Election 2022: Democrats Are Going To Win Again

[humblescribe]

As long as we are wishing, what would happen to McFossil if the Democrats wound up with a filibuster-proof majority of 60? (I know it won't happen, but it would be fun to see how long it takes for him to stroke out.)

What power would he wield? He could not stop anything--he and Felito, Josh boy and the rest would be impotent.

[Foggy]

Obama (briefly) had a filibuster proof majority.

[humblescribe]

Obama (briefly) had a filibuster proof majority.

I consulted the omniscient intertoobz, and by golly, Fogster, you are right! Sixty days' worth spread over like four different periods. Like they could even achieve anything of substance during those two or three-week abbreviated periods.

No wonder you feel jinky.

[Gregg]

As long as we are wishing, what would happen to McFossil if the Democrats wound up with a filibuster-proof majority of 60? (I know it won't happen, but it would be fun to see how long it takes for him to stroke out.)

What power would he wield? He could not stop anything--he and Felito, Josh boy and the rest would be impotent.

I look for Mitch to retire and make Beshear appoint a Republican to replace him, who will have almost 2 whole years to work up to re elction. If Dems hold the Senate anyway. Especially if they hold the Senate with 52 seats or more.

[Ben-Prime]

As long as we are wishing, what would happen to McFossil if the Democrats wound up with a filibuster-proof majority of 60? (I know it won't happen, but it would be fun to see how long it takes for him to stroke out.)

What power would he wield? He could not stop anything--he and Felito, Josh boy and the rest would be impotent.

I look for Mitch to retire and make Beshear appoint a Republican to replace him, who will have almost 2 whole years to work up to re elction. If Dems hold the Senate anyway. Especially if they hold the Senate with 52 seats or more.

I'd hold out hope that Beshear would try to flout the law, appoint a (D), and let them take him to court.

[Gregg]

So do I. But he would have to have someone in Kamala Harris' office waiting to be sworn in. Once sworn in I don't see any court, not even the Alito, Clarence and Kegs Show trying to unseat a sitting Senator, but one might stop her from swearing someone in.

[Kriselda Gray]

Off Topic

speaking of Kegs - great name for him, BTW - I'm reading "The Destructionists" by Dana Mikbank and it talks about Kegs' role in the Paula Jones/Monica Lewinsky investigation. He was instrumental in getting all of the sexually explicit questions included in the Clinton interviews and was just *totally* out to get him. It was just disgusting.

So far, the book is fascinating. I'll write more bout it in the book thread once I've read more or have finished it.

[Luke]

Dave Wasserman @Redistrict
The amount of land mass represented by House Democrats just went up by 104%. #AKAL
9:07 PM · Aug 31, 2022·Twitter Web App

Dave Wasserman @Redistrict 6h
Breaking: Mary Peltola (D) defeats Sarah Palin (R) in the #AKAL special election.

Final margin: Peltola (D) defeats Palin (R) 51.5%-48.5% in the final round of ranked-choice. This is a huge victory and pickup for Dems, driven more by Palin's unpopularity than national trends. #AKAL

Rating change: in the wake of Mary Peltola's (D) defeat of Sarah Palin (R), @CookPolitical will be moving #AKAL's November rating from Likely R to Toss Up.

Y'all know what I'm gonna say. Tomorrow and this holiday weekend would be a great time to register new voters and make sure friends and family promise to check their voter registration to make sure it's up to date. The midterms are sooner than you think!

[pipistrelle]

94522666-73D4-40EA-9045-D11C29723D88.jpeg (143.71 KiB) Viewed 936 times

[Slim Cognito]

I know people are making a big thing about Alaska electing a Democrat but isn't that more about the people of Alaska being pissed at Palin for shrugging off the governorship for a sweet book deal and a gig on Fox News than actually turning blue?

Is the November election running the same people?

To keep on-topic let me say I hope the answer to my first question is no.

[Foggy]

The answer to your first question is yes.

[SuzieC]

Dark Brandon suits you to a T.

[Slim Cognito]

This showed up in my inbox from Axios/Cook Report

House Overview: GOP Control No Longer a Foregone Conclusion

https://www.cookpolitical.com/analysis/ ... stream=top

[Luke]

Wish we could see more of it, but Cook is charging $99 for election season access. Here's the top of it:

David Wasserman @Redistrict

Three months ago, it looked like a category five hurricane was heading for President Biden and House Democrats clinging to a flimsy 221-214 seat edge. Today, not only has it weakened to a tropical depression, but GOP primaries have thrown Democrats enough sandbags to give them a plausible, if still unlikely, scenario to stave off a Republican majority.

Republicans don't need gale force winds at their back to reclaim the House; they only need to net a minuscule four seats. By our estimates, they are likely to pick up roughly three seats off the bat from redistricting alone, owing to New York's top court torpedoing Democrats' gerrymander and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signing a brutal GOP gerrymander into law. That was once a tiny component of Republicans' potential House gains. Now, it looks like a critical GOP insurance policy in a highly fluid political climate.

If forced, here's how we would roughly rank order the five factors driving this climate shift:

1. The Dobbs ruling helping Democrats match or even overtake the GOP base in enthusiasm 2. Steadily falling gas

[Foggy]

House Overview: GOP Control No Longer a Foregone Conclusion

That's metaphysically absurd, man. A foregone conclusion, by definition, does not go away. Try admitting "We Goofed."

[pipistrelle]

Is the "foregone conclusion" because traditionally the presidential party does poorly in the midterms? These are not traditional times, with one party having gone full fascist coming up on two years ago. That changes the math.

[Luke]

Breitbart!

Van Jones on Midterm Election: Starting to See the Beginnings of a ‘Blue Wave’
PAM KEY 2 Sep 2022

CNN political commentator Van Jones said Friday on CNN’s “Newsroom” that the beginnings of what could be a blue wave are forming for Democrats in the 2022 midterm election.

Jones said, “Coming into Labor Day weekend, you are starting to see the beginnings of what could be a blue wave. I don’t think people understand, on the Democratic side, how upset and how motivated Democrats are. There was a season of shame from the time that the Afghanistan exit was botched and this whole year of getting nothing done where Democrats had our heads held down.”

He added, “Now, because Biden has been so successful on his legislative agenda and Republicans have been so scary in what they’re talking about, taking away women’s right to vote — women’s right to choose, attacking the vote, and then you have Donald Trump basically saying, ‘If you come to Washington, D.C., and beat people up on my behalf, I will give you a pardon.’ That scares the crap out of people, and that’s making people want to stand up and go vote. So now you have the economy on the one side, which I think motivates the Republicans, but you have this sense of democracy under threat motivating Democrats. Biden was speaking for tens of millions of people yesterday, last night.

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2022/09 ... blue-wave/

[Slim Cognito]

They know, sooner or later, they have to cut trump loose. I know trump wasn't that responsible for RvW going down, any R POTUS would have done the same thing, so there's that, but if they all brainstorm, they'll concoct a way to push him out. They have to put on a united front. I guess it will depend on how bad November goes for them. They can't keep all of us from voting.

[Luke]

AFL-CIO Launches Largest Voter Mobilization Drive
By Nicole Wells Friday, 02 September 2022 01:57 PM EDT

As November's midterm elections approach, the AFL-CIO announced on Friday the launch of a voter mobilization drive that will seek to connect almost 8 million voters with more than 100,000 volunteers. The goal of the mobilization effort, the largest in the AFL-CIO's history, is to turn organizing efforts around the country and robust public support for unions into political wins at the ballot box. AFL-CIO volunteers will work to bolster support for pro-union candidates by having one-on-one conversations with workers and also by implementing a campaign of phone calls, texts, and digital messages.

The labor union represents more than 12.5 million workers, according to The Hill. "Working people are fired up and ready to mobilize like never before to restore America's promise," AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in a statement. "We've launched the largest organizing drive in history to empower workers who for far too long have been ignored and taken for granted by a political system designed to benefit the wealthy and well-connected. "This mobilization's focus on personal connections to engage working people on issues that have a real impact on our families and communities will cut through the political noise to make a critical difference locally and nationally this November and beyond."

According to a recent Gallup poll, 71% of Americans support unions, the highest percentage since 1965. The increase in support follows successful campaigns in which workers unionized individual locations at large corporations such as Starbucks and Amazon, overcoming aggressively anti-union tactics. "Personal connection is the heart and soul of organizing," AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond said. "We know that when workers organize, we win. We're seeing it every day as more workers organize unions in industries once thought to be immune to working people having a voice."

The AFL-CIO identified Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin as battleground states for this year's midterm elections. The labor federation will focus on voting rights and abortion access, in addition to labor policies, according to The Hill. Democrats, who are closely tied to the AFL-CIO and other labor organizations, could benefit from the labor union's mobilization drive. The party has long sought to win over blue-collar workers with its pro-union measures, such as the PRO Act, which would strengthen workers' ability to organize. The proposal passed in the House but did not clear the 60-vote threshold in the Senate.

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/afl-c ... d/1085793/

[Luke]

With Midterms Looming, McConnell’s Woes Pile Up
The minority leader who takes pride in his status as the “grim reaper” of his rivals’ agenda has allowed Democrats to claim policy victories as his party’s hopes of reclaiming the Senate dim.
By Annie Karni Sept. 2, 2022 Updated 5:36 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, spent the summer watching Democrats score a series of legislative victories of the sort he once swore he would thwart. His party’s crop of candidate recruits has struggled to gain traction, threatening his chances of reclaiming the Senate majority. And this week, his dispute with the leader of the Republicans’ Senate campaign arm escalated into a public war. As the Senate prepares to return to Washington next week for a final stint before the midterm congressional elections, Mr. McConnell is entering an autumn of discontent, a reality that looks far different from where he was expecting to be at the start of President Biden’s term. Back then, the top Senate Republican spoke of dedicating himself full time to “stopping this new administration” and predicted that Democrats would struggle to wield their razor-thin majorities, giving Republicans an upper hand to win back both the House and the Senate. Instead, the man known best for his ability to block and kill legislation — he once proclaimed himself the “grim reaper” — has felt the political ground shift under his feet. Democrats have, in the space of a few months, managed to pass a gun safety compromise, a major technology and manufacturing bill, a huge veterans health measure, and a climate, health and tax package — either by steering around Mr. McConnell or with his cooperation. At the same time, the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade appears to have handed Democrats a potent issue going into the midterm elections, brightening their hopes of keeping control of the Senate.
***
Anti-Trump conservatives argue that Mr. McConnell put himself in an untenable position by failing to fully repudiate Mr. Trump after the assault on the Capitol, when the Kentucky Republican could have engineered a conviction at Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial, removing him and barring him from holding office again. “It’s like the zombie movie where he comes back to haunt and horrify you,” said Bill Kristol, the conservative columnist. Mr. McConnell, he said, “thought he could have a good outcome legislatively and politically in 2022 without explicitly pushing back on Trump. That was the easier course. It may turn out to be a very self-defeating course for him.” Mr. McConnell and his aides have said he is simply playing the long game, doing what he needs to to preserve the filibuster, which Democrats have repeatedly threatened to dismantle to push through their agenda. And his Senate colleagues say Mr. McConnell is not bothered by Mr. Trump’s broadsides, though he is aware that a bloc of his members is heavily influenced by the former president.

Still, the troubles come at what was supposed to be a celebratory moment for Mr. McConnell, who has been in legacy-building mode, talking about eclipsing former Senator Mike Mansfield, Democrat of Montana, as history’s longest-serving leader of either party and participating in an authorized biography for which he has opened up his archives. “Mitch cares very deeply for the institution, and there’s probably not anything more important to him than preserving the filibuster,” said Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina. He said it was not Mr. McConnell who had changed, but the Senate itself, with its 50-50 partisan breakdown. “This is the Mitch McConnell that I met in 2013 when I was considering running for the Senate,” Mr. Tillis said. “Mitch McConnell’s mentality hasn’t changed since he was playing Little League Baseball.”

That may be part of the issue. Mr. McConnell has had a nasty break with Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the chairman of the party campaign committee, who has styled himself in Mr. Trump’s image, recruited candidates loyal to the former president, visited him regularly in Florida and New Jersey, and this week attacked Mr. McConnell, without naming him, for questioning those candidates’ chances. “Unfortunately, many of the very people responsible for losing the Senate last cycle are now trying to stop us from winning the majority this time by trash-talking our Republican candidates,” Mr. Scott wrote, calling such remarks “cowardice” and “treasonous.” At the same time, Mr. McConnell, who has long been regarded as a master legislative tactician and relentless obstructionist, has drawn criticism from within his own ranks for striking compromises with Democrats, including on the gun safety bill and the manufacturing measure. Mr. McConnell has made plain that he views such deals as necessary to win back suburban voters in politically competitive areas. “I’m not in favor of doing nothing at any point, no matter who gets elected,” he said at a Chamber of Commerce lunch in Kentucky earlier this week. “I’ve always felt that we could make bipartisan progress for the country within a 40-yard line.”
***
Mr. McConnell’s aides have played down the significance of his comment about “candidate quality,” arguing that it was designed to spur donors to help underfunded Republicans in the homestretch of the campaign. Mr. McConnell subsequently hosted a fund-raiser in Louisville, Ky., for three Republican Senate candidates: Herschel Walker, the candidate in Georgia; Dr. Mehmet Oz, the candidate in Pennsylvania; and Representative Ted Budd of North Carolina. “Leader McConnell’s been on airplanes and on the phone all month, and that helped make August the biggest month of the cycle so far,” said Jack Pandol, a spokesman for the Senate Leadership Fund, the political action committee Mr. McConnell controls, which has become the main vehicle for donors to support Republican candidates. Privately, some Senate campaign operatives have sharply criticized Mr. Scott, saying they were befuddled by his decision to embark last month on an Italian yacht vacation at the same time that the committee was pulling television ad reservations in critical states, signaling it was losing hope of victories there. The trip was reported by Axios. The bad blood has only served to underscore the party’s waning hopes of winning a Senate majority. “I’m sitting at the leadership table with both of them every Monday night — there’s been tension,” Ms. Capito said. “Obviously there are some deep-seated bad feelings, and that’s very unfortunate.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/02/us/p ... tions.html

[Luke]

This is a GREAT address by President Biden at Labor Fest in Milwaukee! Uplifting about accomplishments and what we're fighting for in the Midterms. When a heckler started up, President Biden said, "Everybody is entitled to be an idiot". Biden did a great job on this and he's heading to PA next.

[Luke]

CQ/Roll Call:

Biden on pace to buck history
Presidential ratings rarely improve in the final months before a midterm
President Joe Biden's approval ratings have come up since he joined Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries at a Democratic Caucus Issues Conference in Philadelphia in March.
By Nathan L. Gonzales Posted September 7, 2022 at 5:00am

ANALYSIS — Don’t call it a comeback. He’s been here for about a year and a half. Presidents don’t improve their political standing in midterm election years. That is, they didn't until President Joe Biden came along. And the uptick in Biden’s job approval rating is one factor in Democrats’ renewed optimism about the upcoming elections. For much of the cycle, there wasn’t a lot of good news for Democrats. Biden’s job approval rating was mired in mediocrity, or worse, and the prospects for improvement were not good. Looking back more than 70 years, there hasn’t been a single president who substantially improved his job approval rating from late January/early February of a midterm election year to late October/early November, according to Gallup’s rich polling archive. More specifically, in the last 18 midterm elections going back to Harry Truman in 1950, the average president’s job approval rating dropped 8 points between early in the midterm year and Election Day. Donald Trump was one of the few presidents whose approval rating didn’t drop from February to Election Day in a midterm. But he was stuck at 39 percent (in February) and 40 percent (in November) in 2018, and Democrats had a 41-seat House gain.

Biden is poised to buck the presidential trend this year. In January, Biden’s job approval rating was at 40 percent, according to Gallup. The most recent, Aug. 1-23, Gallup survey had that rating at 44 percent. While modest, it would represent the most improvement for a president in a midterm year going back well more than half a century. Biden’s movement is not unique to Gallup. He went from 38 percent approval at the end of July to 43 percent as of Sunday, according to the FiveThirtyEight national average, and 37 percent to 42 percent in the RealClearPolitics national average. And Biden’s national improvement is largely mirrored in district-level polling data. That improvement is significant considering midterm elections are typically a referendum on the sitting president and the party in power. So any improvement in Biden’s job rating should benefit Democrats on the ballot this year. Of course, Biden’s standing is still not great. Fifty-three percent of respondents disapproved of the job he’s doing in the recent Gallup poll. And there’s the potential for the president’s rating to go back down, especially if an issue such as college loan forgiveness is as politically toxic as Republicans believe it is. (So far, polling finds Biden’s plan more popular than not.) While Democrats obviously don’t mind Biden getting politically stronger, they are currently benefiting from another dynamic. A significant chunk of voters who disapprove of the job Biden is doing are not holding other Democrats responsible or flocking to GOP candidates. Many Democratic incumbents are overperforming Biden’s job rating in key races.

Republicans believe that millions of dollars in TV advertising over the next few weeks will solve that problem. They’ll seek to help voters connect the dots to Biden and ultimately knock out a batch of Democratic incumbents. For example, GOP strategists are particularly excited about Maine’s 2nd District, where Democratic Rep. Jared Golden’s vote for the so-called Inflation Reduction Act gives Republicans a direct link between the congressman and Biden’s agenda. But it’s possible Republicans have a larger problem. While voters are primed for change due to high gas prices, inflation, cost of living, crime and immigration, they are not yet comfortable voting for Republicans as the alternative. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to reverse Roe v. Wade has inflamed Democratic voters and caused some independent voters to pause after subsequent actions by GOP lawmakers in states to effectively eliminate access to legal abortion. That’s a politically unpopular position. Then there’s the Trump factor. The former president continues to interject himself into the national conversation with rallies, endorsements and press releases. The seizure of documents at Mar-a-Lago, the findings of the Jan. 6 select House committee and various ongoing legal proceedings only intensify that national attention. Even out of office, Trump is still the leader of the GOP, and attention on him is a liability for Republican candidates in the general election.

As I wrote back in January, with Biden’s job approval rating still underwater, Republicans just need to get out of the way of voters wanting to change the status quo. But the GOP can’t seem to get it right, and the party finds itself in a more difficult position to take back the Senate than six months ago. Republicans also could end up with a new House majority so narrow that it’s virtually ungovernable.

Nathan L. Gonzales is an elections analyst for CQ Roll Call.

https://rollcall.com/2022/09/07/biden-o ... k-history/

Hey, today would be a great day to register a new voter, make sure your voter registration is up to date, and get 3 friends to commit to voting

[Dr. Ken]

FiveThirtyEight now has the Democrats keeping the senate at a 70/30 chance. Now there's more statistical models putting the number at 52/53 senate seats for the Democrats

senate.jpg (91.51 KiB) Viewed 557 times

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/20 ... id=rrpromo

[pipistrelle]

Dunno what this means.

[Slarti the White]

Dunno what this means.

I would guess that either it was a poll of McCarthy's race or it was a poll that implies the Republicans won't take the House.