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The contest this year for control of the evenly divided Senate comes down to candidates, where the Democrats have an advantage, versus the climate, which may prove lethal for them.

As the fall field takes shape in a half dozen Senate races that will determine the majority next year, Democrats have stronger candidates, or the Republican standard bearer is more flawed. However, with raging inflation, high gas prices and President Bidens low approval numbers and given the historical pattern of midterm setbacks for the party that controls the White House better candidates may not much matter.

Republicans seem almost certain to take back the House, where the Democrats hold an edge of only five seats. The GOP advantages in gerrymandered redistricting alone makes up that difference.

There are four Democratic-held Senate seats under challenge.

New Hampshires Sen. Maggie Hassan got a break when popular Gov. Chris Sununu decided not to run.

Nevadas Sen. Catherine Cortez Mastofaces a tough challenge from Republican Attorney General Adam Laxalt.

Georgias Raphael Warnock, the pastor at Martin Luther Kings church, has proven an effective Senator and fund-raiser; his opponent, former Georgia football great Herschel Walker has been embroiled in personal controversies, shows little grasp of issues and has been caught in lies. The race still is close.

Arizonas Mark Kelly also has made a mark and is a prolific fund-raiser. None of his possible Republican opponents the GOP primary is Aug. 2 would be confused with the iconic late Sen. John McCain. One, in an Easter ad, depicted himself as a savior; another raised the possibility of banning contraceptives, and the current Attorney General, pandering to Trump, continues to peddle the disproven charge of voter fraud in 2020.

If Democrats lose one or two of these seats, Democrats will need to win a couple Republican-held seats.

One Republican incumbent in deep trouble is Wisconsins Ron Johnson, whose poll numbers are terrible. The question is can Democrats nominate a more appealing challenger on Aug. 9?

Two states that went for Trump Ohio and North Carolina have strong Democratic candidates: Rep. Tim Ryan in the Buckeye state and former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley in North Carolina. In Ohio, the GOP nominee, J.D. Vance flipped from a Trump critic to Trump cheerleader; on Ukraine, he charged that Biden sought a conflict with Vladimir Putin because the Russian didnt believe in transgender rights. In North Carolina, Republican candidate Rep. Ted Budd, a gun shop owner, has embraced Republican Senate campaign chair Rick Scotts economic plan, which would boost taxes on some lower- and middle-class Americans and sunset Social Security and Medicare every five years.

The Democratic edge in candidates in these two states could be offset by conditions and the advantage the GOP usually enjoys in these states in off-year elections.

Pennsylvania is in such chaos any forecast is impossible. Two Republicans celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz and hedge fund executive David McCormick virtually tied in the primary and now face a contentious recount; legal squabbles could stretch out for weeks, even months. In 1964 a similar situation on the Democratic side lasted until late August; in a year in which President Lyndon Johnson won the state in a landslide, Republicans barely carried the Senate seat.

The maverick Democrat, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, won a huge primary victory; however, he suffered a stroke four days before the election, and the campaign has not been transparent about his condition.

The slim Democratic hopes for retaining the House majority vanished with the latest redistricting. A Democratic gerrymandering in New York was thrown out by the state courts, while a Republican gerrymandering slipped by in Ohio, in part due to a legal blunder by Democrats.

The upshot, including few other states, says David Wasserman of the Cook Report and the expert on Congressional elections, is a swing of seven or eight seats for the GOP. Wasserman now predicts a GOP gain of 20 to 35 House seats in November.

One striking illustration is in Ohio. In Toledo, Republicans gerrymandered Democratic Rep. Marcy Kapturs district from one that Biden carried by 19 points to one that Trump won. Kaptur now faces a serious challenge from Jason Majewski, who attended the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, painted a huge picture of Donald Trump on his front yard and embraces the nutty QAnon conspiracy theories.

The bottom line for Democrats: If by October, inflation declines to 5 percent or less (about the same as the growth rate in wages) and Bidens job approval moves above the low 40s (possible only if other Democrats start talking about what he has accomplished rather than what he hasnt done) they have a shot with better candidates to hold the Senate.

There is no margin for error.

Al Hunt is the former executive editor of Bloomberg News. He previously served as reporter, bureau chief and Washington editor for The Wall Street Journal. For almost a quarter century he wrote a column on politics for The Wall Street Journal, then The International New York Times and Bloomberg View. He hostsPolitics War Roomwith James Carville. Follow him on Twitter@AlHuntDC.

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Better candidates may not be enough for Democrats to retain the Senate - The Hill

Two nearly identical text boxes appear on the respective campaign websites for Henry Cuellar and Jessica Cisneros, the Democrats locked in a heated primary runoff to represent south Texas in Congress.

Cuellars text box warns voters that Cisneros would defund the police and border patrol, which would make us less safe and wreck our local economy. Cisneros, in turn, blasts Cuellar for opposing womens right to choose amid a nationwide crackdown on reproductive care.

The parallel advisories read like shorthand for the battle thats brewing among Democrats in Texas, where centrist incumbents like Cuellar are facing a mushrooming cohort of young and progressive voters frustrated by the status quo.

I want people to take away from what were doing people-power people can go toe-to-toe with any kind of corporate special interest, Cisneros told the Guardian. And that we still have power over what we want our future and our narrative to be here in Texas, despite all odds.

Texas-28 is a heavily gerrymandered, predominantly Latino congressional district that rides the US-Mexico border, including the city of Laredo, before sprawling across south-central Texas to reach into San Antonio. During the primary election in March, voters there were so split that barely a thousand votes divided Cuellar from Cisneros, while neither candidate received the majority they needed to win.

Now, the runoff on 24 May has come to represent not only a race for the coveted congressional seat, but also a referendum on the future of Democratic politics in Texas and nationally.

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, House majority whip, James E Clyburn, and House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, have thrown the full-throated support of the Democratic establishment behind Cuellar, while endorsements from progressive icons such as Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have elevated Cisneros as a rising star on the national stage.

If Cuellar wins, this is a story of how the Democratic machine and the old system is still strong in the district. And if Jessica Cisneros wins, the narrative is this is another successful Latina politician carrying the community forward, said Katsuo Nishikawa Chvez, an associate professor of political science at Trinity University.

Cuellar did not grant the Guardians request for an interview.

Cuellar and Cisneros both Mexican American lawyers from Laredo represent two radically different visions of what south Texas is and could be.

Cuellar has served nine terms in the US House of Representatives, where last summer he teamed up with the Republican senator Lindsey Graham to portray migrants as disease carriers and demand that the Biden administration end the surge at the US-Mexico border. By contrast, Cisneros, 28, has spent much of her early career fighting on the frontlines for immigrant families and asylum seekers, and part of her platform is more humane border and immigration policies that include a pathway to citizenship for unauthorized residents.

Their strategies also diverge on campaign finance. Cuellar has funded years of congressional bids with contributions from donors that have notably included the National Rifle Association and oil and gas industry Pacs. Cisneros, meanwhile, has publicly sworn off campaign donations from corporate Pacs and lobbyists and yet still far outpaced Cuellars fundraising numbers during the first quarter of 2022.

At least part of Cisneross fundraising success earlier this year may be linked to the FBIs raid on Cuellars home in January, which immediately embroiled his office in scandal. A Texas Tribune analysis found that in the days after the raid, Cisneross campaign contributions soared, although what exactly the FBI was investigating remains unclear and Cuellar maintains he has done nothing wrong.

Now, in the days leading up to the runoff, another major controversy has taken center stage: the candidates opposing views on reproductive care. After a leaked draft opinion went viral suggesting the supreme courts intention to overturn Roe v Wade the landmark decision that established a constitutional right to abortion in the US Cuellar has faced renewed scrutiny from reproductive rights champions as the lone Democratic representative to vote against codifying the right to an abortion last September.

Cisneros, in turn, has vowed to protect that right. In a statement following the draft leak, she called on the Democratic leadership to withdraw their support of Henry Cuellar who is the last anti-choice Democrat in the House.

The 2022 election is Cisneross second bid to unseat Cuellar, whom she also ran against in 2020 as a first-time, 26-year-old challenger. After she lost that race by less than 4% of the vote, she said she felt compelled to try one more time.

What folks were telling us over and over and over again was that, you know, the way things are right now isnt working, and that they want a different version an alternative version of what south Texas can look like, because they felt like they were being taken for granted, Cisneros said.

Residents in Texas-28 have a lot working against them, which may explain why some could feel like they and their votes are undervalued. For one, increased voter restrictions, closed or relocated polling places, and other serious barriers that require more time and energy make it so that by design, many Texans of color dont vote when they perceive an election to be low stakes.

Everything we see looks to be orchestrated in a way that makes voting for Latinos hard and almost impossible, said Nishikawa Chvez, who suggested it was hard to look at the Texas governments actions and not recognize a systemic interest in suppressing the Latino vote.

In a self-fulfilling prophecy, candidates from both parties also chronically underinvest their limited resources in Latino communities like Texas-28 because they dont know how to reach them and assume they probably wont go to the polls, Nishikawa Chvez said.

Jen Ramos, a state Democratic executive committeewoman for the Texas Democratic party, has been getting out the vote for Cisneros in Laredo and San Antonio, where some residents have told her its the first time their doors have ever been knocked by a political campaign.

The fact that these folks have never had their door knocked on, have never been contacted before, and were talking to people and meeting them where theyre at, thats a real disappointment for an elected official whos been in office for as long as he [Cuellar] has, Ramos said.

If there was anything Ramos noticed growing up in Texas-28, it was the defeated feeling that nothing ever changed within her community, no matter who was in power. Henry Cuellar has been in office almost as long as Ive been alive, and yet nothing has inspired any change or difference, nor has he ever bothered to talk to anybody in the community, she said.

Shes optimistic that things could finally be different with Cisneros representing the district: I think that Jessicas race is the very first time in a long time that the region and the community has seen the sense of hope.

But not everyone in the district agrees with the kind of change Cisneros represents. Texas-28 is a perfect microcosm of how Latino voters are in no way a monolith, and closer to the borders Rio Grande, constituents trend more conservative, Catholic and pro-gun rights than in San Antonios working-class neighborhoods, Nishikawa Chvez explained.

Its a huge district, and its cut in such a way to maximize Republican votes, he said. And so you get a kind of a schizophrenic area.

Generational and gendered divides complicate matters further. Older voters speak Cuellars language around good jobs, border security and Catholic values, while a growing constituency of highly educated young Latinos hear their values represented in Cisneros. Meanwhile, Latina matriarchs are pushing their communities to vote for issues beyond the economy, such as healthcare access, the environment and quality education.

Ultimately, the runoff will come down to who actually turns out, a question that may have a larger impact on how politicians appeal to Latinos in future, Nishikawa Chvez suggested.

How this election goes is going to tell us a little bit about the future, about how to approach or how to campaign and to get the votes of Latino voters in the US, he said.

For now, Cisneros is hoping to find common ground with her neighbors across the district by listening to what they want addressed. When were talking about increasing the minimum wage and Medicare for All, she said, theyre kitchen-table issues that, you know, people are much more concerned about.

Change doesnt happen overnight, Cisneros added. Every little thing that were doing every single day, I mean, is helping us build a brighter future. But I do know that when we win on 24 May, I really hope that it is the beginning of change in south Texas.

Originally posted here:
Will Texas pick a progressive or anti-abortion Democrat in heated runoff? - The Guardian US

For Democrats, the national forecast keeps going from bad to worse.

Consumer prices are rising. President Bidens approval rating is falling. Mass shootings are endemic. Race relations are strained. Baby formula is scarce. The Democrats legislative agenda is on the rocks. And party leaders from the White House to Capitol Hill have limited power to exact the reforms they consider crucial for righting the listing ship.

While the midterm cycle was always expected to pose steep challenges for the presidents party, the steady stream of bleak developments to include a bloody shooting war in Europe, a volatile economy at home and a stubborn pandemic thats everywhere has soured the public mood and exacerbated the difficulties facing Democratic leaders as they fight to maintain razor-thin majorities at the polls in November.

And those are just the near-term anxieties.

For many Democrats, the troubles extend well beyond their midterm prospects to include creeping concerns that Congresss inability to enact foundational reforms including efforts to protect voting rights, curb gun violence and tackle racist extremism means the country risks backsliding to a place where civil rights go unprotected and violent bigotry goes unchecked.

In the eyes of these lawmakers, democracy itself is under threat from the enduring right-wing lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

Womens rights are under threat from a conservative-leaning Supreme Court that appears poised to overturn Roe v. Wade.

And civil rights are newly at risk from a rise in violent extremism, which surfaced again this month in Buffalo, N.Y., where a white teenager promoting racist conspiracy theories was charged with shooting 13 people in a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood. Ten of them died.

The combination has rattled many Democrats, who fear that much of the social progress of the last half century is under threat of slipping away. And perhaps no one is voicing the sense of despondency as loudly as Rep. James Clyburn (S.C.), the Democratic whip and civil rights veteran, who warned recently that the country is in danger of imploding.

I thought in difficult times that this too shall pass. Im not too sure anymore. Im really not, hetoldThe Washington Post earlier this month.

Democracy is in danger of disintegrating, and I dont know why people feel that this country is insulated from the historical trends, he continued. This stuff is dangerous. But maybe autocracy is the future of the country.

Last week, Clyburn tempered his pessimism slightly, saying he retains hope in the countrys future. But citing the writings of Martin Luther King Jr., he also warned that, in the eternal battle between those of good faith and bad, the latter for the moment appears to be winning.

There are a lot of people of goodwill in our country. There are a lot of people of ill will in the country. Now the question is, which group will prevail? Clyburn said Tuesday in a phone interview. The group that prevails will be the one that makes the best use of their time. And right now the people of goodwill seem to be afraid of their own shadows.

Fueling perceptions that the country is spinning out of control, another mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 fourth grade students and two teachers were killed by an 18-year-old gunman bearing an assault rifle, stunned the nation last week.

The burst of violence has sparked yet another national debate over the countrys gun laws and the reasons why the U.S. is unique in the world when it comes to shooting massacres. But while lawmakers of both partieshave teamed upin search of a legislative response, Democrats arent holding their breath for support from GOP lawmakers, who are overwhelmingly opposed to virtually any new restriction on the sale or possession of firearms.

Ill believe that there are Republicans in the Senate who are ready to attack gun violence head on when I see it, said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). And not before.

The pervasive sense of volatility surrounding current events is taking its toll on public attitudes about the general direction of the country. A new CBS News survey, conducted after the Buffalo shooting but before the Uvalde massacre,found that just 26 percent of voters think things in America are going very well or somewhat well, versus 74 percent who think theyre going very badly or somewhat badly. The plurality of respondents, 41 percent, ticked the very badly box.

Its not that Democrats have no victories to claim. Biden, in his first weeks in office, pushed through a massive coronavirus relief package. And last year, Congress sent him a bipartisan infrastructure bill that constituted the largest new public works spending in decades.

Additionally, workers wages are up, unemployment is down to pre-pandemic levels and the economy last year grew at its fastest rate in almost four decades.A reportissued last week from the Federal Reserve found that 78 percent of Americans reported themselves to be financially stable at the end of last year, a record high.

Still, the good economic news has been largely overshadowed by the bad. Inflation has spiked at a rate not seen in decades, eclipsing the wage gains. Gas prices are above $4 per gallon in most of the country just as the summer driving season is set to begin. The baby formula crisis has fueled parental anxieties. And major pieces of Bidens agenda have stalled, including proposals to protect voting rights, overhaul policing and expand background checks prior to gun sales, all of which were blocked by Republican opposition.

Perhaps most notably, the president also failed to move an enormous education and climate package legislation blocked by Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate West Virginia Democrat with close ties to the fossil fuel industry.

The series of impasses has fed perceptions that Democrats, despite controlling the Senate, House and White House, cant get anything done. The CBS pollfound that only 36 percent of voters deemed them to be effective.

Through it all, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has remained unbowed, arguing that Democrats will overcome any sense of national malaise to keep control of the House in Novembers midterms. Theyll do it, she says, by focusing on kitchen table issues not only related to the economy but also to include defending womens rights to abortion.

Well have a nonmenacing message that is progressive and bold. And we will win, she said last week on MSNBCs Morning Joe program.It is absolutely essential for our country. Our democracy is on the ballot.

In the eyes of Republicans, meanwhile, the flood of tough news is simple evidence of poor governance by Democrats, who control both the White House and Congress. And GOP campaign strategists have been quick to blame every negative trend particularly the spike in inflation and a rise in crime on Biden and his party.

Democrats are right to acknowledge they are in a difficult political environment, said Mike Berg, spokesman for the House GOPs campaign arm. Theyve done a horrible job running the government and voters have noticed.

Democratic leaders are quick to blame Congresss legislative stalemates on Republican obstructionism, accusing GOP leaders of opposing virtually everything Biden proposes for the simple purpose of denying their White House adversary a political victory. And with expectations that Roe could fall, theyre hoping to use the threat to womens reproductive freedoms to highlight for voters yet another stark distinction between the two parties.

The divide between the two parties right now is that Republicans would use government to further their extremist goals; and Democrats are using government right now to help make peoples lives better, said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.).

Aris Folley and Mychael Schnell contributed reporting.

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Pervasive malaise may be the Democrats biggest midterm challenge - The Hill

A new political action committee backed by a major New York hedge fund and Democratic politician turned cable news commentator Bakari Sellers plans to spend more than $1 million in a bid to oust progressive second-term Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib from the U.S. House of Representatives in November's midterm elections.

"It's flattering that billionaires who know nothing about our district are so scared of our movement."

Politico reports Urban Empowerment Action PAC announced a new campaign to "elect solutions-oriented Democrats" to Congress.

"UEA PAC's premier race will be in Michigan's 12th Congressional District, where the group plans to spend upwards of $1 million on TV, digital, mail, radio, and print advertising to support Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey in her campaign to restore infrastructure, improve educational opportunities in the district, and support the Biden-Harris agenda in D.C.," the new group said in a statement Friday.

Politico does not mention UEA's biggest contributor: According to OpenSecrets.org, the New York-based hedge fund Third Point LLC, founded by multibillionaire investor Daniel S. Loeb, has given $76,355 to the PAC.

Tlaib responded swiftly, tweeting, "Yet another Wall Street billionaire-funded Super PAC running interference in local races, spending millions to peddle lies and distortions, pushing a pro-corporate agenda on a district that has consistently stood against the corporate greed hurting our families."

According to Politico, Sellersthe former South Carolina state lawmaker and failed lieutenant governor candidate who regularly appears on CNN as a political analystis fundraising for UEA PAC. When asked about his endorsement of Winfrey, he told Politico's "The Recast" that "we are hoping that we can have a candidate that doesn't have varying distractions."

Tlaib, who is Palestinian-American, and "Squad" colleague Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)the first Muslim-American women elected to Congresshave been smeared as anti-Semites by both Republican and Democratic lawmakers for their advocacy of Palestinian rights, their condemnation of Israeli crimes including apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and their willingness to criticize President Joe Biden over "unconditional" U.S. support for Israel.

Earlier this month, Tlaib introduced a resolution recognizing the Nakbaor "Catastrophe"in which Zionist Jews ethnically cleansed more than 750,000 Palestinian Arabs from their homeland while establishing the nation of Israel.

Sellers, on the other hand, is a staunch supporter of Israel. He also bristles at Tlaib's vote against Biden's bipartisan infrastructure bill, which she rejected after Democratic leadership broke a promise to pass the measure in tandem with the Build Back Better Act. That sweeping climate and social spending package has still not passed, in large part due to obstructionist right-wing members of Tlaib's own party.

Progressives reacted angrily to Politico's reporting.

"Fuck this. We'll make sure Rashida buries them," activist Brett Banditelli tweeted. "She represents all working-class people in her district and in her city."

Strategist Waleed Shahid tweeted: "With Islamophobia on the rise, it is disgraceful to single out the *only* Palestinian member of Congress, who is a civil rights lawyer and represents one of the most Arab-American districts. Shouldn't you focus on holding the Dem majority?"

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Wall Street-Funded Democrat PAC to Spend $1 Million in Bid to Unseat Tlaib: Report - Common Dreams

Wisconsin voters took legal action against their states five largest cities on Wednesday over the illegal use of unmanned drop boxes during the 2020 election.

Filed by the Thomas More Society on behalf of voters against Green Bay, Kenosha, Madison, Milwaukee, and Racine, the legal complaints allege that city officials ignored state law by implementing unmanned drop boxes over the course of the 2020 cycle.

In 2020, the cities of Milwaukee, Madison, Racine, Kenosha, and Green Bay made an agreement with the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life [CTCL] to use the drop boxes to get these cities residents to vote, said Thomas More Society Special Counsel Erick Kaardal in a press release. This so-calledWisconsin Safe Voting Plan, involved $8.8 million of private grants to these five cities, to target specific populations to vote. It had little, if anything at all to do with keeping voters safe from Covid-19, as it purported to do.

During the 2020 election, CTCL received $400 million from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to finance the infiltration of election offices at the city and county level by left-wing activists and use them as a platform to implement preferred administrative practices, voting methods, and data-sharing agreements, as well as to launch intensive outreach campaigns in areas heavy with Democratic voters, in the words of William Doyle in The Federalist.

According to a report from the Capital Research Center, CTCL distributed a total of 31 grants above the $5,000 minimum to Wisconsin cities and townships, with 28 going directly to specific cities rather than counties.

Out of those 28 grants just 8 of the recipient localities were won by Trump, while 20 were won by Biden, the report reads. Together, these 20 cities received $9 million or 90 percent of all CTCL funds in Wisconsin.

The Capital Research Center findings also reveal that [f]or grants over $5,000, 9 of CTCLs 10 largest per capita grants went to cities which Biden won, with Racine ($21.83), Green Bay ($11.60), Kenosha ($8.63), Milwaukee ($5.91), and Madison ($4.71) receiving the most out of all localities in the state.

The lawsuits from Wisconsin voters come after the Wisconsin Elections Commission refused last month to launch investigations into the five cities for their use of unmanned drop boxes, despite a January ruling from a Waukesha County Circuit Court judge saying that such drop boxes and ballot harvesting violate state law and cannot be used in the upcoming midterm elections.

Its all good and nice, but theres no authority to do it, Judge Michael Bohren said with respect to the use of drop boxes.

Shawn Fleetwood is an intern at The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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Wisconsin Voters File Lawsuits Against Democrat Cities Over Illegal Drop Box Use In 2020 Election - The Federalist