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Democrat blame game erupts over New York midterm losses

Democratic finger-pointing in New York has begun after Republicans managed to score some notable wins in the blue stronghold.

Although the GOP fell short of ousting Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), Republicans successfully toppled Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, and flipped several other Democratic toss-up races in the 3rd, 4th and 19th Congressional Districts.

The Democratic losses have led to recriminations among some of the party’s most high-profile figures, who have pointed to everything from redistricting to Hochul’s perceived weakness to the mismanagement of the state’s party apparatus.

“A good night could have been a great night if NY Dems hadn’t screwed up redistricting and ignored voter concerns about crime and disorder. These mistakes cost House Dems winnable seats and forced Dems to waste $ millions that could have gone elsewhere. Time to course correct,” tweeted Howard Wolfson, an adviser to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (D).

Meanwhile, in an interview with The New York Times published on Thursday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) blamed “big money and old-school, calcified machine-style politics” within the New York State Democratic Party’s leadership and argued that “overreliance and insistence on leaning into Republican narratives on crime and safety hurt Democrats in the state of New York.”

That led to a bit of a back-and-forth between her and Maloney, who said in a separate interview with the Times that the congresswoman “had almost nothing to do” with Democrats’ impressive showing in the House and that she had only offered some financial support to battleground candidates.

Maloney himself seemed unsure as to why Democrats performed so poorly in those handful of House districts, though he suggested in the Times interview that Republicans’ messaging on crime may have resonated with voters and that Zeldin’s gubernatorial bid gave them reason to turn out.

For Republicans, New York was one of a handful of bright spots in an otherwise disappointing night. Republican George Santos beat Democrat Robert Zimmerman in the state’s 3rd District while GOP contender Anthony D’Esposito prevailed against Democrat Laura Gillen in the 4th. Under the new congressional lines, President Biden won those districts in 2020 by 8 points and close to 15 points, respectively.

Maloney also took a blow and lost his seat to Republican Mike Lawler in the 17th District, capping off roughly a decade in Congress after he made a controversial decision to run in this district instead of the one he currently represented; that move required another House Democrat to run elsewhere. Meanwhile, in the 19th District, Republican Marc Molinaro beat back a challenge from Democrat Josh Riley.

Some Democrats argued the Republicans’ strategy to seize on concerns over crime ultimately cost the party some seats.

“New Yorkers … especially in the New York City and Albany media markets for several months before Election Day were blanketed with ads solely focused on crime, on safety. Wasn’t a conversation based on data, it was an emotional conversation based on aiming to stoke fear, and that message was extremely well-funded and extremely consistent,” said Jon Reinish, a former aide to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.).

“I think it really rallied Republicans, suburban voters in Putnam County and Nassau and Suffolk County. A lot of those are swing voters,” he added. “Yes, they tend to usually support Democrats. But I think that they were persuadable by the consistency of this message, and it was hard to recover from that.”

But Basil Smikle, the former executive director of the New York State Democratic Party, said the “chaos of redistricting” in the state, in addition to Hochul’s perceived lack of coattails for consequential candidates, complicated Democrats’ efforts.

A Democratic gerrymander of the congressional lines that the state legislature had approved was thrown out earlier this year, and a court-appointed special master redrew the lines, pitting incumbents against each other and requiring lawmakers to reintroduce themselves to new districts.

“It seemed as though for a period of time, it almost looked like the governor didn’t have coattails, and that’s a problem when the top of your ticket doesn’t have coattails,” Smikle said. “And I’m not saying she didn’t, but what I’m saying is, the behavior suggests that she didn’t.”

But Smikle noted that there also appeared to be a missed opportunity to highlight other notable Democratic names on the ballot, like state Attorney General Letitia James and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, who could have helped boost down-ballot Democratic candidates.

“These are big names that even if you didn’t think the governor had coattails, all of these other ones have coattails … What’s wrong with having the rest of the ticket able to sort of latch onto each or any one of these candidates?” Smikle said. “So that I think that is the piece that people are really latching onto, that there just didn’t seem to be a coordinated effort.”

Indeed, while Hochul still prevailed in her race against Republican Lee Zeldin, she won by a margin of less than 6 points. In the downstate suburban counties, Zeldin led her by 17 points in Suffolk, 11 points in Nassau and 12 points in Rockland. 

Thomas Doherty, who served as an aide to former Gov. George Pataki (R), noted Hochul was still able to win her election more than a year after she assumed office following former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) resignation and as a relatively new face to New Yorkers.

“That’s not nothing,” Doherty said, who added she did an effective job using abortion as a campaign issue.

Still, he said crime being a salient issue in the state and the quality of GOP candidates helped Republicans notch key wins. He added that Republicans needed to attract more candidates that reflected New York in order to hold those wins in the future.

“I think the Republican Party needs to continue to run good candidates — candidates that are representative and look like New York. We need to run Asian candidates. You need to run African American candidates. You need to win Hispanic candidates. That needs to be the party,” he said

“And I think people then will become more comfortable and not look at the Republican Party as the national Republican Party, which tends to be in many cases very white.”

Source: TEST FEED1

What would it take for Democrats to keep the House?

Nearly a week after Election Day, control of the House remains uncertain.

Republicans are favored to win the lower chamber with 20 seats still in play, but Democrats still have a fighting chance in the race to win the necessary 218 seats.

As of Sunday afternoon, The Associated Press has projected Republicans to win 211 seats and Democrats to win 204 seats.

That means of the remaining 20 contests, Republicans need just seven more seats to clinch the majority, while Democrats need to notch 14.

For Democrats to hit that target, they need to win all of the races they currently lead and a few others where Republicans hold a slight edge.

A little more than half of the undecided races are in California, where all active voters are sent mail ballots, creating a more sluggish tabulation process. Arizona, Colorado, Oregon each have two uncalled races, while Alaska, Maine and New York each have one.

Here’s what Democrats would need to do to take the House majority:

Hold the nine seats with steady Democratic leads

Alaska at-large: With just over 80 percent of votes counted in Alaska’s ranked-choice election, Rep. Mary Sattler Peltola (D) has garnered 47 percent of first-place votes. If she doesn’t reach a majority in the first round, officials will drop the lowest candidate and redistribute their supporters’ second-place votes, continuing until one candidate reaches a majority. It’s possible Peltola will make it over the threshold in the first round, but even if not, she is close to clinching the majority in a later round.

California’s 6th: Rep. Ami Bera (D) appears likely to win reelection, but The Associated Press has not yet called the race, given that nearly half of the votes have yet to be reported. But NBC and ABC have both projected Bera as the winner, and he is leading by 12 percentage points among the votes already cast.

California’s 9th: Rep. Josh Harder (D) is running for reelection in this Central Valley district that includes Stockton, although he largely faces new voters following redistricting. Harder currently leads Republican Tom Patti, who sits on the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors, by 13 percentage points with about half of votes counted.

California’s 21st: Further south in California’s Central Valley, including Fresno, Rep. Jim Costa (D) is running for reelection in a largely redrawn district that voted for Biden by double digits in 2020. With three-quarters of the vote in, Costa leads by 9 points against former FBI Special Agent Michael Maher (R).  

California’s 47th: In this district that includes Irvine and other parts of Orange County, Rep. Katie Porter (D), a prominent progressive, holds a 3-point lead against Republican Scott Baugh. But 28 percent of the estimated vote has yet to be reported.

California’s 49th: Rep. Mike Levin (D) holds just a 5-point lead over Republican Brian Maryott in this Southern California district, which includes parts of Orange County and stretches southward close to San Diego. Twenty-nine percent of the estimated vote remains, but Levin has recently expanded his lead, and the Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman projected Levin as the winner.

Colorado’s 8th: With nearly every vote counted, Democrat Yadira Caraveo leads Republican Barbara Kirkmeyer by just 0.7 percentage points in the district, which includes portions of the Denver suburbs and stretches northward to more rural areas. Despite the race remaining uncalled, Kirkmeyer conceded the race on Wednesday.

Maine’s 2nd: Moderate Rep. Jared Golden (D) holds a 3-point lead over Republican challenger Bruce Poliquin. Nearly every vote has been tabulated, but Maine uses a ranked-choice voting system. Golden remains at 48.5 percent, slightly below the majority needed to win outright in the first round. Golden’s lead gives him an edge in subsequent rounds once others are eliminated, but the Democrat himself ousted Poliquin in 2018 after trailing in the first round. 

Oregon’s 6th: In Salem and portions of Portland’s southwest suburbs, Democrat Andrea Salinas has a narrow 1.8-point lead over Republican Mike Erickson. Nineteen percent of the vote has yet to be reported. Salinas on Wednesday said she was confident she will come out on top once the votes are all counted, while Erickson on Friday said his team remains optimistic.

Win the five of six seats where count is neck-and-neck

Arizona’s 1st: Rep. David Schweikert (R) is fighting to hold on to his seat drawn more favorable to Democrats during redistricting. Democrat David Hodge leads by less than a percentage point with 14 percent of the estimated vote outstanding. The district lies in Maricopa County, including Scottsdale and other parts of the Phoenix area. Counting of mail ballots, expected to be completed by Tuesday, is expected to shift redder as time goes on.

Arizona’s 6th: Republican Juan Ciscomani, a former senior adviser to Arizona’s governor, leads former Arizona state Rep. Kirsten Engel (D) by just 0.45 percent. Thirteen percent of the estimated vote remains in the district, which includes parts of Tucson. The winner will replace retiring Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D), whose seat was drawn more favorable to Republicans this year.

California’s 13th: Businessman John Duarte (R) is in a near-tie with moderate California state Rep. Adam Gray (D), with just 0.11 percentage points separating the two candidates. But nearly 49 percent of the estimated vote remains in this Central Valley district that includes Merced.

California’s 22nd: Rep. David Valadao is the only House Republican running this year that impeached former President Trump and did not face a Trump-backed primary challenger. But with just over half of the votes reported, Valadao holds just a 5-point lead over Democrat Rudy Salas, giving Democrats hope the seat still could be in reach. The district includes Bakersfield and parts of the Central Valley.

California’s 41st: Rep. Ken Calvert (R) leads Democrat Will Rollins by 1.5 points as of Sunday in this Riverside County district. But roughly a third of the estimated vote remains outstanding, potentially giving way for Democrats a path to flip the seat. Following redistricting, Calvert’s seat now includes areas like Palm Springs, which is known for its LGBTQ community.

Colorado’s 3rd: Rep. Lauren Boebert (R) leads by a razor-thin margin of just 0.35 percentage points. With nearly all votes counted, the small margin could trigger an automatic recount, thought Wasserman says Boebert will likely win.

The other remaining districts all appear to be heading in Republicans’ direction. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Young women broke hard for Democrats in the midterms

Democrats hoped to win big in the midterms with young voters and women. Instead, they captured small majorities of each group — and won big with young women. 

Exit polls show 72 percent of women ages 18-29 voted for Democrats in House races nationwide. In a pivotal Pennsylvania Senate race, 77 percent of young women voted for embattled Democrat John Fetterman, helping to secure his victory.  

“I think most young women feel that the best thing for their rights and for the future of the country is to vote Democrat,” said Elizabeth Rickert, 24, an Ohioan who voted absentee from England. “As the Republican Party becomes more extreme and moves away from the core American principals of democracy and rights for all, voting Democrat is the only path forward.” 

Remove young women from the equation, and neither women nor young people delivered much to the Democrats on Tuesday, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research. Fifty-three percent of women overall voted blue in House contests. Women over 45 delivered the party no advantage at all. And Democrats won a comparatively low 54 percent of votes from young men. 

The gender gap among young voters in the midterms mirrors Gallup polls, which show young women trending liberal over the past two decades, while young men have remained relatively centrist. 

A competing poll, AP VoteCast, shows the same gender divide among midterm voters, but in muted form. In national VoteCast surveys, 58 percent of young women reported voting Democrat, compared to 47 percent of young men. According to VoteCast data, only 49 percent of all women voted for Democrats, compared to 43 percent of men. 

Since Tuesday night, Democratic leaders and loyalists have dispensed praise and pillory to demographic groups that came through for their party on election night, or didn’t.  

The under-30 crowd broke strongly for Democrats, exit polls show, a result driven by women. The over-forty crowd went for Republicans. Black Americans overwhelmingly voted Democrat. Hispanic and Asian voters favored Democrats. Whites — and white women — favored Republicans. Married women skewed Republican. Unmarried women skewed Democrat.  

President Biden hailed the female vote in an appearance Thursday, taking a victory lap after his party’s unexpectedly strong showing. Midterm elections often go badly for the party in power. Republicans expected to easily recapture the House and Senate. With the final votes being counted, the Senate looks split. In the House, Republicans stand to gain barely enough members to field a baseball team.  

“Women in America made their voices heard, man,” Biden said. “Y’all showed up and beat the hell out of them.” 

But women, as a group, conferred only a small advantage to the Democrats. Republican House candidates nationwide netted more votes from white women, older women, married women, Southern women, rural women and middle- to upper-income women, those earning between $50,000 and $100,000. 

“As you look over the election results across the country, please, I beg of you, do not forget that white woman are white first,” wrote Jenn Jackson, a political scientist at Syracuse University, in a post-election Twitter post. “White men are not the only forces to struggle against. I assure you.” 

Jackson also faulted Hispanic voters. Hispanic women favored Democrats at a national level, but they also helped deliver reelection to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida. In Texas, by contrast, Hispanic women broke for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke. White women helped lift GOP Gov. Greg Abbott to reelection.  

The liberalization of young American women is a powerful generational trend, distancing them from young men. Forty-four percent of young women called themselves liberal in 2021, compared to 25 percent of young men, according to Gallup data analyzed by the Survey Center on American Life. The gender gap was the largest recorded in 24 years of polling.  

Several societal forces have pushed young women to the left. Political scientists cite the “Me Too” movement, rising LGBTQ identification and former President Trump as key factors.  

Perhaps the biggest motivator Tuesday was the recent Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, which had ensconced abortion as a constitutional right for nearly half a century. 

“The decision actually dropped on my birthday. It was a weird day,” said Alexandra McCormick, 19, a sophomore at American University who lives and votes in New Jersey. On Tuesday, she voted Democrat. 

“I want everyone to have their own choice on what to do with their bodies,” she said. 

Among young voters of both genders surveyed in Edison exit polls, 80 percent favored legal abortions, and 49 percent named abortion as the issue that sealed their vote. Sixty-two percent of women under 45 listed abortion as their top issue.  

Roughly 27 percent of voters in the 18-29 age group cast ballots in the midterms, according to researchers at Tufts University. That number doesn’t sound particularly high, but researchers say it’s the second-largest turnout among young voters for any midterm election in at least 30 years, exceeded only by the divisive Trump-era contest of 2018.  

That study did not show turnout by gender. But an earlier analysis of the 2018 midterms by Tufts researchers found that young women turned out in greater numbers than young men, and that more of them voted for Democrats.  

This year, 63 percent of all young voters backed Democrats in the midterms, according to Rob Farbman, research chief at Edison. 

“This was the most Democratic age group by far,” he said in an interview by email.  

Young adults were the only age group to support Democrats more strongly in 2022 than in 2020. In the 45-64 demographic, by contrast, support for Democratic House candidates declined from 48 percent in 2020 to 44 percent this year.  

“I think people are unsettled by the Supreme Court decision,” McCormick said of young women in the electorate. “People feel that they’ve lost control of their bodily autonomy, which is a very scary thought for a lot of people.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Ranking the Democrats who could run for president in 2024 

Democrats bracing for a brutal midterm election instead got a big surprise: Democratic candidates performed much more strongly than many had expected.  

The result will likely be one of the strongest performances for a president’s party in a midterm election in history.

All of that is very good news for President Biden, who emerges in a stronger position to run for reelection.  

Here’s a list of the most likely Democrats to run and win the nomination — our first ranking of potential candidates since the midterms.  

President Biden 

The Democrat with the strongest chance of winning his party’s nomination is clearly Biden.  

This likely would have been true even with an average or subpar performance by his party.  

He is the sitting president, and sitting presidents are generally nominated by their parties for reelection.  

But there have been doubts about Biden running again given his age and his popularity.  

Biden will turn 80 next year, and his approval ratings have been consistently underwater for much of the year.  

Heading into the midterms, he was seen as a drag on many Democrats, and he did not spent a lot of time in some battleground states and districts.  

But Biden and Democrats avoided the “red wave” that many pundits and strategists predicted, resulting in the president having one of the strongest weeks of his presidency yet.  

The midterm results so far have given him some much-needed pep in his step. 

“His prospects for 2024 are probably the best they’ve been throughout his presidency,” one Democratic strategist said. “He can make the argument that voters largely agree with him and his brand of politics, and he’s not wrong.” 

Asked this week whether the midterm results boosted his case for reelection, Biden said his “intention” is to run again. 

“But I’m a great respecter of fate, and this is ultimately a family decision,” he said at a news conference at the White House on Wednesday.  

Some Democrats still aren’t convinced he’s the right guy for 2024.  

Exit polls showed that two-thirds of voters don’t want him to run for reelection.  

Biden has made the case that if former President Trump is the GOP nominee, he can beat him again.  

“Watch me,” he said on Wednesday after a reporter asked what his message is to those who don’t want him to run again.  

There are also Democrats who think Biden could be vulnerable to another potential GOP challenger: Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who walloped Democratic candidate Charlie Crist by nearly 20 points this week and almost instantly captured the zeitgeist as the GOP’s hottest star.  

“They have to be worried about going up against someone like DeSantis,” said a former White House aide to President Obama. “How could they not be?” 

Biden said this week that he’ll make a decision on a reelection bid by early next year. 

Vice President Harris 

Without fail, the vice president’s name comes up first when Biden’s name is taken out of the running.  

While Harris had a rocky start as vice president and continues to garner low approval ratings, Democrats say she would still be the go-to if Biden decided not to run again.  

Like Biden, Harris benefits from the results of the midterms, strategists say. But at the same time, others continue to worry she hasn’t had a strong enough portfolio and platform as vice president.  

“I think if she ran, she would be challenged by other Democrats,” one strategist said. “There are lots of people who still think she wouldn’t beat a Trump or DeSantis.” 

Still, Harris is clearly the favorite to be the Democratic standard-bearer after Biden, and the midterm results only strengthened her. 

Pete Buttigieg 

The Transportation Secretary got a lot of face time with voters as he crisscrossed the country to stump for candidates during the midterms.  

In fact, he was one of the most requested surrogates on the trail, according to CNN.  

One Democratic strategist explained that while Biden and Harris have suffered publicly with low approval ratings, Buttigieg has been able to “stay above the fray.”  

“He got to appear in front of voters and take some credit for all the movement on infrastructure happening in communities all over the country,” one strategist said. “Win-win for him.” 

Buttigieg is a rising Democratic star and has had a solid two years in the administration.  

But if Biden were to pass on a second term, it may be difficult for him to usurp Harris as the administration favorite.   

Gretchen Whitmer 

The Michigan governor had one of the best election nights of anyone in the midterms.  

Not only did she win by double-digits against a rival endorsed by Trump, but her state turned completely blue, with Democrats now controlling all three branches of state government.  

Whitmer has been a little lower on The Hill’s previous lists, but she emerges from the midterms in a stronger position.  

Whitmer was a finalist to be Biden’s running mate in 2020 and Democrats say her star is rising more than most in her party.  

“She was a rising star in 2020 but even more so now,” one Democratic consultant said.  

Gavin Newsom  

The California governor seems to have something in common with DeSantis: He campaigned on “freedom” in his state during the election, and it seemed to pay off big, leading him to another gubernatorial victory on Tuesday.  

Newsom has caught the attention of Democrats this year mostly for proactively taking DeSantis and other Republicans to task.  

In September, he paid for billboards in conservative states including Texas, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Indiana to highlight the point that abortion is still legal in his state.  

“He’s perceived as strong and he’s done well keeping his name in the press,” the first strategist said. “Keeping your name out there is half the battle.”  

Source: TEST FEED1

Five lessons from the midterm exit polls

The dust is beginning to settle from the 2022 midterm elections, with Democrats holding the Senate and control of the House soon to be decided for sure.

As the results sink in, questions about what drove those results grow sharper.

Some of the answers can be found in the exit polls. Here are five big lessons.

Abortion was a huge issue

Abortion was a vital factor in securing a better performance for Democrats than almost anyone expected.

Abortion was always going to have some impact on the midterms, given that the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade less than five months before Election Day. 

But in the campaign’s closing stages, polls had suggested the economy was overpowering reproductive rights as a decisive factor in voters’ minds, to the GOP’s benefit. 

The exit polls told a different story.

Twenty-seven percent of voters said abortion was the single most important issue in determining their vote — only just behind inflation, which was listed by 31 percent of voters.

Those who chose abortion as their top issue broke more than 3 to 1 for Democrats. Seventy-six percent of them voted for President Biden’s party and 23 percent for Republicans, according to the main national exit poll.

The political impact of abortion was even more pronounced in some high-profile races.

In the Senate contest in Pennsylvania, abortion was named as the top issue by a plurality of voters. The 37 percent of Pennsylvanians in that category voted almost 4 to 1 for Democrat John Fetterman over Republican Mehmet Oz.

Voters in five states — California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont — had the chance to weigh in on ballot measures pertaining to abortion. The pro-abortion rights side prevailed in all five. 

In Michigan, an abortion-related ballot measure clearly boosted incumbent Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a strong advocate for reproductive rights.

A striking 45 percent of voters in Michigan’s gubernatorial race named abortion as their top priority — far higher than any other issue. Those voters broke 77 percent to 22 percent for Whitmer over her Republican opponent, conservative commentator Tudor Dixon. 

Whitmer, who Republicans had believed to be vulnerable, won reelection by more than 10 points.

Trump was a big drag on the GOP

Former President Trump has spent plenty of time since Tuesday defending himself from the charge that he had a negative impact upon his party.

But the evidence cuts the other way.

High-profile Trump endorsees like Oz and Nevada’s Adam Laxalt went down to defeat. 

Candidates who endorsed Trump’s false claims of election fraud pertaining to 2020 fared especially badly.  

Doug Mastriano lost the gubernatorial race in Pennsylvania by double digits, as did Dixon in Michigan. 

Don Bolduc, the Republican senatorial candidate in New Hampshire, who had backed Trump’s erroneous claims and then reversed himself upon winning the GOP primary, lost to Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) by 10 points.

For all of Trump’s bluster, the verdict of the exit polls was equally emphatic. 

Fifty-eight percent of voters said they held an unfavorable view of the former president, against 39 percent who viewed him favorably. The vast majority of those viewing Trump unfavorably voted for Democratic candidates.

It’s a crucial time for Trump. His big announcement — widely assumed to be the launch of a 2024 campaign — is looming at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is emerging as a formidable potential rival for the 2024 GOP nomination.

But the verdict on Tuesday was clear — and negative for the former president.

Republicans keep making inroads with Latinos 

One of the big demographic trends of recent years has been the erosion of Latino support for the Democratic Party.

On Tuesday, DeSantis became the first Republican gubernatorial candidate in two decades to carry Miami-Dade County, a Cuban American stronghold that is roughly 70 percent Hispanic. 

On the other hand, Democrats won two of three heavily Hispanic House districts in south Texas that the GOP had targeted.

The exit polls suggest the Latino vote continues to shift, especially among men.

Democrats carried Latino men by just 8 points over Republicans, 53 percent to 45 percent, according to the national exit poll. The margin had been 29 points as recently as the 2018 midterms.

Among Latinos overall, the Democratic advantage came in at 21 points, compared to 40 points in 2018.

Democrats were, of course, buoyed by the overall midterm results. But the problem posed by an erosion of Latino support is not going away.

Voters agree democracy is under threat — but can’t agree on why

Fears of significant violence or chaos at polling places on Tuesday did not materialize. Even candidates who had equivocated about the result of the 2020 election accepted their own outcomes, for the most part.

But that doesn’t alter the fact that the fabric of American public life has become very frayed.

According to exit polls, more than two-thirds of all voters believe democracy in America is either “somewhat threatened” or “very threatened.”

Even those voters split down the middle in terms of their voting behavior.

Precisely half the voters who said democracy was “very threatened” voted for Republican candidates, while 48 percent voted for Democrats.

The message is obvious: lots of Americans believe democracy is in danger, but they have contrasting views about where the threat is coming from.

For Democrats, the danger lies with Republican election-deniers and conspiracy theorists, as well as with Trump himself.

But 35 percent of all voters in the midterms didn’t believe that Biden won his 2020 election legitimately. Unsurprisingly, almost all of them voted Republican.

Roughly 1 in 5 voters said they were either “not very confident” or “not at all confident” that their state’s results would be fair and accurate. They, too, went overwhelmingly for the GOP.

Biden had a great night — but voters don’t want him to run again

Biden had as good a night as he could have hoped Tuesday.

It got better for him from there. On Saturday evening, when multiple news organizations projected that Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) would retain her seat, it ensured that Democrats would hold the Senate, regardless of what happens in the Georgia runoff set for December. The Republican majority in the House, if it comes into existence at all, will be very slim.

Only two presidents since the Second World War, John F. Kennedy in 1962 and George W. Bush in 2002, have avoided losses in the Senate and held House losses below 10 seats in their first midterms.

Biden appears poised to join them.

But the exit polls suggest he should not feel too secure just yet.

A huge 67 percent of all voters don’t want Biden to seek a second term. Just 30 percent do want him to run again.

That’s not just a partisan issue. Among those who hope Biden bows out, 31 percent voted for Democrats in the House.

Source: TEST FEED1

Democrats will keep control of Senate, bucking historical trend

Democrats are projected to hold onto their narrow Senate majority after Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto eked out a win in Nevada Saturday night, beating back a furious challenge from Republicans who sought to seize on voters’ growing economic and political angst in an effort to upend unified Democratic control of Washington.

The outcome means that Senate Democrats can breathe a collective sigh of relief after a volatile midterm election campaign that underscored just how tenuous the party’s hold on power was.

However, the midterms aren’t finished yet: The Senate race in Georgia has gone to a Dec. 6 runoff, meaning Democrats will have a chance to expand their majority by an additional seat.

While the party was defending far fewer seats this year than Republicans, it went into the election with only the narrowest of Senate majorities. The GOP needed to net only one seat to recapture control of the upper chamber.

At the same time, the political environment was bruising for Democrats. Towering inflation, concerns about rising crime and fears of a looming economic recession all combined to form a political storm that threatened to sweep Democrats out of both of their congressional majorities.

Democrats also faced a grim historical outlook. With few exceptions, the party in power almost always loses ground in Congress in midterm elections.

The fight for control of the Senate ultimately centered on a handful of battleground states, spanning from Pennsylvania to Arizona. While Democrats found themselves playing defense in places like Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire and Arizona, they also pursued Republican-held seats in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio.

Even as the midterms posed an existential threat to Democrats’ Senate majority, the elections also exposed some Republican weaknesses.

GOP voters in states like Georgia, Pennsylvania and Arizona nominated a series of untested, controversy-prone candidates — in most cases at the behest of former President Trump — who struggled to keep pace with their Democratic rivals in fundraising and often found themselves fending off questions about their personal histories and qualifications.

Among those candidates were former NFL star Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia; venture capitalist Blake Masters, the GOP candidate in Arizona, who lost to Sen. Mark Kelly (D) on Friday night; and celebrity physician Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee in Pennsylvania, who was defeated by John Fetterman on Tuesday.

While Republican leaders in Washington ultimately coalesced behind their roster of Senate nominees, the candidates also fueled some animosity between party officials.

Earlier this year, a spat erupted between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), after McConnell offered a thinly veiled criticism of the quality of the GOP’s Senate candidates.
Nevertheless, Republicans carried out a potent messaging strategy, hitting Democrats relentlessly on everything from the rate of inflation to public safety. That playbook helped GOP candidates in key states close in on their Democratic opponents in the final month of the campaign.

But Democrats were also bolstered by a roster of battle-tested candidates to overcome the unfriendly political terrain. Some vulnerable incumbents, like Kelly and Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), cast themselves as independent-minded public servants who had accomplished big things in their short time in Washington and were prolific fundraisers.

Of course, the country’s next elections in 2024 are also poised to be brutal for Senate Democrats. The party will have to defend nearly two-dozen seats in two years to the GOP’s 10, giving Republicans another shot at winning the majority.

Source: TEST FEED1

Cortez Masto wins in Nevada, securing Democratic control of Senate

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) is projected to defeat Republican Adam Laxalt, putting an end to a nail-biter of a race and ensuring Democrats will maintain their Senate majority.

NBC News and CBS News both called the race around 9:18 pm. ET.

Cortez Masto, the nation’s first elected Latina senator who won her first election in 2016 by just over 2 points, fended off a competitive bid from Laxalt, the former state attorney general, who was endorsed by former President Trump. The Silver State was considered one of Republicans’ best pickup opportunities in the Senate, especially as a slew of polls showed Laxalt and Cortez Masto polling within the margin of error.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) emerged victorious in what was considered one of Republicans’ best pickup opportunities in the Senate. (Greg Nash)

During the election, Laxalt leaned into issues like inflation, crime and border security while Cortez Masto had leaned into abortion and slammed the Republican for his dubious comments about the 2020 election, among other issues.

But Nevada is known for its uncomfortably close elections. Both Hillary Clinton in 2016 and President Biden in 2020 won the state by 2.4 percentage points. Part of why Nevada politics are so unpredictable comes from the fact that the state’s population is transient, given its tourism and hospitality industry, meaning politicians have to reintroduce themselves to voters every few years.

During his campaign against Cortez Masto, Adam Laxalt leaned into issues like inflation, crime and border security that Republicans across the country have been making a focus. (Associated Press)

And this election year — which already saw headwinds for Democrats at the national level — was an especially tricky one for the incumbent’s party given how residents and businesses are still reeling from the effects of COVID-19 on their economy.

Added to injury was the death of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), known for his impressive Democratic voter outreach infrastructure in the state, dubbed the “Reid Machine.” Political observers were uncertain how well the rest of that operation would hold given the death of its standard bearer. 

So it came as something of a shock to many Democrats that the party did so well in Nevada this cycle. Not only did Cortez Masto win reelection, but the three House Democratic incumbents up for reelection all won their districts as well, while a Democrat also won the secretary of state race over a Trump-aligned election denier.

There was one notable Democratic casualty in Nevada: Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) lost his reelection bid against Republican Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo. Still, Democrats are celebrating that an anticipated “red wave” never emerged in the Silver State.

With control of the upper chamber locked down, Democrats are now looking to Georgia, which will hold a Senate runoff on Dec. 6 between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) and Herschel Walker (R) and could ensure that the party expands its majority.

Source: TEST FEED1

Here's where the Alaska House and Senate races stand

The final results of the 2022 midterm elections have been trickling in over the past several days, but no winner has been declared yet in either major race in Alaska — and won’t be for some time.

Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system means determining a winner often takes longer than in most other states. Voters in this system rank the candidates in order from their first preference to their last.

A candidate must win a majority of first-place votes to win outright without the election going to a second round. If no one wins a majority, the candidate with the lowest number of first-place votes is eliminated, and their votes are redistributed to the remaining candidates according to their voters’ second preferences.

The process continues until one candidate wins a majority of the votes. Alaska adopted the ranked-choice system in 2020.

Since no one won a majority in Alaska’s Senate race, it will proceed to a second round to determine the winner. Alaska’s lone House race could wrap up in one round, but additional rounds might be necessary.

Here’s where the Alaska House and Senate races stand:

At-large House race

Rep. Mary Sattler Peltola (D) has represented Alaska’s only congressional district since September after she won a special election to succeed Rep. Don Young (R), who held the seat for almost 50 years before his death in March.

Peltola defeated two Republicans, former vice presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Nick Begich, the co-chairman of Young’s 2020 reelection campaign, to win the special election.

Peltola, Palin and Begich, along with Republican Tara Sweeney, advanced to the general election after receiving the most votes in a nonpartisan blanket primary, in which voters can vote for any candidate regardless of party registration. The primary occurred the same day as the special election.

Sweeney dropped out of the race soon after the primary, so Libertarian Chris Bye advanced to the general election.

With 80 percent of ballots counted in the general election, Peltola had a clear lead as of Friday with more than 47 percent of the vote, less than 3 points away from clinching the win. Palin was in second with 26.6 percent, and Begich was in third with 24.2 percent.

Peltola could be in a position to win the election in the first round and make additional rounds unnecessary. But whether she will prevail in the first round may not be clear until toward the end of the month.

Alaska’s Division of Elections website states that early votes submitted between the Friday before Election Day and Election Day will be counted seven days after Election Day, meaning this coming Tuesday. Early votes submitted prior to the Friday before Election Day were counted on election night.

Regional elections offices can start counting absentee ballots seven days after Election Day. All absentee ballots must be counted no later than 15 days after a general election.

Peltola could become the winner after the votes are finished being tabulated, which must happen by Nov. 23, one day before Thanksgiving.

If additional rounds are needed, they will happen on the 15th day after the election at the elections division director’s office in Juneau.

Peltola will likely have a large lead at the end of the first round even if she doesn’t clinch victory, so her opponents would need to receive an overwhelming majority of second-place votes to stay in contention to win the race.

Senate race

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) and Republican Kelly Tshibaka are set to face off in the final round of the Senate race after no candidate won a majority of the votes in the first round.

Tshibaka had a small lead over Murkowski by about 1.4 percentage points with 80 percent of votes counted. As of Friday, Tshibaka won 44.2 percent of the vote and Murkowski won 42.8 percent.

However, Murkowski allies expect the ranked-choice system to ultimately benefit the incumbent and push her to the top in the final round.

Tshibaka, Murkowski, Democrat Pat Chesbro and Republican Buzz Kelley advanced to the general election after winning the most votes in the nonpartisan, blanket primary in August. Kelley dropped out of the race in September and endorsed Tshibaka but remained on the ballot.

Chesbro had less than 10 percent of the vote, while Kelley won about 3 percent as of Friday.

Tshibaka, who served as the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Administration from 2019 to 2021, received the endorsement of the Alaska Republican Party and former President Trump. Murkowski has been criticized by her own party and the former president for voting to convict Trump during his second impeachment trial over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

The process for determining the winner of the Senate race will be the same as for the House race. The winner could be decided by whichever candidate voters for Chesbro preferred between Murkowski and Tshibaka.

Source: TEST FEED1

Did the polls get it wrong again?

The Democrats’ surprisingly strong showing in the midterm elections has raised a familiar question: Did the pollsters get it wrong again?

Heading into Nov. 8, polls from across the industry gave Republicans the clear edge in battleground races, as well as on the generic ballot. The data bolstered the belief among pundits that a red wave was on the rise.

But when that didn’t happen, and Tuesday’s red wave turned out to be a red ripple at best, it led to new scrutiny over an industry that has already faced criticism after big misses in 2016 and 2020.

“All those polls, God love them,” President Biden quipped at a Democratic National Committee event on Thursday. “You know, ‘historic losses are on the way. A giant red wave.’” 

Still, many pollsters are defending their profession, saying the surveys released in the months and weeks ahead of Election Day were more accurate than not. 

“Overall, it was definitely a good night for pollsters and I would, in particular, say traditional pollsters,” said Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University. 

“In those final weeks, a lot of polls from those credible, reputable, traditional pollsters were met with skepticism and/or disbelief when they were showing better numbers for Democrats,” she added. 

In fact, a number of polls released in the final weeks of the election cycle seemed to accurately capture the dynamic on the ground, depicting races that were neck and neck. A FiveThirtyEight polling average in the final week showed Arizona Senate candidate Mark Kelly (D) ahead of his Republican rival Blake Masters by 1 point, for example, reflecting the closeness of the race but one that ultimately gave the Democrat an edge.

Nevada polls in the closing week tended to be more bullish for Republican Senate candidate Adam Laxalt, giving him a lead of 2 to 8 points depending on the survey. As of this writing, his race against Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) remains too close to call; though he holds a narrow lead over her, many Democrats are optimistic Cortez Masto will ultimately prevail.

The general accuracy of the traditional pollsters came in comparison to a number of right-leaning polls, most notably from the Trafalgar Group, showing Republican candidates with the momentum. The outlet gained attention for being one of the only pollsters to show Trump’s edge over then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016. But its recent round of surveys have come under scrutiny.

In a Trafalgar survey of Pennsylvania’s Senate race released on Nov. 4, former GOP Senate candidate Mehmet Oz led now Sen.-elect John Fetterman (D) by roughly 2 points. Fetterman ended up winning the race by roughly 4 points. In a late October poll of Washington State’s Senate race, the pollster had Republican Tiffany Smiley trailing incumbent Sen. Patty Murray (D) by a little more than 1 point. Murray ended up defeating Smiley by roughly 12 points. 

Pollsters argue that outliers happen and caution that polls are meant to be a snapshot in time, not a prediction. 

“They are not meant to predict or be crystal balls,” Koning said. “They are meant to much more so explain the how and why of voters and their feelings and their attitudes and behaviors.” 

Skepticism in polls reached a fever pitch in 2016 when Trump’s victory pulled the rug out from those in the media. 

“It’s okay to have an outlier. Everyone’s going to have one,” Spencer Kimball, the director of Emerson College Polling, told HillTV’s “What America’s Thinking.” 

“What we don’t want is a systematic experience and that’s what we saw in 2016,” he continued. “The bias was systematic toward Hillary Clinton. Every poll that was wrong was wrong in her favor, and so that’s a problem of the industry.” 

Democratic pollster Celinda Lake argued that the “flooding of the zone” with Republican-leaning polls in 2022 was part of a broader strategy to boost GOP morale, money and turnout in the final weeks and days of the cycle. 

“I think that the media is going to have to have new standards for covering new polls and not allow that to happen,” she told The Hill. 

Lake said the strategy has impacted aggregators, which often average a number of polls conducted by different organizations.

“We never anticipated a deliberate flooding of the zone with polls that would show you in the lead,” Lake said. “They’re going to have to balance aggregation with ‘okay we’re going to use this many Republican-leaning polls and this many Democratic-leaning polls’ or something.” 

Lake also noted that the news media and political pundits could have paid more attention to early vote turnout, which often plays in Democrats’ favor. 

“In this case, we were seeing some surge in the early vote but the pundits were really discounting it and they shouldn’t have been,” she said. 

One Republican pollster told The Hill that some pollsters did not pick up on factors like the Democratic fundraising advantage, abortion’s strength as an issue and Trump’s impact on voters. 

“What I don’t think we captured as well as an industry was some of the movement in the close,” the GOP pollster said. “I think the night looked a lot more like what we expected it to in August than we expected it to in October.” 

The pollster said the two toss-up groups they were focused on throughout the cycle were college-educated men and women without college degrees. 

“Those three things combined in a way that left those two groups more swingy, whereas I think in September the stock market movement was pushing college-educated men toward Republicans,” the GOP pollster said. “Women without college degrees cared very much about abortion rights and about the economy because they were being very directly impacted.” 

Ultimately though, most pollsters and experts say the majority of polls leading up to the midterms did not completely miss the mark. 

“This was kind of one of our first pandemic era, normal elections that we could have had and could have tested this out and I think pollsters met the challenge,” Koning said.  

Source: TEST FEED1