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Government programs have become one big fraud-fest

How much of America’s $30.7 trillion national debt is a result of fraud? A lot, and it’s growing exponentially.

Eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse” is a standard political campaign mantra. It almost never happens. And while the problem has grown worse over the years, federal COVID-19 relief and the Biden administration have goosed the surge.

Here’s how New York Times reporter David A. Fahrnethold began a recent news article, “In the midst of the pandemic, the government gave unemployment benefits to the

 incarcerated, the imaginary and the dead. It sent money to “farms” that turned out to be front yards. It paid people who were on the government’s ‘Do Not Pay List.’ It gave loans to 342 people who said their name was ‘N/A.’”

The magnitude of the fraud is matched only by the magnitude of government incompetence. Pervasive fraud in government programs has spread from endemic to pandemic. And the feds are well aware of the problem.

In April, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) provided its latest update on the extent of the problem: “For fiscal year 2021, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reported that federal agencies had estimated about $281 billion in improper payments, which was an increase of about $75 billion from the prior fiscal year and approximately double the amount reported in fiscal year 2017.”

Note the improper payment doubling in just five years, from 2017 to 2021.

Worse yet, the GAO adds: “[T]his estimate is likely understated since it doesn’t include improper payments related to COVID-19 funding (such as the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection).”

The GAO defines “improper payments” as “payments that shouldn’t have been made or were made in the incorrect amount.” In other words, improper payments aren’t all fraud, but a lot of it is.

The improper payments estimate may also be low because “the government still doesn’t fully understand the size of federal improper payments, partly because it doesn’t have complete, reliable, or accurate estimates,” explains the GAO.

With respect to the COVID relief programs, the fraud is mindboggling, what some prosecutors are calling the largest fraud in U.S. history.

NBC tallies up some of the known and suspected fraud:

• $80 billion for the COVID relief plan known as the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP);

• $90 billion to $400 billion for the COVID unemployment program; and

• $80 billion from the COVID disaster relief program.

In June, House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) blamed President Trump for the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, which was overseen by the Small Business Administration (SBA). That’s a ludicrous accusation.

Both Democrats and Republicans were eager to get the first pandemic relief legislation out in a matter of days, and neither party paid attention to the potential for fraud. The subsequent pandemic relief bills that passed in 2020 were also bipartisan. And President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which passed in February 2021, was a Democratic party-line vote.

Democrats controlled the House and Senate in 2020. As majority whip, Clyburn could have demanded appropriate steps to control fraud before passing the bills. He didn’t. Nor did any other Democratic leader.

Moreover, Democrats have long pushed to expand federal programs that were rife with fraud.

Take Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for the poor. Democrats vastly expanded Medicaid in the Affordable Care Act (i.e., ObamaCare), with little effort to address systemic fraud in the program. And it has grown significantly since the pandemic began.

Last January, the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), a private, nonprofit, conservative-leaning public policy group, released a report on Medicaid’s improper payments. It notes that Medicaid now covers 89 million people at a cost of nearly $700 billion per year. While the national improper payment rate for Medicaid is about 22 percent, FGA says it can reach nearly 50 percent in some fraud-prone states.

FGA points out that “Virtually all improper payments are due to eligibility errors, administrative oversights, or outright fraud.” And it adds, “because eligibility errors make up more than 80 percent of improper payments, countless individuals are receiving Medicaid benefits for which they are not eligible.” Whether you consider covering ineligible people fraud or abuse, it costs hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars.

Democrats have never taken major steps to expel the ineligible from Medicaid. Why would they? If you believe that every American should be in a government-run health care program, and many Democrats do, why would you go to the effort of removing those who aren’t eligible? They’re exactly where Democrats want them.

Can government limit the fraud? Only at the margins. The federal government is way too big, it hands out way too much money and government is way too inefficient to dramatically reduce fraud. To do that, government programs would have to be radically downsized or eliminated. And as the recent Build Back Better-lite legislation demonstrated, there is no desire to do that.

Merrill Matthews is a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas, Texas. Follow him on Twitter @MerrillMatthews.

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Who Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan helps the least

President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan announced on Wednesday would effectively wipe out federal loan balances for at least a third of student borrowers. 

The administration’s plan eliminates up to $10,000 per federal borrower earning less than $125,000 per year or families making less than $250,000, making it the largest ever effort toward federal student loan forgiveness.  

An extension of the federal moratorium on student loan payments was extended through Dec. 31.  

Borrowers who received a federal Pell Grant during college, and meet the income criteria, will be eligible to receive $20 million in loan forgiveness—about 7 million students receive Pell Grants every year. 

However, out of the approximately 45 million borrowers in the U.S., about 15 million have loan debt under $10,000. Millions will likely see their loan balances slightly lowered and little change to monthly payments once they resume. 

Biden’s plan does not address those borrowers who have privately held loans, with a bank or credit union, which accounts for about 13 percent of student borrowers and 8 percent of the nation’s outstanding loan debt — close to $140 billion. 

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Data shows the average student borrower owes more than $37,000 in federal student loan debt to be paid off over 20 years.   

Many borrowers who are on income-driven repayment plans — about one in every three student borrowers — also may not see their monthly payments change, as their payments are dependent on their earnings, not their loan balance. 

“If the borrower is in an income-driven repayment plan, there will be no impact on the loan payments, since those are based on the borrower’s income and not the amount owed. It is possible that it will cause the loan to be paid off in full sooner,” student loan expert Mark Kantrowitz told Changing America in an emailed statement. 

Loan forgiveness will also cost the federal government, according to Kevin Miller, associate director of higher education at the Bipartisan Policy Center, who told Changing America that there will be a loss incurred.  

“For some loans, the federal government wasn’t going to recover balances in full anyway. But forgiveness offered to borrowers who were making timely payments will be a real cost for the government,” said Miller.   

Miller also noted that the cost of forgiveness for the federal government will also be determined by the guardrails established for eligibility, like limiting the benefit to those who earn less than $125,000 annually. 

One analysis by the Brookings Institution estimated that a $10,000 loan forgiveness plan could cost the federal government about $373 billion.  

Yet Biden’s plan falls short for progressives, who pushed the president to cancel $50,000 per borrower, arguing it would help narrow the racial wealth gap, provide immediate relief to millions during a recession and become a massive consumer-driven stimulus to the economy. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders, a vocal advocate of complete student loan forgiveness, wrote on social media before reporting emerged on the administration’s expected announcement that Biden holds the power to eliminate student debt entirely given the federal government’s recent history of corporate bailouts. 

“If we can bail out Wall Street after their greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior drove us into the worst recession in modern history, then YES — we absolutely can cancel every single cent of student debt in this country,” Sanders tweeted. 

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Video shows 130-foot yacht sink into the sea

(NewsNation) — Dramatic video shows a 130-foot yacht slowly sinking into the sea.

The footage gathered by the Italian Coast Guard captured the impressive vessel being slowly swallowed up by the Mediterranean just nine miles off the coast of Italy.

The Coast Guard scrambled to rescue nine people before the yacht, named “My Saga,” went under.

The yacht, built in 2007, was equipped with six staterooms for up to 12 guests and an additional four cabins for its crew. Designed to perfectly sail the open ocean, questions have been raised as to what exactly caused the yacht to go down this week.

There have been a number of yacht incidents in the world in 2022, according to the publication Super Yacht Times.

The publication reports that eight motor yachts caught fire, three sank, two were attacked, and a 50-meter sailing yacht was hit by a rescue vessel.

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Maryland GOP governor hopeful Dan Cox deletes account from site known for hate speech, Gab

Dan Cox, the Republican nominee for governor of Maryland, has deleted his account on the social media platform Gab, which is known as a forum for hate speech. 

Cox expunged more than 1,000 posts when he took down his account, according to The Washington Post. 

The nominee also deleted a line from his campaign website in which he touted his role in trying to prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election results. 

“As one of President Trump’s volunteer lawyers in Philadelphia during the 2020 election, and in the Maryland State House, he has led the fight for election integrity,” the website previously read. 

Cox’s campaign did not immediately return a request from The Hill for comment. 

The changes come as Cox is seeking to be elected governor in a heavily Democratic state. Cox, who serves as a delegate in the Maryland state House, defeated former state Commerce Secretary Kelly Schulz in the Republican primary last month. 

Cox was backed by former President Trump while Schulz received an endorsement from incumbent Gov. Larry Hogan, a moderate Republican. The race was seen as part of a proxy war between more moderate establishment members of the GOP and Trump-endorsed hardliners. 

Hogan has slammed Cox, saying he is not “mentally stable.” Cox called former Vice President Mike Pence a “traitor” on Jan. 6, 2021, for refusing to reject the certification of the results of the 2020 election, but later apologized for those comments. 

Gab has emerged as a popular social media platform for conservatives who have criticized more mainstream platforms like Twitter for regulating certain posts for hate speech and disinformation. 

The gunman who opened fire and killed 11 at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018 made multiple antisemitic posts on Gab.

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Psilocybin assisted therapy proves effective for alcohol use disorder: study

Results of a new clinical trial show psychotherapy coupled with psilocybin,the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms,” was superior to placebo and psychotherapy alone in treating alcohol use disorder (AUD) among adults. 

Study findings were published today in JAMA Psychiatry and come on the heels of new research that shows many psychiatrists disagree with U.S. federal policy classifying the substance as a Schedule I drug. Currently, only three treatments are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for AUD: disulfiram, naltrexone, and acamprosate.

The trial was the largest yet to investigate therapeutic effects of psilocybin, and future research into the drug could yield new clues on mechanisms of its effects, and aid in identifying new treatment targets.

The double-blind, randomized clinical trial was carried out among 93 adults with diagnosed AUD who had at least four heavy drinking days during the 30 days prior to screening. Forty-eight patients received 2 administrations of high-dose psilocybin over the course of 12 weeks of manualized psychotherapy, while 45 individuals received diphenhydramine (Benadryl) at the same time periods as a placebo. All study participants underwent therapy.

Drugs were administered during two-day long medication sessions at weeks four and eight, and outcomes were assessed at 32 weeks following the first dose of each medication. At week four, participants received either  25 mg/70 kg of psilocybin or 50 mg of diphenhydramine. At week eight, doses were increased to 25-40 mg/70 kg of psilocybin or 50-100 mg of the placebo. 

Throughout the follow-up period, 9.7 percent of those who received psilocybin reported heavy drinking days compared with 23.6 percent of the placebo group, marking a nearly 14 percent difference.

Hair or fingernail samples assayed for ethylglucuronide (EtG) concentration to confirm self-reported abstinence were only available for 53.8 percent of treated participants, authors noted.

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Mean daily alcohol consumption was also lower in the intervention group while no serious adverse events were reported in this cohort. Headaches, anxiety and nausea were common side effects among those who received psilocybin. 

All participants had not used any hallucinogen drugs within the past year or reported less than 25 uses throughout their lifetimes. Participants were also not currently undergoing any other treatments for their AUD.

“Although this was, to our knowledge, the first controlled trial of psilocybin for AUD, these findings are consistent with a meta-analysis of trials conducted in the 1960s evaluating LSD as a treatment for AUD,” authors wrote. LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide, is another hallucinogen. 

Despite the limited adverse effects seen in this trial, researchers emphasize these cannot be generalized to all psilocybin use, as the drug was administered in a controlled setting and medications to treat acute psychiatric reactions were on hand. 

In addition, “diphenhydramine was ineffective in maintaining the blind after drug administration, so biased expectancies could have influenced results,” marking a limitation of the study.

Results might also not be generalizable to individuals with more severe AUD and researchers were unable to study outcomes based on subgroups. Future studies are needed to address these questions and investigate whether results are sustained beyond 32 weeks. 

AUD remains underdiagnosed and undertreated in the United States, authors wrote in an accompanying editorial, as less than 9 percent of adults with AUD currently take an FDA-approved medication for the condition. Alcohol-related deaths are also the third most common preventable deaths in the United States.

Another important question raised by the trial “is the extent to which a hallucinogenic experience is required for psychedelic drugs to have a therapeutic effect,” while the optimal combination of medication and psychotherapy to treat AUD remains unknown. 

The intensive psychotherapy included in the trial is also resource intensive and may thus limit the use of hallucinogens in clinical practice.

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Connolly launches bid to replace Maloney atop Oversight panel

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) wasted no time this week announcing a bid to lead the Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee next year — a seat that’s soon to open up following Tuesday’s primary defeat of the current chair, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.).

Connolly, who would enter his eighth term next year, is currently fourth in line behind Maloney on the powerful committee. He’s making the case that his long experience on the panel fighting to protect government institutions, like the Postal Service, and defend federal employees — a significant constituency in his Northern Virginia district — make him the best fit for the job.

“For more than fourteen years, I have made this Committee my top priority and focused on the issues that define it: Postal reform; defending our proud federal employees; rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse; modernizing the federal government; and holding the Trump administration accountable,” he said Wednesday morning in a statement.

Maloney on Tuesday lost a contentious primary to Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), a contest that pitted two powerful committee chairs — Nadler leads the House Judiciary Committee — who have represented portions of Manhattan for decades against each other.

To win the seat, Connolly would have to leapfrog more senior members of the committee: Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.). A third lawmaker ranked higher than Connolly, Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), is retiring at the end of the term.

The offices of Norton and Lynch did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.

Unlike the Republicans, Democrats tend to favor more veteran members when it comes to filling the top seat on committees. Still, seniority provides no guarantee of winning a gavel. Indeed, the late Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) took over the top spot on the Oversight and Reform Committee in 2011 by hopping over a more veteran Democrat.

Maloney got the Oversight gavel in 2019, following Cummings’s death at the age of 68. At the time, House Democrats were in the midst of impeaching then-President Trump for the first time, and Democratic leaders, behind Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), took pains to fill the vacancy without a protracted internal fight. Although Connolly and Lynch had both expressed interest, Maloney, as second in line, secured the spot.

This year’s contest might be more spirited. With Democrats expected to lose control of the House in November’s midterm elections — and Republicans vowing to use the Oversight panel to launch numerous investigations into the Biden administration — the ranking member position will provide a high-profile perch for a Democrat to cut a national profile defending the party’s White House ally.

Connolly, who has been among the most outspoken critics of Trump’s role in last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol, maintains that he’s already proven his mettle in that arena.  

“We need a tested leader who will not be timid in the face of Republican insurrectionists. One who has a deep understanding of the issues facing our Committee and our country. A collaborator who can be a bridge to our talented and diverse caucus,” he said. “I believe I can be that leader, and look forward to earning the support of my colleagues.”

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Rep. Perry sues DOJ in effort to block access to his phone

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Penn.) has sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) to block it from accessing materials on his phone after the agency seized it earlier this month.

The filing indicates that while the government seized and made a digital copy of Perry’s phone, they are in the process of getting a warrant to review its contents.

Perry’s phone appeared to have been briefly seized in connection with the DOJ’s probe into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot following the seizure of the phones of two attorneys working closely with former President Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Perry introduced Trump to Jeffrey Clark, then an assistant attorney general at the DOJ. Trump at the time weighed installing Clark, who was willing to forward investigations into Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud, as attorney general.

Perry is claiming his phone contains privileged material, something he says would violate the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause, which protects members of Congress for actions taken in the course of their job. He also claims his phone contains information covered by attorney-client privilege and marital privilege.

“Federal agents should not be given carte blanche to root around in Rep. Perry’s phone data looking for evidence that they hope might further their investigation,” his attorneys wrote in the filing, which was first reported by Politico. 

The filing indicates Perry rejected an offer by the DOJ to review the contents of the phone jointly so long as he waived any Speech or Debate Clause protections.

The suit was filed in court last week, a little over a week after his phone was seized, but was not publicly docketed until Tuesday. 

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NBC shakes up 'Meet the Press' leadership team as streaming push continues

More changes are coming to NBC’s “Meet the Press” as the network dedicates a growing number of resources to streaming.

The show’s current executive producer, John Reiss, will serve as executive producer of “Meet the Press Reports,” a political news and talk program on the network’s streaming channel NBC News Now, which launched in 2020.

NBC has hired David P. Gelles to replace Reiss as executive producer of the Sunday broadcast on television. Gelles, who previously worked from NBC, rejoins the network from CNN, where he has overseen all of CNN’s political and special events programming since 2016 and helped launch several shows for that network’s since-defunct streaming service CNN+.

The news was shared with network staff in a memo on Wednesday from Carrie Budoff Brown, SVP of “Meet the Press.”

“John’s new role is a big step for us as a brand and I take it as an encouraging show of support from leadership that we’re able to dedicate a singular leader to Meet the Press Reports,” Budoff Brown wrote. “I know how hard the whole team has worked to make the show a reality, and it’s my hope that this new structure will begin to ease some of the very real constraints around staffing and workload we’ve experienced in recent seasons.”

Moderator and NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd also praised Reiss’s work on the longest-running show in television history.

“I can’t imagine a steadier partner to have had on Sundays over during this tumultuous period of politics. John’s sixth sense for what makes a good news broadcast, and an unflappable devotion he has to good storytelling, have kept us a step ahead of our peers for six years now,” Todd said.

In a note of his own to staff, Reiss said he will be “concentrating on growing and expanding,” “Meet the Press Reports” and working on a number of other projects for the network’s streaming services.

NBC, like each of the other major television networks, has invested heavily in streaming over the last several years, moving Todd’s daily MSNBC show to NBC News Now earlier this year.

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Several states see surge in women registering to vote following Supreme Court abortion ruling

Several states where reproduction rights are at risk are seeing a surge in women registering to vote following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade case, abolishing the constitutional right to abortion.

An analysis by Targetsmart Insights, a Democratic political data and data services firm, found that women are out-registering men by significant margins in states where reproductive rights are in danger of being repealed, such as Kansas, Wisconsin and Michigan.

In Kansas, women out-registered men by 40 percent, making  70 percent of all new registrants women. Earlier this month, the state successfully rejected a proposed amendment that would have paved the way for the Republican-led state legislature to ban the procedure.

However, Kansas was not the only state to see an increase in female voter registrations.

In Michigan, where legal battles are taking place over abortion rights, women out-registered men by 8.1 percent since the decision by the Supreme Court.

Last week, a state judge blocked county prosecutors from enforcing a 91 year-old law banning abortion in Michigan while courts consider a lawsuit seeking to overturn the law.

In Wisconsin, where it is now a felony for virtually any abortion to be performed, except in instances where it is needed to save the mother’s life, women have out-registered men by 15.6 percent since the Supreme Court’s decision.

In Louisiana, women outpaced men in new registrations by 13 percent since the decision while in Pennsylvania, women out-registered men by 12 percent.

“This isn’t just a blue state phenomena. In fact, it is more pronounced in states where choice is more at risk, or has been eliminated by the decision,” the CEO of Targetsmart tweeted.

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McConnell’s not wrong, but Democratic momentum also isn’t what it seems

The Democrats are riding a wave of successes the past few weeks. Gas prices edging downward, passage of the improbably named Inflation Reduction Act, successful meddling in Republican primaries and improving poll numbers have combined to make Biden and his compatriots believe they can win control of the Senate, and optimism is rising about the House.

But when you dig through the numbers, Democrats are getting ahead of themselves.

It is true that Democratic candidates are doing better than expected in several states and that Republican candidates, according to even GOP leader Mitch McConnell, are not exactly top quality. In fact, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Herschel Walker and Dr. Mehmet Oz are Biden-level gaffe machines. But McConnell is likely engaging in more than a little gamesmanship of lowering expectations. He also wants to make sure any blame for not taking the majority gets pinned squarely on Donald Trump.

The main ballgame is control of the Senate. Democrats are desperate not just to prevent a GOP majority, but to grab two seats and escape the clutches of Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). In addition, it would be extremely improbable to retain control of the House. Outside of the 2002 election in the aftermath of 9/11, since 1994 the president’s party has lost an average of 53 seats in each respective mid-term.

Republicans have a challenge in that they are defending 21 seats against the Democrats’ 14, although most of the GOP seats are in safe territory. The real battlegrounds are five Republican seats: Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and four Democratic seats: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and New Hampshire.

After a depressing Spring, the Democrats and their backers in the media became bullish on their prospects through July and August. However, that optimism was built on a clutch of partisan polls with suspect results and low sample sizes, and a marked lack of independent polls over the summer.

For example, the anti-GOP Center Street PAC in Ohio put Republican J.D. Vance behind Democrat Tim Ryan by 11 points. Even Ryan’s own campaign could not bring itself to be that brazen, releasing a poll that had Ryan leading by just 3 points. But hopes for a Democratic romp are looking rather thin with Emerson College just releasing a poll putting Vance ahead by 3 points and the Trafalgar Group showing Vance with a 5-point lead. Trafalgar is a GOP pollster, but their polling in 2020 and 2021 has a strong track record — and is generally in line with non-partisan results.

While the Democratic partisan polls have put their candidates ahead in every competitive race, independent and Republican polls have produced numbers that show a mixed bag. Republican candidates are running strongest in Ohio, North Carolina and Florida. In North Carolina, Republican Ted Budd has led Democrat Cheri Beasley, with only one recent GOP poll putting them even. In Florida, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio has been well ahead of Democratic challenger Val Demings, with the sole exception of a recent University of North Florida poll. In Nevada, Suffolk has Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto ahead 45 percent to 38 percent over Republican challenger Adam Laxalt, while Trafalgar has Laxalt up by 2 points.

McConnell’s concerns and Democratic optimism are vindicated in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In each, the independent polling puts the Democratic candidate ahead. In Arizona, Sen. Mark Kelly has never trailed Republican Blake Masters, with Fox News putting Kelly up 8 points. In Pennsylvania, Dr. Oz is in need of campaign CPR if you believe Fox News, which has him behind Democrat John Fetterman by 11 points, although Trafalgar puts the margin at just 4 points. In Wisconsin, Johnson — the incumbent Republican — lags Mandela Barnes in both the Marquette Law and Fox News polls.

The numbers are not the whole story

Senate Democrats have two major problems that they simply cannot solve: the disadvantage of holding the White House and a recent history of bad polling.

The bottom line for mid-term elections is that they are bad for the president’s party. Even with a likely drag from the Dobbsdecision and the unending, unhelpful antics of Trump, Republicans look to get a boost just from being out of power. Undecided voters are more likely than not to move away from the party in power.

Adding two or three points to each Republican Senate candidate is a good rule-of-thumb. Following that rule, Republicans would take Ohio, North Carolina, Florida and possibly Nevada. Herschel Walker in Georgia would be in a dead heat with incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, and Donald Bolduc would be right on the heels of New Hampshire’s Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan. That puts control of the Senate on a razor’s edge.

Even more concerning for Democrats should be the terrible polling in 2020 and 2021. In both years, the media polls overestimated Democratic strength. And that overestimation was most severe at the state level. As bad as the state-level polling was on Trump’s numbers, it was terrible for Senate races. GOP incumbents assumed to be in trouble or in tight races breezed to re-election. Polling was mixed in 2021 with most of the non-partisan polls off from three to eight points in New Jersey. The Virginia polling was better, but those results were complicated by Trump’s late endorsement of Glenn Youngkin — an unhelpful intrusion that likely cost Youngkin votes.

The bottom line is that control of the Senate is still very much in doubt.

While Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are looking to be very difficult, only Arizona looks like it is slipping out of reach. Given the tightness of the races and the cyclical advantage Republicans hold, it would not take much to push several of their candidates over the top for a majority.

The alternate is also true. The determination of Trump to meddle in races and his continued high unpopularity are a significant drag for Republicans. Given his penchant for self-destruction, he could well end up being a bigger millstone for GOP candidates that Joe Biden is for the Democrats.

McConnell could have hardly expected the slow wind-down of his political career to be derailed by an amateur campaign strategist like Donald Trump. Nor could he have imagined that Trump could pick a series of dud candidates in critical races. But the structural advantage of being out of power and the low popularity of Biden could still bail out the Republicans and make him majority leader. But make no mistake: If Republicans fail to gain the majority, McConnell is going to make certain he is not the one to take the fall.

Keith Naughton, Ph.D., is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm. Naughton is a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant. Follow him on Twitter @KNaughton711.

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