Archive for the ‘Republicans’ Category

Why the GOP has shunned some Republicans in key races – Yahoo News

Three Republicans running in what should be winnable races this year have been all but abandoned by the national GOP, leaving them in limbo with just over a month to go until Novembers midterm elections.

In Pennsylvania, state Sen. Doug Mastrianos bid for governor is failing to gain traction. In Arizona, Senate nominee Blake Masters has seen funding dry up for his bid to unseat incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly. And in Ohio, J.R. Majewskis challenge to the longest-serving woman in the history of the House of Representatives was hobbled last week after a national Republican campaign group pulled its advertising for him.

To be sure, all three candidates could still win in November. But right now theyre struggling, and their fellow Republicans dont seem keen to help.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on Sept. 3. (Mary Altaffer/AP)

Doug Mastriano won the May primary for the Republican gubernatorial nomination easily, securing more than 40% of the vote in a crowded field. This came despite an unsuccessful effort by more moderate Republicans to consolidate around an alternative candidate, which was undercut by former President Donald Trumps last-minute endorsement of Mastriano.

A former Army colonel, Mastriano didnt rely on traditional advertising during the primary. Instead, he played to hard-right Pennsylvania Republican voters on social media, and won a following by opposing anti-COVID-19 efforts and supporting Trumps baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

GOP power brokers in the state were trying to stop Mastriano because they felt his views were too extreme for general election voters in Pennsylvania, a key swing state. Mastriano attended the Jan. 6, 2021, rally in Washington, D.C., and has sued the committee investigating the events of that day for wanting to question him. Hes also said that he would put in place new voting restrictions and has called for a complete ban on abortion.

There is also concern that if elected, Mastriano would try to throw out Pennsylvanias election results in 2024 should the state be won by a Democratic presidential candidate.

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Former President Donald Trump and Mastriano at the rally in Wilkes-Barre. (Mary Altaffer/AP)

The Republican Governors Association has not thrown financial support behind Mastriano, instead focusing on other races. At an event last month, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey the RGA chairman said the group would not fund lost causes.

You have to show us something, you have to demonstrate that you can move numbers and you can raise resources, Ducey added, in remarks recently reported by Axios.

Last week a Mastriano campaign adviser called for supporters to push the RGA to get involved in the race. Appearing in a Facebook livestream, Mastriano noted he was really not finding a lot of support from the national-level Republican organizations. Mastriano has avoided talking to the press, and a Saturday rally in the state capital of Harrisburg was sparsely attended.

The governors race was seen as winnable. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, who is not running again due to term limits, is unpopular. But the Democratic nominee going up against Mastriano, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, has already won two statewide races, emerged unscathed from the gubernatorial primary in which he was the only candidate, and has been a successful fundraiser, giving him a major financial edge.

While Mastriano has been mostly absent from the airwaves, Shapiro started running ads criticizing Mastrianos positions before Mastriano had even won the GOP nomination. Shapiro explained the tactic to Yahoo News in May, saying he felt it was apparent Mastriano would win the nomination and adding, We think theres a clear contrast in this race and we want to make sure were out in front highlighting those differences and getting a jump on the general election.

Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvanias Democratic nominee for governor, at Franklin County Democratic Party headquarters on Sept. 17 in Chambersburg. (Marc Levy/AP)

Jim Wertz, the Democratic Party chairman in Erie County, told Yahoo News that hes had some Republican donors approach him at events asking how they could help Shapiro. Erie is one of the states most important swing counties, with Trump winning it in 2016 while winning the state and Joe Biden doing the same in 2020.

Its a real sign of trouble for the Republican Party that they continue to nominate characters that a sizable portion of the party cant support or defend, Wertz said. That said, we take nothing for granted. There is still a large contingent of election deniers and insurrectionists in the heart of the Republican Party, and we cant ignore their enthusiasm for extremist candidates and how that might affect the outcome of these midterm races.

The Mastriano campaign did not respond to Yahoo News request for comment.

Recent polling on the race has been both sparse and varied: While some surveys show Shapiro with a double-digit lead, others have Mastriano within a few points.

Republican Senate nominee Blake Masters at a rally on July 22 in Prescott, Ariz. (Ross D. Franklin/AP)

Blake Masters won a crowded GOP Senate primary thanks in large part to the financial backing of billionaire Peter Thiel and Trumps endorsement. But since August, the fundraising gap between Masters and his opponent, Democratic incumbent and former astronaut Mark Kelly, has only grown.

Thiel and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell fought over who should be on the hook for backing Masters in the general election. As a result, a super-PAC aligned with McConnell canceled nearly $10 million in booked advertising across television, radio and digital last week. Thiels super-PAC, meanwhile, has bought ads supporting Masters, but Thiel himself has been reluctant to spend more of his personal fortune on the rookie candidate.

As of the most recent filings, Kelly had raised $52 million versus $4 million for Masters.

Masters, a 36-year-old venture capitalist who has worked closely with Thiel for years, won a contentious primary for the GOP nomination by hewing close to Trump. Masters has promoted the conspiracy theory that Democrats are plotting to win elections by importing immigrants to replace native-born voters; called the Jan. 6 Capitol riot a false flag operation, claiming that one-third of the people outside of the Capitol complex on January 6 were actual FBI agents hanging out; has blamed Black people, frankly for Americas gun violence problem; and has suggested privatizing Social Security.

Masters has been particularly hard-line on abortion, calling for a federal personhood amendment, which would criminalize the procedure nationwide.

Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., in the U.S. Capitol on July 27. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images)

Last year Masters said support for abortion rights had become demonic and likened the procedure to religious sacrifice. Yet amid waning polls and fundraising numbers, Masters scrubbed his website of extreme language pertaining to reproductive rights last month. Abortion remains a key issue in Arizona, where a judge ruled last week that a near-total ban dating back to an 1864 law should go back into place.

According to a recent New York Times report, Masters was in Washington, D.C., last week at an event with McConnell pressing potential donors, saying, We dont need as much money as Kelly, just enough to get the truth out.

Polling earlier this month showed Kelly with double-digit leads on Masters, but two recent surveys indicated the race has tightened. Both the nonpartisan Cook Political Report and University of Virginia Center for Politics give Kelly the edge and have the race rated as lean Democrat. In their decision to move the race from a toss-up toward Kelly last week, Cook analyst Jessica Taylor wrote that Masters was emblematic of candidates beset by problems and anemic fundraising.

Republican congressional candidate J.R. Majewski at a campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio, on Sept. 17. (Tom E. Puskar/AP)

Republican groups were fully behind Majewski in his race to defeat Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who represents the Ninth District, which runs along the states northern border with Lake Erie. Kaptur became a top Republican target earlier this year when a redrawn Ohio map made her district significantly more Republican.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy campaigned with Majewski in August, and the political novice spoke at a Trump rally earlier this month. All of this support came despite Majewskis attendance of the Jan. 6 rally and his ties to the QAnon conspiracy theory.

However, last Thursday, multiple outlets reported that the National Republican Congressional Committee had withdrawn a nearly $1 million ad buy. The day before, the Associated Press reported that Majewski had misrepresented his military service. According to military records, he was primarily stationed at an Air Force base in Japan but served a six-month deployment in Qatar loading planes to support the Afghanistan war effort in 2002.

Majewski, right, at the VFW Post 2529 annual corn roast in Sandusky, Ohio, on Aug. 20. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images)

This is in contrast to the language of his campaign, where he refers to himself as a combat veteran, and a biography published by national Republicans, which refers to him as part of a squadron [that] was one of the first on the ground in Afghanistan after 9/11. The AP also found that Majewski had likely exaggerated his professional experience, unable to find evidence to support his claim that he was an executive in the nuclear power industry.

Majewski has said the AP report is incorrect. At a press conference Friday, he said that his deployments to Afghanistan were classified, he had photos of himself in Afghanistan he might share and he was considering suing the AP over the story.

Let me be clear, Majewski said. Anyone insinuating that I did not serve in Afghanistan is lying. I served in our United States of America, across multiple countries in many roles, but that didnt matter to the liberal media, who wrote a politically motivated hit piece on me.

Kaptur's campaign released a statement saying the appearance left Ohioans with more questions than answers.

His misleading claims need to be addressed, and its incumbent upon him to provide honesty and clarity not continued evasiveness and deflection, said campaign manager Kyle Buda. He has provided no evidence refuting these reports, and Ohioans need to know the truth.

Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, at the VFW corn roast. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images)

Kaptur has also taken pains to separate herself from national Democrats in her newly drawn district that Trump would have won by 3 points if it had been in place in 2020. In August she even released an ad criticizing President Biden for his China policy.

Marcy Kaptur: She doesnt work for Joe Biden; she works for you, the ad says.

Cover thumbnail photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Mary Altaffer/AP, Rick Scuteri/AP, Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images

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Why the GOP has shunned some Republicans in key races - Yahoo News

MDJOnline.com | Cobb’s Local News Source Since 1866

Kansas Republicans have spent the past two weeks trying to move on.

The landslide Aug. 2 vote preserving abortion rights in the state constitution was a stunning defeat for many anti-abortion Republicans. GOP candidates up and down the ballot quickly pivoted to the Nov. 8 general election.

Rather than continuing the fight over abortion, Republicans were hoping to shift the focus back to inflation and President Joe Biden as they seek to tie incumbent Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and Rep. Sharice Davids to the president whose popularity has sagged in recent months.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, the Republican nominee for governor, and former Cerner executive Amanda Adkins, the Republican nominee in the 3rd Congressional District, have both shown little desire to make abortion a central focus on their campaigns following the Aug. 2 amendment vote.

The recount wont dramatically move the needle on the more than 165,000 vote lead. But it will keep the issue top of mind for voters as Republicans seek to win back the governors office and the 3rd District in November.

Neither Schmidts campaign, nor Adkins campaign, responded to questions about whether the GOP candidates supported the recount effort.

Whats ironic is the very people who I think it hurts are on the side of the people continuing to keep it in the spotlight, said Stephanie Sharp, a former moderate Republican state legislator who now operates a political consulting firm.

She added that she believes the recount hurts Amanda and Derek but the right cant let it go.

Schmidt and Adkins, Sharp said, already had support from voters on the right. Now they need to convince voters in the middle, many of whom voted no. The 3rd District is one of the most competitive congressional seats in the country and key to Republicans hopes of winning the U.S. House.

In a statement, Davids pointed out the 95,000-vote lead no had in Johnson County alone.

Im grateful to the election workers and officials who are doing their jobs here, but the recount is a waste of money and time from dangerously out-of-touch politicians who are unwilling to accept defeat, and should be called out as such, Davids said.

While Davids GOP opponent Adkins remained mum on the recount, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sought to tie the Johnson County Republican to the effort. The DCCC called it an attempt by radical election deniers and conspiracy theorists working to overthrow the will of voters in KS-03.

Recounts began Tuesday morning in Johnson, Sedgwick, Shawnee, Douglas, Crawford, Harvey, Jefferson, Lyon and Thomas counties. All but Thomas had a majority of voters reject the amendment. The counties combine to account for roughly 59% of votes cast in the August primary election.

Election workers in Johnson County began sorting ballots into piles by precincts on Tuesday. Johnson County Election Commissioner Fred Sherman said at a news conference that he hopes the actual recounting of ballots begins on Wednesday. Counties have until Saturday to complete the recount.

At least 46% of the no votes in the counties would need to flip in order to change the results of the election.

The Kansas Republican Assembly is a hard-right group unaffiliated with the official Kansas Republican Party. Over the years, it has taken on a number of ultraconservative and anti-government positions, including opposition to fluoridated water among other issues.

In Sedgwick County, Republican officials are trying to distance themselves from the Value Them Both failure. David Thorne, chairman of the county party, said the party made no effort to sign up volunteers for the recount.

The partys not involved with that, at all, Thorne said. The race is over, by a large margin.

Thorne said many Sedgwick County Republicans signed up to help with the recount on their own. Sedgwick County officials confirmed, as of Tuesday afternoon, that they had an overabundance of Republican volunteers to help count ballots and a lack of interest from Democratic counters.

We do have a lot of volunteers, and some of them on their own are probably going to be involved and just become a counter, Thorne said. But, the fact is, weve moved on. Were focusing on growing the Wichita economy and setting the vision for that and winning in the general.

A distraction?

Schmidt attempted to reset the political conversation this week by attacking Kelly on education, a major emphasis in her first campaign for governor. Schmidt aimed to hit Kelly on student achievement and school shutdowns of early COVID-19.

The new front in the race came several days after Schmidt quietly posted a statement online in the wake of the amendment defeat that declared he had never supported a total abortion ban and preferred exceptions for instances of rape, incest and the life of the mother. He otherwise sidestepped the issue.

Going forward, I will continue to do what Ive done for years defend commonsense regulations supported by a majority of Kansans such as the existing restrictions on late-term abortion and on taxpayer funding for abortion, said the statement, issued six days after the vote.

In a statement following the vote Adkins proclaimed the Kansas vote as evidence of the U.S. Supreme Courts wisdom returning the issue to the states. Kansans had spoken, she said, and the federal government no longer had a role.

But the effort nonetheless may distract from the issues they want to be talking about - like the economy.

Im positive it has an impact. Now the question is, how much? Is it de minimis, is it small? Its a distraction, its a sour grapes, now how much, who knows? said Kansas Senate Vice President Rick Wilborn, a McPherson Republican.

But state Rep. William Sutton, a Gardner Republican, said he expected Republicans to stay on message despite the continuation of the abortion debate.

Weve got a job to do and were set about doing that. If theres a recount going on, thats not for me to deal with. Im just doing my job ahead, he said.

The recount will require an incredible amount of labor to complete on the tight timeline.

At the Johnson County Election Office on Tuesday afternoon, a couple dozen election workers were working on the recount process. Their numbers are expected to swell to roughly 150 over the next few days. Johnson County plans to temporarily reassign some county employees from other departments to assist in the effort.

The recount will be conducted by numerous bipartisan teams, each having one Republican and one Democrat. County employees will be assigned to teams based on their party affiliation.

We will have a combination of county employees who will be reassigned to this location that will help us conclude or conduct this process, as well as election workers were working contacting to come in and help us finish the process, Sherman said.

In Sedgwick County, a lack of Democratic Party ballot counters and logistics issues are likely to delay a recount of the abortion rights vote in Wichita until Wednesday at the earliest, a Sedgwick County official said.

For the recount, the Sedgwick County Election Office is seeking 100 Republicans and 100 Democrats to count ballots and ensure bipartisan representation. At least 100 Republicans have agreed to help with the recount but the election office has not found enough Democrats, Libertarians and unaffiliated counters yet, Sedgwick County spokesperson Nicole Gibbs said.

The states leading anti-abortion groups and lawmakers have distanced themselves from the recount, which is expected to reaffirm the landslide defeat for the amendment.

In a statement about the recount the Value Them Both Coalition the primary vote yes campaign said they were focused on looking forward not back.

In a newsletter to supporters, Kansans for Life outlined possible steps forward for combating abortion in Kansas after the amendments failure, including additional resources for crisis pregnancy centers, laws protecting abortion survivors and support for candidates who would support anti-abortion judges.

The pro-life movement has faithfully fought battles on many fronts for 50 years and nothing not even a bad election night will weaken our resolve, the newsletter said.

State Rep. Brenda Landwehr, a Wichita Republican and chair of the House Health and Human Services Committee, said anti-abortion lawmakers had discussed increasing funding to Kansas existing pregnancy maintenance initiative fund and making adoptions easier in the state.

However, Landwehr said she couldnt see what could be gained from the recount.

Some people may want to make it a distraction but it shouldnt be. That race, that election happened, its over with, she said.

Ripe for the picking

But the recount will reinforce a Democratic talking point that the August vote was just one piece of a broader contest over abortion rights.

Potentially, this shows to the broader public that these are people who are bringing forward accusations and complaints that are not grounded in reality, without substantive evidence, said state Sen. Cindy Holscher, an Overland Park Democrat.

Holscher said she wasnt surprised to see a recount effort materialize Kansas lawmakers gave a platform for election deniers to spread unfounded claims of fraud during the 2022 session.

The recount, she said, would likely affirm the results. But it underscored Democrats task heading into November.

We have this whole extremist faction thats the supermajority thats pretty much detached from their constituents and what the people want. So we have to ensure that we keep sending the message that this is not the direction Kansans want to move into, Holscher said.

Sharp agreed. Candidates on the right needed to keep the abortion issue alive to energize their base, but it would push away the middle and the left.

Continuing this conversation just alienates the rest of the people that didnt vote that way, Sharp said.

However, she said, it would be incumbent on Democrats to make that point. While Davids has leaned into the abortion issue before and after the vote, Kelly has shied away from it.

Its right there. Its ripe for the picking, Sharp said.

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Despite the spin, Republicans do have a path to win the Senate – Washington Examiner

Democrats were riding high this summer. The Supreme Courts decision overturning Roe v. Wade energized the partys base, and the economic woes that had been plaguing the Biden administration began to subside as gas prices dropped. The party had finally scored several legislative wins with the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act. Former President Donald Trump was under investigation by the Department of Justice for potentially violating the Espionage Act, and the generic congressional polls began to tilt in their favor. Suddenly, predictions of certain midterm disaster for the party gave way to cautious optimism.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, however, the pendulum never swings in one direction forever. Bidens soul of the nation speech, in which he declared "MAGA Republicans" to be semi-fascists who posed a threat to our democracy, didnt exactly help his partys candidates. And although gas prices have dipped below their peak, the rising costs of necessities such as groceries and housing have outpaced those reductions. Moreover, the Labor Departments report on Tuesday showing year-over-year inflation at 8.3%, higher than expected, almost certainly solidified a voter backlash against Democratic candidates who have voted for all the needless overspending that triggered it.

While its highly expected that Republicans will win back the House in November, control of the Senate remains far less certain. The GOP is optimistic, but so too are the Democrats. The night before the release of the inflation report that sent the stock market into a death plunge, for example, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was reportedly overheard in a Washington, D.C., restaurant telling colleagues Democrats have a 60% chance of holding the Senate, according to a Punchbowl News report.

All else remaining the same, Republicans need to win five of the eight Senate races rated as toss-ups by RealClearPolitics: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

RCP projects the Republicans will hold onto Senate seats in Ohio, North Carolina, and Wisconsin and will pick up seats in Nevada and Georgia.

In Ohio, Trump-backed candidate J.D. Vance leads Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan by 2.7 percentage points for the open seat held by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), who is retiring.

In North Carolina, Republican Rep. Ted Budd is ahead of his opponent, Cheri Beasley, a former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, by 1.3 points. They are vying for the open seat being vacated by the retiring Republican Sen. Richard Burr.

In Wisconsin, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson is in a tough fight against progressive challenger Mandela Barnes, who is ahead by 1.7 points. However, the race has tightened. A Marquette poll released this week shows Johnson ahead by 1 point. A Marquette poll conducted last month gave Barnes a 7-point advantage.

Its worth noting that right up until the 2016 election, Johnson trailed his opponent, longtime former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) by 2.7 points, but won the race by 3.4 points. Polling isnt all its cracked up to be, it seems.

In Nevada, Republican challenger Adam Laxalt could easily unseat Democratic incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. Laxalt currently prevails by just 1 point, but he has momentum on his side.

And in Georgia, football legend and Republican Herschel Walker might just pull off an upset against Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock. Trump-endorsed Walker got hammered in the polls this summer when revelations of his illegitimate children and history of mental health problems surfaced, but he has rebounded strongly over the past month. Though the RCP average of polls is currently tied, summer polls showed him trailing Warnock by as much as 10 points. Walker has made significant gains, and strong voter support for Republican Gov. Brian Kemp might be enough to pull Walker across the finish line.

The three remaining races in the toss-up column are ranked by RCP as Democratic holds. In Arizona, Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly remains stubbornly ahead of Republican Blake Masters by 4 points, although the polls have tightened in recent weeks. In New Hampshire, Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan leads Republican challenger Gen. Don Bolduc by 4 points. And in Pennsylvania, far-left John Fetterman, the states lieutenant governor, has held onto an early lead against the Trump-backed Dr. Mehmet Oz. I wrote about this race earlier this week.

Recall the overly optimistic polls in the 2020 election. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) was projected to lose her reelection bid by 6.5 points. Instead, she won by 8.6 points. Although less dramatic, the story was the same for Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Steve Daines (R-MT).

There is reason to believe that pollsters are once again overestimating Democrats' chances and underestimating those of the Republicans. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich warned as much this week when he predicted Masters would win over Kelly, arguing Kelly's small lead makes him vulnerable.

Even the New York Times appeared to agree in a piece published this week, which compared recent polling results with those from 2020 and 2016 and found that Democratic Senate candidates are outrunning expectations in the same places where the polls overestimated Mr. Biden in 2020 and Mrs. Clinton in 2016. He concluded there is a consistent link between Democratic strength today and polling error two years ago. The most glaring errors in 2020 occurred in Wisconsin, where polls overestimated Bidens strength by 9 points, and in Ohio, where polls underestimated Trumps strength by 8 points.

In other words, Republicans have good reason to be optimistic about taking back the Senate. As of right now, they have a very plausible path to victory.

Elizabeth Stauffer is a contributor tothe Washington Examiner andthe Western Journal. Her articles have appeared on many websites, including MSN,RedState,Newsmax, theFederalist, andRealClearPolitics. Follow her onTwitterorLinkedIn.

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Despite the spin, Republicans do have a path to win the Senate - Washington Examiner

Letter to the editor: If not ‘extremists,’ what are MAGA Republicans? – TribLIVE

Carolyn Thomsons letter MAGA Republicans not extremists (Sept. 8, TribLIVE) implores readers not to portray MAGA Republicans as extremists, terrorists or neo-fascists. I find this hard to do given 1,000 or so MAGA Republicans stormed the Capitol in the hope of overturning a free and fair election, but OK if they arent extremists, what are they?

Thomson says she is anti-crime, but what about the messiah of her political cult? The FBI search of Mar-A-Lago proved President Donald Trump had documents belonging to the American people (regardless of how the Trump-appointed judge has seen fit to run interference for him). Thomson later invokes the ghosts of the Holocaust to defend her position. Strange, I seem to remember a group of privileged white men , marching through Charlottesville, Va., shouting Jews will not replace us. Trump later called them good people.

How about I call MAGA supporters hypocrites then? Is that politically correct enough for you?

Kris Weinschenker

Youngstown

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Letter to the editor: If not 'extremists,' what are MAGA Republicans? - TribLIVE

Slim Majority of Voters Agree With Republicans on Undocumented Immigration – Newsweek

As the national debate on immigration continues to heat up, a new poll shows that a slim majority of voters, 51 percent, agree with the Republican party when it comes to undocumented immigration.

The New York Times/Siena College poll that was released Friday found that a lesser 37 percent of respondents said that they agreed with Democrats when it comes to illegal immigration. Another 5 percent of respondents said that they didn't agree with either party, while 1 percent said that they agreed with both.

Republicans have repeatedly criticized the Biden administration on what they describe as its "open border" policies, though President Joe Biden said Thursday that his administration was committed to upholding a safe, orderly and humane immigration policy, Newsweek previously reported. Vice President Kamala Harris also said in an interview with NBC's Meet the Press Sunday that the border is "secure," though she added that the U.S. has a "broken immigration system" that needs fixing.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics, there have been more than 1.9 million encounters at the Southwest land border by U.S. Border Patrol and the CBP Office of Field Operations in the current fiscal year, which runs from October 1, 2021, through September 30, 2022. The current data only reflects encounters from October through July, so the actual number is likely to be higher.

The CBP wrote in its July update that it was continuing to enforce U.S. immigration law and "apply consequences to those without a legal basis to remain in the U.S."

"Current restrictions at the U.S. border have not changed; single adults and families encountered at the southwest border will continue to be expelled, where appropriate, under CDC's Title 42 Order. Those who are not expelled will be processed under the long-standing Title 8 authority and placed into removal proceedings," the update read.

Still, more than one million undocumented immigrants, many of whom are seeking asylum, have been allowed into the U.S. temporarily during Biden's time as president, The New York Times reported last week. This total is separate from any migrants who may have entered the U.S. undetected.

Another survey released this month, this time from the Pew Research Center, provided insight into where Democrat and Republican views differ when it comes to the U.S. immigration system.

The survey found that while Republicans place an importance on border security and deporting immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally, Democrats place an importance on providing those who entered the country illegally with a path to reach legal status.

Republican Governors Greg Abbott of Texas and Doug Ducey of Arizona have confirmed that they've been sending buses of migrants to cities D.C. Buses have also been sent to Chicago and New York City, according to Abbott, who announced Thursday that two buses of migrants had arrived at Harris' residence in D.C.

Nearly 50 migrants were also flown into Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, this week under a program sponsored by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a move that has drawn sharp criticism from Biden and other Democrats.

"Republicans are playing politics with human beings, using them as props," Biden said Thursday at a Washington, D.C., gala for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.

"We have a process in place to manage migrants at the border," he added. "Republican officials should not interfere with that process by waging these political stunts."

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Slim Majority of Voters Agree With Republicans on Undocumented Immigration - Newsweek