Categories Uncategorized

What will Pelosi do now? 'The choice is hers to make'

As speculation builds around what Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will do next year, many Democrats say the party’s surprisingly strong performance in this week’s midterms yields a simple answer: Whatever she wants.

Pelosi, who has served as the Democratic leader for the past two decades, has previously pledged to withdraw from the top of the party at the end of this term, clearing space for a younger crop of ambitious lawmakers to climb into the leadership ranks. And a number of Democrats intend to hold her to the promise.

Yet the unexpectedly strong turn for House Democrats in Tuesday’s elections has strengthened Pelosi’s hand as questions churn around her political fate, according to sources on and off of Capitol Hill. The party’s good night, many Democrats said afterwards, means Pelosi can remain the top leader — if she so chooses.

“She’s in the power position. We overperformed, and the wave never materialized,” said Ashley Etienne, a former Pelosi aide. “So, the choice is hers to make.”

While Republicans remain the favorites to control the lower chamber next year, Democrats stunned the political world Tuesday by clinging to dozens of seats in tough battleground districts and deflecting the type of midterm wave that routinely hammers the party of the incumbent president.

The development has buoyed Democrats, who have been on the ropes for most of the cycle amid a volatile economy, and frustrated Republicans who were hoping a considerable majority would help them neutralize President Biden through the second half of his first term.

No single figure was more crucial to the Democrats’ defense than Pelosi, who had blanketed the country over the course of the cycle showering enormous amounts of campaign cash — from a massive haul of roughly $276 million raised — onto vulnerable lawmakers.

As GOP leaders spent Wednesday sniping over what went wrong with their campaign strategy, Democrats were coming around to a more unified sentiment: Pelosi is now in a place to decide her own future, on her own terms.

“She will be asked to come back, and she will stay if she wants,” said a second former leadership aide, who spoke anonymously to discuss a sensitive topic.

A Democratic lawmaker delivered a similar assessment, noting that Pelosi’s ability to raise money for the party — more than $1.2 billion since she entered leadership — is unprecedented in Congress, and gives her outsized leverage to decide her own political fate.

“She earned her ticket to stay 10 years ago when she was raising more money than any Speaker had ever raised before,” the lawmaker said on background. “In respect for all that she has been to the Democratic Caucus and how she has led … she needs to be able to make the decision when she wants to leave.”

Pelosi is famously guarded about her future, and this year has been no exception.

The Speaker has repeatedly deflected questions about whether she’ll seek to remain in power next year. And that reticence has continued even in the wake of the violent assault on her husband, Paul Pelosi, late last month.

The Speaker has said only that her decision “will be affected” by the attack. But that’s only fueled more conjecture: Will she bow out of Congress to join her recovering husband? Or stay in place to send the message that no act of political violence can push her out?

“I’m sure that her decision is going to weigh the impacts on her family,” said the lawmaker, “but that would not be a reason for her to bail out.”

Heading into Tuesday’s elections, Democrats were not optimistic about their chances.

They have razor-thin margins in both chambers. Historical trends have predicted that the party of the president routinely loses seats in the midterms, frequently in wave numbers. Biden’s approval numbers have been below 50 percent for more than a year. And economic anxieties, particularly surrounding inflation and gas prices, were expected to overshadow other issues on voters’ minds to the detriment of the Democrats, who control all levers of power in Washington.

However, Democrats defied most of the predictions for Tuesday, securing victories in battleground districts across the country and denying Republicans a huge majority if the House does change hands after all the outstanding races are decided.

On Wednesday — a day when Republicans hoped to be popping champagne, launching leadership races and sharpening plans to confront Biden on countless key issues next year — they were forced instead to ponder the reasons for their lackluster performance.

All of that is helping Pelosi.

If Republicans had prevailed clearly and quickly Tuesday night, there would have been immediate pressure on the Speaker to announce her intentions for next year. Instead, she announced she was leaving the country for a climate summit in Egypt.

Pelosi is not guaranteed a leadership spot in the next Congress. The younger, restless lawmakers who want the chance to join the party brass will likely revolt if she seeks another term at the top. But the race for leader in the minority is very different from the contest for Speaker, requiring support from a majority of the party, not a majority of the full House — a much lower bar.

Whatever Pelosi decides, her supporters and detractors are in agreement on one thing: No one will know until she wants them to.

“This really solidifies her legacy as the most accomplished Speaker in U.S. history, by all measures — all measures. There’s no question,” Etienne said. “Two things I know about Pelosi though, the decision will be made on her terms, and she’s going to keep us guessing.”

Mychael Schnell contributed.

Source: TEST FEED1

How Fetterman toppled Oz

Ed Rendell was impressed with John Fetterman.  The former Pennsylvania governor and kingmaker in the state thought the then-46-year-old had a bright future after Fetterman finished third in the 2016 Senate Democratic primary.  

While Fetterman lost to fellow Democrats Katie McGinty and Joe Sestak, he won Allegheny County despite running a threadbare operation.  

 During a sit-down with Rendell and some of his donors, Fetterman told the former governor that he was ready and willing to go around the state campaigning for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee that year.  

 “He said, ‘All I need is a car and driver, and to pay for hotel rooms,’ ” Rendell, a longtime Clinton ally, told The Hill in an interview last week, leading him to ask the Clinton camp for nearly $100,000 to cover the expenses. 

 “I begged the Clinton camp to do it,” Rendell said, “but they didn’t.” 

Clinton ended up losing Pennsylvania and the presidency to Republican Donald Trump, sending shockwaves through the Democratic Party. 

 Six years later, Fetterman is the senator-elect after defeating Republican Mehmet Oz in a pivotal race of the 2022 midterms.  

His victory is due in part to what the Clinton camp spurned: a “go anywhere” strategy that focused on competing in rural counties across the state and holding the party line in the cities and suburbs. 

In one rural county after another, Fetterman limited the damage Democrats had incurred in those spots two years ago even as President Biden defeated Trump in the state.  

According to strategists on both sides of the aisle, this effort coupled with Oz’s inability to fix what ailed him in a contentious primary proved to be a winning recipe for the senator-elect.    

“He campaigned in places Democrats typically don’t,” said T.J. Rooney, a former chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party and a Democratic operative. “You combine his reduction of the margins and his work in the collar counties. … It was a combination of those two things that makes the difference.”  

“Fetterman could go everywhere, and when Oz went some places it just seemed forced,” Rooney added.  

According to Republicans, Oz compounded the problem by focusing on political attacks hitting Fetterman on crime and other issues without prioritizing a ground game in the rural counties.  

Oz’s suburban push was clear in the final weeks as he spent much of his time barnstorming the Philadelphia collar counties, headlined by a weekend appearance in Bucks County alongside Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), two moderates.  

“Oz underperformed everywhere. … The worry pre-election was that rural Pennsylvania would underperform, and it did. But so did the suburbs,” one Pennsylvania-based GOP operative told The Hill. “Kind of a double whammy.”  

Another hallmark of the race that swung things toward Fetterman centered on his authenticity with voters. Despite a stroke that kept him off the campaign trail from mid-May through early August, the hoodie-wearing, tattooed candidate was able to connect with the electorate in a way Oz just never was able to.  

“Time and again, we see people underestimate Fetterman’s own base,” said J.J. Abbott, a Democratic operative who previously served as Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s (D) press secretary. “People really underestimate his base and his brand value. He’s a unique figure.” 

In the only debate between the two men in late October, Fetterman’s auditory response problems were fully on display as he struggled at times to give clear answers to questions. A number of observers thought the debate might have doomed his campaign, but instead his base of support remained relatively stable.  

Comparatively, Oz never recovered from the bruising primary battle that left him hobbled heading into the general election. 

According to two national GOP operatives, Republicans pushed for Oz to go up on the air shortly after he emerged from the primary against David McCormick, a move that would have helped him boost his appeal at a time when no one else was on the air in the state. Instead, he didn’t start airing television ads until late August.

“He essentially squandered several months over the summer while Fetterman was sidelined with the stroke,” one of the GOP operatives said, noting that reports also emerged that Oz went to Europe for vacation in late June. “He lost a lot of time.”

Oz also had baggage that made it difficult for him to convince Republicans that he was one of them politically, despite his endorsement from Trump.

“The campaign was incredibly effective on two fronts: keeping Fetterman’s authenticity … and defining Oz as a phony, an outsider and someone you couldn’t trust,” Abbott said. “In the end, the combo of those two narratives were just so much better done by Fetterman’s team than anything the Oz team could put up.”

Fetterman received a major boost in the form of state Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D), who handily dispatched state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R) in Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race.

For weeks, Republicans had argued to The Hill that any margin of victory for Shapiro that entered the double digits spelled trouble for the GOP up and down the ticket. Their fears bore out, as Shapiro won by more than 13 percentage points over Mastriano, the far-right nominee who led the push in 2020 for Trump to overturn the Pennsylvania election results. 

“I kind of misread the election. I thought this was about issues, but it was more about personalities,” said Rob Gleason, a former chairman of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, referring to the nonstop crime, inflation and economic messages Republicans bombarded Fetterman with. “Candidates matter. They really matter. … Issues will never override candidates.” 

“Obviously, we had the wrong candidates,” Gleason said. “They weren’t acceptable to the rest of the state, and that’s what it boiled down to.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Boebert trails by 62 votes in razor-tight Colorado race

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R) is locked in a tight reelection race in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, trailing Democrat Adam Frisch by 62 ballots with more than 95 percent of votes counted, according to figures tallied by The New York Times.

The two campaigns expressed optimism in conversations with The Hill Wednesday afternoon, recognizing paths to their respective victories but noting that the race is far from locked up nearly 24 hours after polls closed in the Centennial State.

“We like where we are, we think we’re in a really good place, we are waiting for what we think are the last batch of numbers that should work out okay for us, but I’m certainly not gonna — I’m a fairly humble guy and I’m not gonna, again, get over my skis, and so we’re gonna be patient,” Frisch told The Hill in an interview.

“There’s certainly a path to victory,” Boebert spokesperson Ben Stout told The Hill.

Both campaigns are zeroing in on two key counties — Pueblo and Mesa — that have outstanding votes and will likely play a key role in determining the winner of the competitive Colorado race.

Pueblo County — liberal-leaning area that overwhelmingly voted for President Biden in 2020 — has broken in favor of Frisch thus far over Boebert, 55 percent to 45 percent, with 92 percent of the vote in, according to the Times. Frisch’s spokesperson noted that the county typically takes a long time to report votes.

That remaining batch is fueling hopes in the Frisch campaign.

“It’s a Dem stronghold in the district for us so, given that, we feel very confident, even with the small lead we have we feel confident that we can hold on to that,” a spokesperson for Frisch’s campaign told The Hill.

On the other side of the aisle, Boebert’s operation is eyeing Mesa County, which handily supported former President Trump in 2020. With more than 95 percent of the vote in, the area is opting for Boebert over Frisch, 58 percent to 42 percent, the Times reported.

Wednesday afternoon, Stout told The Hill that the incumbent netted 500 votes when Montrose County did a ballot drop, tightening the race even more.

“It’s just continuing to shrink, shrink, shrink, we expect that to continue to be the process, and then it’s really gonna come down to a combination of voter turnout and, you know, same-day votes,” he said, noting that the congresswoman’s supporters tend to vote in person on Election Day rather than early.

A recount is triggered in Colorado if the final margin in the race is less than or equal to half a percentage point.

The razor-thin Colorado contest has emerged as something of a “sleeper race” this cycle, drawing virtually no attention on the national stage until Election Day, when Frisch opened with a shocking lead over Boebert once polls closed.

Boebert, a freshman lawmaker who has been linked to QAnon, has drawn headlines throughout her two years in Congress for supporting Trump’s election fraud claims and refusing to wear a mask on the House floor, among other things. The congresswoman, however, has maintained that she is not a follower of QAnon.

“Just a shout out to my Dad who lives in her district and told me last month [Lauren Boebert] could lose and I didn’t believe him,” former White House press secretary Jen Psaki wrote on Twitter, adding in a separate message that it is “huge” to be watching the race.

The campaigns on the ground, however, were not fazed by the close contest that has been tightening by the hour, asserting that the competition was always expected to come down to the wire.

Frisch — a local businessman whose only electoral experience is serving in the Aspen City Council — said he studied CD-3’s electoral history and recognized that he could win over a coalition large enough to pick off Boebert.

“Lauren Boebert received 51 percent of the vote in 2020, she did not win her home county, those that know her don’t care for her and a lot more people know her now that did before. And my math said that if I could accumulate 10 percent of her prior voters and some amount of undervoting — you know, Joe O’Dea is gonna earn more votes than Lauren Boebert in the same district, we could put together kind of a pro-normal coalition, and that’s exactly what we are playing out,” Frisch said, referring to the anti-Trump Republican candidate for Senate, Joe O’Dea.

Colorado’s 3rd District voted for Trump over Biden in the 2020 presidential election, 51.6 percent to 46.1 percent. The firebrand congresswoman won reelection by a similar margin that year, defeating her Democratic challenger 51.4 percent to 45.2 percent.

“I thought that if a pro-business, moderate Democrat could get by the Democratic primary … I could build this coalition, and that’s what we did,” he said.

“So am I surprised? No,” he added.

Boebert’s campaign, for their part, also knew Tuesday’s race would not be an easy glide to reelection.

“We certainly didn’t think it was gonna be a blowout,” Stout said, arguing that Frisch has advertised himself as a right-leaning individual throughout the cycle.

Source: TEST FEED1

GOP points fingers after red wave fails to materialize

Republicans are pointing fingers after a disappointing midterms that has left Democrats crowing and GOP aides and strategists blaming former President Trump for their failure to convincingly win House and Senate majorities. 

The battles for both chambers were still too close to call on Wednesday evening, with Republicans favored to win what increasingly looks like a narrow majority in the House. Democrats have a decent chance of keeping their Senate majority, which may be decided in a Dec. 6 runoff in Georgia.

The GOP blame was being widely spread on Wednesday evening, with some pointing at inexperienced candidates making rookie mistakes, and others privately calling for an audit of how the National Republican Senatorial Committee raised and spent money under chairman Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.). 

Several strategists say that Trump’s imprint on the Senate and House races hurt more than it helped and raises serious questions about his viability as a presidential candidate in 2024.  

“How could you look at these results tonight and conclude Trump has any chance of winning a national election in 2024?” tweeted Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist who has advised Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) past campaigns.  

“Despite the fact that 70 percent of the country thinks we’re on the wrong track, two thirds think we’re in a recession, people are pessimistic about the future, and people largely believe Biden’s policies are hurting, not helping, they still opted to stick with that over the alternative, which I’m afraid they associate with Trump,” he said.  

McConnell stayed largely quiet on Wednesday as election officials in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada continued to count ballots.

Asked how he felt about the results, he told a reporter for ABC News: “I don’t deal in feelings. The question is, they’ve got to count the votes and then we’ll figure out where we are.”  

Trump told NewsNation in an interview that aired Tuesday that he shouldn’t get any blame if Republican candidates failed to win. (NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which purchased The Hill in 2021.)

“Well, I think if they win, I should get all the credit,” he said. “And if they lose, I should not be blamed at all. But it will probably be just the opposite.”

GOP strategists say their candidates should have done much better Tuesday given that exit polls showed that 73 percent of voters said they were dissatisfied or angry about the way things are going in the country today.  

“Republicans should have run away with this election. With inflation at a 40-year high, with crime out of control in many cities, with the border not secure and with Joe Biden’s job approval in the low 40s, this election should have been a cakewalk for Republicans,” said Whit Ayres, a GOP pollster. 

He blamed the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, saying it was a top issue for younger voters. 

“The other factor was the proliferation of weak Republican Senate candidates that Donald Trump dragged through Republican primaries. Continually those Senate Republican candidates struggled as is often the case with inexperienced candidates running high-profile, high-pressure races,” he added.  

There’s still a chance Republicans could win in Nevada, Arizona and Georgia and control a 52-seat majority next year. But those odds don’t look terrific, and pale in comparison to hopes for the red wave. 

Scott told an audience last month in Greensboro, N.C., where he campaigned for Senate candidate Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.), that he thought it was possible that Republicans could control between 52 and 55 seats next year.  

In the House, Democratic candidates exceeded expectations by winning in swing districts such as Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, where Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) won reelection, and in Michigan’s 7th District, where Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D) won.  

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) last year confidently predicted a 60-seat gain in the House. More recently House GOP sources offered a more cautious prediction of a 15-to-30 gain.  

NBC News on Wednesday was projecting that House Republicans would pick up nine seats, giving them a razor-thin majority to work with.  

Polls showing independent women voters shifting to Republicans amid concerns over inflation, the economy and crime buoyed GOP optimism.  

But exit polls showed voters also rated abortion rights as a top concern, trailing inflation by only a few percentage points. Fifty-three percent of voters said they trusted Democrats more on that issue.

A majority said they were not happy with the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the abortion rights decision Roe v. Wade in June. Twenty-one percent of voters said they were dissatisfied with the ruling and 39 percent said they were angry about it.  

One Senate Republican aide said Trump and conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which struck down the right to an abortion, were to blame for the underperformance of GOP candidates.

“Donald Trump and Samuel Alito. They killed us. Trump picked terrible people and Alito riled up half of America,” the aide said.  

Other Republican strategists said that Senate candidates in some states, namely Pennsylvania and Arizona, were hampered by gubernatorial candidates at the top of the ticket who touted Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen.  

In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, who enthusiastically embraced Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, lost the Pennsylvania governor’s race by more than 700,000 votes and may have weighed down Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz.  

Retired Army Gen. Don Bolduc won the New Hampshire Senate Republican primary by touting Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen and then tried to reverse his position in the general election by claiming he had changed his mind “after a lot of research on this.”   

Bolduc was projected to lose to Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) after trailing the incumbent by 53,000 votes with more than 95 percent of ballots counted. 

Trump endorsed Bolduc in late October but also dinged him for disavowing his narrative of the stolen 2020 election. Trump on Tuesday said Bolduc lost because he backed away from his claims of widespread election fraud.  

“Don Bolduc was a very nice guy, but he lost tonight when he disavowed, after his big primary win, his long-standing stance on Election Fraud in the 2020 Presidential Primary,” Trump wrote on his social-media platform, Truth Social. “Had he stayed strong and true, he would have won, easily.”

Source: TEST FEED1

When will we know who controls the House? Five takeaways

In this year’s tighter-than-expected battle for congressional control, it may be days before Americans know whether President Biden’s Democrats hold the House of Representatives, or whether Republicans will clinch the majority.

Republicans’ rumored red wave failed to sweep over Election Day on Tuesday and Democrats delivered surprising blue wins in key races, but the overall power balance in both the House and the Senate was still too close to call Wednesday. 

This year’s midterms marked a rare Election Day where the night wound down without a clear projection for which party will control Congress. Along with a tight race for the House, Democrats are still hoping the toss-up Senate race will lean in their favor.

There’s no definitive timeline for when calls for the remaining House races will roll in. Because the race for congressional power this year is precariously close, it may be days or even weeks before a final call can be made. 

Here are five things to know in the ongoing tally to determine control of the House:

Dozens of races haven’t been called yet

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives were on the midterm ballots, and a party needs 218 to take the majority power. 

The latest Wednesday projections show Democrats with 183 House seats and Republicans with 207 seats. There are 45 seats still to be called. 

For the most part, parties have already picked up most of the seats they were expected to easily win, with the exception of some likely blue seats on the West Coast that haven’t been called yet. 

Most of the races still up in the air are either narrowly projected for one party over the other or have been flagged by forecasters as highly competitive, making it harder for a clear winner to be called. 

Republicans are the favorite to win the majority

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) leaves the Capitol following the last votes of the week on Friday, September 30, 2022. The House returns on Nov. 14 following the midterm elections.

Republicans are leading in 14 uncalled races nationwide — GOP wins in all those seats will push the party over the 218-seat threshold and win a thin majority.

But the small-margin forecast is far from the “red tsunami” sweep some pundits and members of the GOP predicted heading into Tuesday’s election, and Democrats were able to pull off a handful of surprising wins. 

In Rhode Island, Democrat Seth Magaziner was projected to win the 2nd Congressional District after recent polling showed his Republican opponent pulling ahead.

In Colorado, Democrat Adam Frisch appears to be pulling ahead of Republican Lauren Boebert in a district Republicans were expected to win easily. 

Heading into Election Day, Republicans needed to pick up just five more seats to take the House reins from Democrats. Current projections show they’ve grabbed 10 seats so far, and the party is still favored to win control of the lower chamber — but unexpectedly close races across the nation have added to the tense anticipation of the final outcomes.

Mail-in ballots prolong answers in some key races

In this July 1, 2020, file photo, a woman walks past a vote-by-mail drop box for the upcoming New Jersey primary election outside the Camden, N.J., Administration Building.

A chunk of the races still to be called are on the West coast, where polls were some of the last in the nation to close on Tuesday night. 

Washington, Oregon and California along the Pacific border all offer universal mail-in voting and accept ballots that are postmarked as late as Election Day — meaning that it may take days for votes to even arrive at election offices for tabulation, prolonging the count for closer races. 

The one Oregon district with a Republican in the lead is the 5th congressional district, where Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer leads Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner by a mere three points, with just 69 percent of votes reported so far. 

Mail-in ballots are also prolonging results in Pennsylvania. The state’s acting secretary of state on Tuesday told voters it could take days to accurately count the state’s much-anticipated midterm ballots and asked for patience before final results could be released.

The West Coast could give Democrats a boost

With the U.S Capitol in the background, people walk down steps on Election Day in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022.

Historically blue California is home to 22 still-uncalled races, and the state could deliver a big blue boost when the counts come in. At this point, Republicans are leading in just seven of those uncalled races.

Democrats are expected to easily pick up around 10 seats from the state, which would put the party closer to its 218-seat goalpost. 

Democrats lead in two remaining Washington districts and two of three leftover districts in Oregon — meaning the three West Coast states alone could potentially deliver 20 more wins for Democrats. 

Further inland, blue candidates are also leading in the three remaining Nevada districts and two districts in each of Colorado and Arizona.

Close races could stretch out the timeline

Pennsylvania Republican candidate for Senate Dr. Mehmet Oz and Democratic candidate John Fetterman.

Democrats are generally more likely than Republicans to cast early ballots and vote by mail, while Republicans appear to prefer same-day, in-person voting — and state-by-state variations in the rules on whether early ballots can be counted before or after Election Day may lead to “mirages” in the early counting stages. 

In Pennsylvania, for example, some Democrats warned that Republicans may appear to lead in some key races as Election Day ballots were counted, while Democrats would surge in as mail-in ballots were tallied.

And tallying could take even longer in treacherously close races if it any recounts are necessitated or ordered.

A recount was ordered in the Pennsylvania Republican primary this year when candidates Mehmet Oz and David McCormick came in neck-and-neck. A GOP secretary of state candidate in Colorado paid a quarter-million dollar fee for a recount in the state despite a double-digit initial loss. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden teases 2024 announcement early next year

President Biden on Wednesday pointed to early 2023 for when to expect an official decision on if he will run for reelection, while stressing that he intends to run again.

“I hope Jill and I get a little time to actually sneak away for a week around, between Christmas and Thanksgiving,” Biden said at a post-midterm election press conference at the White House. “My guess is it will be early next year we make that judgment.”

The president stressed that he doesn’t feel pressure to announce his reelection campaign, regardless of if former President Trump announces another White House bid. Trump earlier this week teased a “very big announcement” coming next week.

“My judgment of running when I announce, if I announce— my intention is that I run again, but I’m a great respecter of fate and this is ultimately a family decision. I think everybody wants me to run but we’re gonna have discussions about it,” Biden said. “And I don’t feel any hurry one way or another to make that judgment, today, tomorrow, whenever, no matter what my predecessor does.”

Biden took a victory lap of sorts on Wednesday after Democrats enjoyed an unexpectedly good night on Tuesday. While it is still possible that Republicans could win majorities in the House and Senate, the GOP margin in the House appears likely to be narrow and Democrats have a fighting shot of retaining the Senate majority.

The races for power in both chambers were still too close to call on Wednesday.

Biden noted at the press conference that his party outperformed and called the results a sigh of relief for some.

The White House has for months insisted that Biden intends to run again, despite concerns from some Democrats over his age and his stubbornly low approval rating.

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden’s unexpectedly good night

If there was one message that summed up how President Biden was feeling on the heels of Tuesday’s midterms, it came in the form of a tweet.  

“I ain’t dead and I’m not gonna die,” Biden said in an old video from 2020 shared again on Wednesday afternoon by White House digital director Rob Flaherty.   

It was an attitude reflected among Democrats, who were feeling hopeful with the results that had come in: President Biden had a good night. In fact, it was much better than expected. 

“I honestly thought we’d all be writing the obituary today on President Biden and our party,” one top party strategist acknowledged. “And while we’re still a long way from the finish line, I think we’re all feeling good about Biden and where things stand.” 

Asked if Biden had a good night, Democratic strategist Eddie Vale put it this way: “Like-driving-in-a-Corvette-with-aviators-on-while-eating-ice cream good.” 

Biden will have a chance to take a victory lap of sorts when he delivers remarks and takes questions from reporters on Wednesday afternoon, continuing the presidential tradition of a post-midterm election press conference. 

It was a much different scenario 24 hours earlier. Privately, hours before the polls closed on Tuesday, the finger pointing had already begun with Biden taking most of the hits. Strategists and donors accused the White House of not having a solid economic message to sell to voters and focusing too much – or not enough– on issues like abortion. They worried voters would take out their frustration with inflation and high gas prices on Biden. 

And they predicted Biden, with approval ratings hovering around 40 percent, would suffer losses the way former President Obama did in 2010. At the time, Democrats experienced what Obama dubbed a “shellacking” after losing 63 seats, flipping the House to Republicans. Former President Trump also experienced the House flipping to Democrats in the 2018 midterms. 

But Democrats were feeling energized on Wednesday. 

“Biden should feel emboldened by last night,” said Democratic strategist Christy Setzer. “The country is with him. They decisively rejected election deniers running for statewide office, and voted to keep Dems in power. 

“Just as importantly, Donald Trump had a terrible night,” Setzer added. “At this point, there should be no question that Biden’s the 2024 nominee and the person likeliest to be President in 2025.”

Republicans went into Election Day optimistic that they could pick up 25 seats or more in the House and came up far short of that. With results still rolling in and control of the Senate uncertain, Democrats are thrilled that they exceeded expectations.

“The Republicans are having coffee and crow for breakfast,” said former Rep. Chris Carney (D-Pa.), a Biden ally.

More than anything, the results gave Biden the energy he needed as he signals he’s going to launch a reelection bid.  

Buoyed by the early results on Tuesday, Biden could announce before the new year that he is running for reelection in 2024, following months of the White House insisting that he intends to run again.

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesday night said Biden should make his decision over the next couple of months and that he knows he has to make it sooner rather than later, especially if former President Trump announces his plans to run again.

“I think it will definitely be a factor because Donald Trump getting in the race means the president will feel like he’s the only one who has beaten him before, which is true,” she said on NBC.

Tuesday night’s results so far are partly considered to be a referendum on Trump, and while many of the candidates he supported and candidates who spread his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen won seats, others also lost. Meanwhile, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), who is considered a top 2024 GOP presidential contender, won his reelection decisively.

Those factors are all in play as Biden decides if and when to announce an official run for reelection.

“I am sure the election results have altered Biden’s calculations on running again. In the end, he was the big winner last night—and DeSantis was a close second,” Carney said.

Others argued the opposite, that the tough night for Trump could mean Biden rethinks running again in 2024.

“With Trump wounded and Republicans reeling, President Biden’s argument that only he can beat Trump holds much less water. While he should certainly celebrate the role he played in a historic victory, he should seriously consider whether he is the right person to potentially take on candidates like Ron DeSantis in a general election,” said Democratic strategist Michael Starr Hopkins.

He also noted that Democrats like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Gov- elect Josh Shapiro raised their national profiles on Tuesday night for potential 2024 bids.

In an appearance on Fox News Wednesday morning, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged that Biden’s move to demonize Republicans ended up working for him.

“I have to say, as much as I think it was despicable, the Biden strategy of demonizing Republicans…I think did have an impact and will become a definition of the Democratic Party,” the Georgia Republican said.

Biden spent Tuesday evening making congratulatory phone calls from the White House to Democrats as results rolled in, looking cheerful in a photograph shared from one of the calls.

He ended the evening with a text to Pennsylvania Sen.-elect John Fetterman around 2 a.m. to congratulate him on etching out a win over Republican candidate Mehmet Oz who had Trump’s backing. The president had been optimistic about Democrats flipping that Senate seat and spent a lot of time over the last month in the Keystone State, most recently on Saturday for a rally with Fetterman and Shapiro.

Biden was vindicated on Tuesday night when the so-called red wave that some political watchers predicted did not come to total fruition. 

“In an off year election, with the odds stacked against the White House, President Biden outperformed former President Trump, Obama, and Bush,” Hopkins said.

Source: TEST FEED1

Scalise announces bid for House majority leader

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) announced a bid to become the next House majority leader on Wednesday as the GOP appears likely to win a narrow majority in the lower chamber.

“The American people deserve a House of Representatives that can move the agenda that was promised to them on the campaign trail,” Scalise said in a letter addressed to his GOP colleagues in the House.

“As your Majority Leader, I will work relentlessly to usher our vision through the House and show the country how conservative ideas can solve the problems that families are facing,” he added.

–Developing

Source: TEST FEED1

Georgia Senate race between Warnock, Walker heads to runoff

The hard-fought Senate race in Georgia is heading into overtime.

Neither Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) nor Republican Herschel Walker is projected to score the majority support needed to clinch the hotly contested Senate seat. The results mean that one of the most competitive statewide contests in the country will be left unresolved for weeks.

NBC News and CNN both projected the race would go to a runoff.

Under Georgia’s election laws, a candidate must receive at least 50 percent plus one to win an election outright.

Neither Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) nor Herschel Walker was projected to win more than 50 percent of the vote in the Nov. 8 election. (Greg Nash)

Warnock and Walker will now advance to a Dec. 6 runoff election that will determine who will go to Washington next year.

A runoff in Georgia wasn’t entirely unexpected. The vast majority of polling in the race showed both candidates falling short of a majority in the lead-up to Election Day.

Still, the results carry a sense of maddening déjà vu for both parties. Two years ago, Warnock and Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) advanced to runoffs against GOP incumbents in two Senate races in Georgia. Those runoffs ultimately ended in narrow wins for both Democrats — victories that handed their party Senate control.

Warnock is facing a much different political environment this year than he did in 2020. Democrats have played defense for much of the year, with Republicans hammering them over stubbornly high inflation, economic uncertainty and perceived rising crime.

Unlike his Senate race in 2020, Warnock, like Democrats across the country, has spent much of his reelection campaign playing defense. (Greg Nash)

Still, Walker, who was endorsed by former President Trump last year, had more than his fair share of stumbles on the campaign trail. He repeatedly faced questions about his personal life, business record and qualifications to serve in public office.

Warnock, meanwhile, sought to solidify his reputation as one of the Democratic Party’s most accomplished fundraisers, raking in tens of millions of dollars that helped him outgun Walker in campaign spending.

A pastor at Atlanta’s storied Ebenezer Baptist Church, Warnock frequently leaned on his rhetorical acumen and affable persona during his campaign. He often cast himself as a restrained presence in a chaotic political environment, ignoring attacks from his critics and playing up his bipartisan achievements in Washington.

But that wasn’t enough to win him the election outright. With the general election out of the way, Warnock and Walker will now enter a chaotic four-week sprint to the runoff.

Source: TEST FEED1

Johnson, most vulnerable Senate Republican, wins reelection in Wisconsin

Sen. Ron Johnson (Wis.), who was the Democrats’ biggest Republican target in the Senate, was projected to defeat Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D) and win reelection to a third term. 

NBC News and CNN both called the race for Johnson.

Johnson and allied outside groups spent the last several months of the race defining Barnes as soft on crime in a barrage of attack ads, which some Democratic critics say were intended to sow racial divisions and play on the fears of suburban voters.  

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has been reelected to a third term, surviving a major Democratic push to oust him from the Senate. (Greg Nash)

Johnson and Republican allied groups repeatedly hit Barnes for supporting the end of cash bail, which they linked to the 2021 Waukesha Christmas parade attack in which a 39-year-old man who had been released from custody on $1,000 bail after being accused of domestic violence crashed his SUV through a crowd, killing six people and injuring dozens more.  

The race culminated in a fiery debate in Madison last month where Barnes accused Johnson of caring more about taking care of wealthy donors than helping working-class Wisconsinites and Johnson jabbed back by pointing to the more than $600,000 in taxpayer money spent on Barnes’s security detail.  

The debate reflected the nasty tone of the campaign.  

Republicans tried to link Barnes to former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin (D), a reform-minded prosecutor who was ousted from office by a voter backlash, at one point circulating a photo of Boudin at a Barnes fundraiser.

In a tense October debate, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D) accused Johnson of caring more about his wealthy donors than helping hard-working Wisconsinites. (Associated Press)

The Wesleyan Media Project found that 90 percent of the ads aimed at helping Johnson were focused on attacking Barnes, who called it “an unprecedented amount of negative spin against me.”   

The blizzard of negative ads helped drive down Barnes’s favorable rating to 40 percent and his unfavorable rating to 44 percent, according to a Marquette Law School poll conducted from Oct. 24 to Nov. 1.  

Barnes had nearly a 5-point average lead in the polls until Sept. 13 and then Johnson began to swiftly close the gap, passing his rival in the polls on Sept. 20 and then building a comfortable lead.  

Johnson was viewed as the Democrats’ best chance of defeating a Senate Republican incumbent this cycle after President Biden won the state in 2020 by 20,000 votes, or less than a percentage point.  

Although Barnes led Johnson in polls throughout the summer, the Republican Senator closed the gap heading into the fall. (Getty)

He won his first Senate election in 2010 as an outsider candidate who rode to victory on the Tea Party-fueled wave that helped Republicans capture the House that year. He defeated Sen. Russ Feingold (D) in what was a major upset at the time.  

Johnson beat Feingold again in a 2016 rematch, when the GOP incumbent was again considered an underdog. He was left for dead in the final weeks of the campaign when the National Republican Senatorial Committee canceled plans to spend $800,000, projecting that then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton would carry the state that year.

Johnson is the senior Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and would take a lead role in investigating the Biden administration, especially political influence in the FBI and Department of Justice, as well as the president’s son Hunter Biden.  

Alex Henning, Johnson’s spokeswoman, told The Hill: “The senators’ priorities with a GOP majority and his role as Chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations would be uncovering and exposing the truth regarding our miserably failed response to COVID-19, corruption and politicization of federal law enforcement and our intelligence agencies and continuing our ongoing investigation into the corruption of Hunter Biden and the Biden family.” 

Source: TEST FEED1