported Democrats over Republicans by a 63% to 35% margin; no other age group was nearly as pro-Democratic, with voters over 45 strongly favoring Republicans.
The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the reproductive rights law of Wade had caused many voters to lose faith in the justices, according to some pundits before the election. They think President Joe Biden was too focused on the election threat to focus on it during his pre- election speech. Both of those issues were felt by the people.
“The abortion-rights side seemingly went a perfect five-for-five when it came to ballot initiatives, recognizing a state right to abortion in Michigan, California and Vermont,” wrote law professor Mary Ziegler. The state of Kentucky turned away an attempt to say that the constitution did not protect a right to abortion. Montana’s abortion measure, which threatened to impose criminal penalties on health care providers, was rejected by voters in Tuesday’s referendum.”
John Avlon saw the midterms as “a repudiation of former President Donald Trump’s election lies and at least many of the top-ticket candidates who parroted them.”
Roxanne Jones said she was “what a relief.” “It finally feels like a majority of voters want to re-center American politics away from the toxic, conspiracy theory-driven rhetoric we’ve experienced over the past several years.”
The Atlantic states that voters are more worried about right-wing extremists than left-wing progressivism.
“That extremism takes many forms: delegitimizing our elections system, endorsing the January 6 assault on the Capitol, cracking jokes and spreading lies about the assault on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband. Donald Trump is embodied by all of this Extremism which so many swing voters rejected on Tuesday.
“In exit polls, 28% of voters said they chose their House vote ‘to oppose Donald Trump.’ 42% of people said they had a positive view of the GOP front-runner before the election. That should alarm the party.
“Despite his awful showing, Trump plans to declare his candidacy soon. Most Democrats find the prospect hard to stomach, but most Republicans would also like him to just focus on his golf game,” Ghitis noted.
As his team compiles their surrogate wish list, Governor Ron DeSantis should be their first call. DeSantis is the talk of the town right now, and for good reason. He won reelection with a big margin. A victory of barely 30,000 votes in 2018 turned into a margin of more than 1.5 million four years later. He was supported by every demographic and carried a large margin with Latino voters. And he achieved all this with a fiercely conservative record in a formerly battleground state.
“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.”
Republicans are equally enthusiastic about DeSantis, but historian Nicole Hemmer suggested there are obstacles to his potential run for president. “Before declaring this the dawn of DeSantis, remember: It is just as likely the next few weeks will be the high-water mark of his presidential aspirations. The spotlight can very quickly become the hot seat, and DeSantis is both untested as a national candidate and as a Trump adversary. The particulars of the DeSantis win and the persistence of Trump’s power will likely cause a second wave of disappointment for those who saw an easy pivot from the era of Trump to the age of him.
Why are men so sexy? Fivelessons Midterms (or Are They Funny): The People’s Sexiest Man Alive
The defeat of Georgia governor Brian Kemp by his opponent was a repeat of the defeat that Sophia A. Nelson suffered four years ago.
In Texas, Democrat Beto O’Rourke lost to incumbent Republican Greg Abbott for governor. Nicole Russell wrote that after three huge losses it was time for him to stop running for office in Texas. We’ve had enough of Beto. His liberal policies are not welcomed in Texas.
His military machine is broken; his country’s economy is so ravaged that it will take years to recover; and his reputation as a strategic thinker is in tatters. Putin-the-man may still cling to power for years, but Putin-the-legend is dead.”
The actor Chris Evans received an accolade that was first bestowed on Mel Gibson in 1985, “a candidate whose appeal, I think we can agree, has not aged well,” Sara Stewart observed.
It was a good time to ask if we can get rid of the People’s Sexiest Man Alive tradition after this year’s announcement.
It’s ridiculous to declare anyone the sexy person alive. Sexiness is not a linear thing, it is subjective. So it’s a winky joke that People offers up its own tastes as if they are everyone’s. And by making their subject male, they’re tacitly saying: See, we’re not objectifying women, we’re so evolved. Men can be objects of lust too! Maybe that was (arguably) a subversive statement in the 1980s, when Playboy, Penthouse and other magazines imposed a misogynist ideal of sexiness at the newsstands. But now? Not very much.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/opinions/five-lessons-midterms-opinion-columns-galant/index.html
Five Leastons Midterms: Comments on Musk’s Twitter Disruption and the Restoration of Social Media Innocence in the Prince’s Legacy
The new season of “The Crown,” which came out on Wednesday, shows the royals through the tumult of the 1990s, including the divorce of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, and the disastrous fire at Windsor Castle.
The crown has not masqueraded as a documentary or claimed to replicate private moments between royal family members. It has done what historical shows, films, plays, and literary fiction always have: Use factual events as loose outlines, fill them in using artistic license, and trust the audience’s intelligence to tell the difference. The creator and writer, Peter Morgan, is a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Without the help of a journalist, Musk won’t be able to fix the messaging service. She’s had enough. “I deleted Twitter on the day Elon Musk became the platform’s new owner,” Jones wrote. “After a mostly dysfunctional 12-year relationship with Twitter that I admit brought some moments of joy, it was time to exercise my freedom of speech to say goodbye and good riddance.”
Data points about rising racism on social media can be interesting, but they do not reinforce what we already know. Like many Black women on the site, I can testify about what it feels like to be harassed and threatened with violence. I’ve experienced it all. … I’m done. I’ll take my power and my voice and walk in the real world.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/opinions/five-lessons-midterms-opinion-columns-galant/index.html
Five-Leastons Midterms: How a $100 Million Can Make You Richer, But It Is Not Liquid
Bill Carter and his wife do not normally buy lottery tickets because it feels like burning a $10 bill on a barbecue grill.
“What’s interesting is how many people, like us, ignore lotteries until they soar to staggering amounts. The $100 million prize has barely raised eyebrows. Is that too piddling to care? Wouldn’t $100 million change most people’s lives forever?
“Really: What would we do with all that money? Helping the kids, giving to charities, buying several homes, and so on, what more do you need to do? Is it a good idea to build a money bin and swim around in it? (Unwise. Money can make you wealthy, but it is not liquid.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/opinions/five-lessons-midterms-opinion-columns-galant/index.html
When Joseph Shuster and his wife, Lois Lane, met (and married) Donald Trump, and they had a rough encounter in Mar-a-Lago
The origin story of the Man of Steel is well known. As pop culture historian Roy Schwartz noted, “In 1934, at the age of 18, (Joseph) Shuster and classmate Jerome Siegel came up with a revolutionary idea: Superman. He was the first superhero, a concept that had never been done before and that was rejected because it was too fantastic for children to relate to.
But as Schwartz wrote, Shuster had a relationship with Helen Louise Cohen, a fellow resident of Cleveland, who might have borne a resemblance to Superman’s eventual wife Lois Lane. Shuster sent her sketches of Superman along with at least one drawing of Cohen, and heartfelt letters in neat script.
She broke it off and chose to marry a officer who later won the Legion of Merit and became a colonel in the Army. Shuster was too nearsighted to enlist in the military during World War II.
Cohen would later tell her sons that Shuster was too mild-mannered for her. But she kept his letters and sketches and now the family is sharing them with the world, Schwartz wrote.
Marriage is hard. Even the most well-adjusted couples will sometimes argue and even wear each other out. So consider just how bumpy things could get if someone’s thin-skinned, emotionally erratic, accountability-averse husband started criticizing her for his high-profile screw-ups.
Donald Trump is having a change of mind regarding his role in the Republicans face plant in the Pennsylvania Senate race at Mar-a-Lago. Mr. Trump backed his old buddy Mehmet Oz, and the celebrity doctor turned out to be a loser. The former president has been blaming his poor pick on everyone else, including his wife. Mr. Trump hopped on Truth Social to defend himself against the “Fake Story” and insist that he was not at all angry.
By now Mrs. Trump must be somewhat accustomed to her hubby’s tantrums. There is a very good chance that the Republicans will be in a strong position in the Senate race. The Democrats got one of their best Election Day results in years when he kneecapped the party up and down the Pennsylvania ballot.
I predicted this outcome a year ago and wrote a book about it. I don’t enjoy being correct. I’m a conservative and I am tried-and-true. I believe that America is headed in the wrong direction, fueled by the hangover of the Trump years and the policies of President Joe Biden and his congressional enablers.
And I’m not alone in my dissatisfaction. According to CNN exit polls, more than 7 in 10 said they are “dissatisfied” or “angry” with the direction of the country for one reason or another.
My Name is Justine Walker: A Man Who Can’t Take Advice From Me? The State of the Art When Donald Trump Wins and the State Of The Art
Yes, they are longtime buddies dating back to the United States Football League (USFL). The first time the two met was in the 1980s when Walker was the star running back and Trump was the owner of the New Jersey Generals. Walker had an overwhelming primary win because of Trump’s endorsement.
But Walker needs to convince voters beyond his base to get behind his candidacy. Our state’s growing population, especially in Atlanta’s northern suburbs, have forced Republicans to run different types of campaigns than years past, with messages tailored to swing voters.
Besides, as poor as Biden’s favorability numbers are in Georgia – 44% approve of his job performance while 53% disapprove, according to a recent Quinnipiac University survey – his predecessor’s standing is even worse. Only 40% of the people approve of Trump.
Walker shouldn’t take advice from me. I have been called the “snoop at the garden party” for speaking out against Trump. But if the GOP can’t best a Democratic Party led by a president with an approval rating in the low 40s, something must change because the status quo isn’t cutting it. Don’t just take my word for it.