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GOP governor criticizes Trump-backed candidates in Arizona, Pennsylvania

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) on Sunday lambasted Republican candidates running for governor in his home state and in Pennsylvania that have received former President Trump’s endorsement.

Ducey, who is supporting Karrin Taylor Robson in Arizona’s GOP gubernatorial primary, told CNN “State of the Union” co-anchor Dana Bash that his endorsed candidate is the “real conservative” while condemning Kari Lake, who is backed by Trump, for her support of unfounded election fraud claims in 2020.

“Kari Lake is misleading voters with no evidence,” said Ducey.

“She’s been tagged by her opponents with a nickname, ‘Fake Lake,’ which seems to be sticking and actually doing some damage. Karrin Taylor Robson started from zero, and now this is a margin-of-error race.”

The contest is one of many where Trump has put his thumb on the scale to support candidates who back his doubts over the presidential election results.

This year’s elections in Arizona and other swing states will determine many officials who will oversee a potentially contentious 2024 election apparatus.

Trump in Arizona has also endorsed a supporter of his voter fraud claims in the race for secretary of state, Arizona’s top election official.

Trump said last week he has made up his mind about running in 2024 but hasn’t yet decided whether he will announce before or after the midterms.

When asked about Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano — a Trump-backed candidate who has also put forth unfounded claims of election fraud — Ducey, the chair of the Republican Governors Association, declined to say if the group would support Mastriano.

“We will be looking at this map,” he said on CNN. “We will be looking at the resources we have. And we don’t know what September and October are going to hold.”

But Ducey wasn’t coy about his personal views on Mastriano.

“I think that the people of any state would be better served by a governor who believes in the people, believes that small businesses should be allowed to operate, and believes that children should be in classrooms,” Ducey said.

“I also think this election should be about the future,” he added. “I don’t think we should think for one more moment about 2020.”

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Young voters flee Biden — but who is the alternative?

A New York Times poll making waves in the swamp this week shows President Biden polling at 33 percent nationally, marking the lowest approval rating of any first-term president since Harry S. Truman. 

But when peeling off the layers of this onion, the numbers get even more pungent. Nearly two-thirds of Democratic voters don’t want Biden to seek a second term. Most think Biden, who would be well into his 80s at the end of a second term, is just too old.

The 46th president’s age seems to have caught up with him, and that’s a growing concern to his advisers.

“Some aides quietly watch out for him,” reads a recent Times story. “He often shuffles when he walks, and aides worry he will trip on a wire. He stumbles over words during public events, and they hold their breath to see if he makes it to the end without a gaffe.”

The U.S. has become a gerontocracy, a society governed by old people. Biden will be 80 years old in November. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is 82. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) is 83. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is 80. And get this: If an age limit of 70 years were applied to Congress, an eye-popping 71 percent of lawmakers would be forced to retire.

The 2020 presidential election was an extremely close contest in the all-important Electoral College. If Georgia, decided by roughly 12,000 votes; Arizona, decided by about 10,000 votes; and Wisconsin, decided by fewer than 21,000 votes, had gone the other way, we would have had Trump the sequel since Republicans controlled a majority of state delegations, which serve as a tiebreaker. 

Young voters played a crucial role in pushing Biden over the top in those states, along with other thin margins in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Young voters supported Biden over Trump 58-38 in 2020. No age group favored Biden more, per an analysis from the non-partisan Pew Research Center. The 20-point margin was likely decisive to Biden’s victory.

But in 2022, voters under the age of 30 have almost completely abandoned the president. According to the Times poll released last Sunday, 94 percent of voters 18-29 do not want Biden to run again in 2024. You read that correctly. 94 percent. 

“The presidency is a monstrously taxing job and the stark reality is the president would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a second term, and that would be a major issue,” said former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod recently.

 “I have just turned 80 and I have found over the last two or three years I think it would have been unwise for me to try to run any organization,” Republican strategist David Gergen recently shared with the Times. “You’re not quite as sharp as you once were.” 

So, with many Democrats, and particularly Millennials, wanting to move on from Biden, who exactly could be an alternative? Former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton? Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.)? Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)? Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg? Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)? 

History suggests it’s too early to tell. Per the Washington Post in April 2014: 

“In a hypothetical matchup, Clinton leads former Florida governor Jeb Bush — seen by many GOP establishment figures as the party’s strongest general-election candidate — 53 percent to 41 percent.” 

Jeb would go on to get trounced by a candidate not mentioned in the 2014 Post piece, which included 11 others including everyone from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to former Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.): Donald Trump.

And recall the coronation-headlines of Hillary Clinton from 2005 regarding her supposedly certain 2008 party nomination. 

You may recall that Clinton’s likeliest opponent at the time was seen by many to be former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Of course, Barack Obama bested Clinton for the nomination and went on to win the presidency at age 47. Rudy’s campaign lasted only a few months.

The lesson? It’s difficult to predict more than two years out who will capture either party’s nomination. 

But one thing is looking increasingly clear: Joe Biden is in serious, serious trouble. Age is issue, but his performance on everything from the economy to crime is quite another. If things were going well on these key issues, Biden’s age might be forgiven. But they’re not.

Time is not on Biden’s side. But time is the one thing Democrats have. The question is whether a viable alternative to Biden will emerge in the next two years. Only time will tell.

Joe Concha is a media and politics columnist.

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Rick Scott says voters not focused on Trump ahead of midterms

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) on Sunday said voters are not focused on whether Donald Trump is running in 2024 and are more pressed about issues such as high inflation and crime.

Scott told “Fox News Sunday” anchor Shannon Bream the November midterm elections will be about “gas prices and food prices” not on whether Trump announces another presidential bid.

“This year is going to be a referendum on [President] Biden, it’s pretty simple,” the senator said. “It’s not going to be about ’24, it’s going to be about ’22.”

Trump last week said he has made up his mind about entering the presidential race and the “big decision” was whether to announce his run before or after the November midterms.

The news drew some fears from Republicans, who are expected to make big gains in Congress but may struggle to reclaim seats if Trump distracts from core issues such as inflation.

Scott said despite Trump’s mulling, voters are focused what is affecting their everyday lives. He added the GOP is well-positioned for the elections because of what he called Biden’s “do-nothing” agenda, which voters are “fed up” with.

“People are focused on what’s happening to them,” the senator told Bream. “It’s going to be about three issues: inflation, my kids getting a good education and living in a safe community. And the Democrats are on the wrong side of those issues.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Luria says committee has to 'get to the bottom of' whether Secret Service deleted Jan. 6 records

Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), a member of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, said on Sunday that the committee was examining whether the Secret Service deleted text messages from Jan. 6.

When asked by CNN “State of the Union” co-anchor Dana Bash about recent conflicting accounts of the agency’s preservation of texts from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, Luria said the committee was “looking into this.”

“That’s what we have to get to the bottom of,” Luria said.

“There’s a requirement for federal agencies to maintain records,” she continued. “An agency that was such a key part of a critical event in our history — one would assume they have done everything possible to preserve those records, to analyze them, to determine what kind of things went right or went wrong that day.”

The committee subpoenaed the text messages and other Secret Service records surrounding Jan. 6 after the Department of Homeland Security inspector general sent a letter to the House and Senate Homeland Security committees stating that the text messages were deleted as part of a “device-replacement program.” 

The Secret Service pushed back on the letter, saying the agency had been cooperating with the inspector general’s investigation and claiming they did not “maliciously delete” text messages. 

Luria on Sunday noted that the committee was working to see if the records still exist or could be recovered.

“We want to make sure that we understand the bottom line, where are these text messages?” she said. “Can they be recovered? And we’ve subpoenaed them because they’re legal records that we need to see for the committee.”

The Secret Service has come under pressure for the reportedly deleted texts and its actions on Jan. 6.

Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, testified publicly to the committee last month that she heard then-President Trump lunged at the steering wheel and an agent in his presidential vehicle following a rally on Jan. 6 where he was demanding to join his supporters at the Capitol.

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Child endangerment: Florida preparing to charge parents who pay smugglers to bring kids to US

Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis last month filed a petition with the Florida supreme court requesting permission to impanel a statewide grand jury to investigate immigration-related criminal offenses in section 905.34 of the Florida Statutes, which includes child endangerment offenses.

Specifically, he seeks to prosecute for child endangerment parents who use transnational criminal organizations to smuggle their unaccompanied alien children into the United States.

Petition highlights

The petition notes that unaccompanied children who are brought here by transnational criminal organizations or other illicit actors are subjected to serious dangers. 

Many are assaulted, raped, kidnapped and/or killed. They are used to traffic drugs and weapons, as well as for laundering money. Unaccompanied alien children, especially the young girls, often are sexually exploited. And the journey itself is treacherous. Smugglers have to cross rugged terrain, which exposes the children to harsh environmental conditions.

Almost all of them who make it are placed with family members who are already in the United States. According to the petition, in the first six months of fiscal 2021, 91 percent of them were released to a sponsoring family member.

The number of unaccompanied alien children who have entered the United States and been placed with a sponsor is staggering: In fiscal 2021, it reached 107,686. The total so far in fiscal 2022, is 61,143. And, according to the petition, 11,145 of them were brought to Florida in fiscal 2021. The number has reached 6,659 so far in fiscal 2022.

The situation is made even more dire by the Biden administration’s failure to remove the undocumented immigrants who are here already.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody agrees with DeSantis. “As a mother, protecting children is close to my heart,” she said. “We cannot turn a blind eye to traffickers and smugglers exploiting the border crisis to subject children to extremely dangerous conditions.”

Florida supreme court’s decision

The Florida supreme court granted DeSantis’s petition.

It issued an order to impanel a statewide grand jury for a period of 12 months to investigate crime, return indictments, and otherwise perform all functions of a grand jury with regard to the offenses listed in section 905.34 of the Florida Statutes.  

The  decision provides examples of these offenses, such as –

• “(a) parents, guardians, or other family members of unaccompanied alien children who have conspired with transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) or other illicit actors to smuggle, and thus endanger, their children;” and …

• “(c) persons and organizations who are involved, directly or indirectly, in transacting with TCOs, their members, or other illicit actors to smuggle or traffic unaccompanied alien children or other illegal aliens to Florida.”

Possible defense against child endangerment charges

Presumably, parents who use smugglers to bring their children here from Central America think their children face more danger in Central America than they would on the journey to the United States in the care of the smugglers.

Would this be acceptable as a defense to criminal child endangerment charges under Florida law? 

I doubt it, but I am an immigration lawyer, not a criminal lawyer. I am sure, however, that the effectiveness of such a defense would depend on the circumstances in each case. And the circumstances would have to be established in criminal proceedings, which would subject the parents to a risk of a prison sentence if their defense is rejected.

Fear of being prosecuted on child endangerment charges may encourage parents who have or are going to bring their children to the United States in the care of smugglers to find another state to live in. In fact, this may be why DeSantis wants to be able to prosecute them. 

Moreover, the grand jury may identify other immigration-related offenses that are being committed by lawbreakers who will not arouse as much sympathy as parents doing what they have to do to give their children a chance to live in the United States. 

Are the unaccompanied children able to remain in the United States?

According to the Department of Homeland Security Fiscal Year 2020 Enforcement Lifecycle Report, only 4.3 percent of the 290,000 unaccompanied alien children who came here between fiscal 2014 and fiscal 2019, were returned to their own countries — 95.7 percent were still in the United States.

But only 28 percent of them were granted some form of relief. The rest presumably will live in the shadows of our society with the fear of being deported hanging over their head like the Sword of Damocles.

An alternative?

The persecution claims of unaccompanied children can be considered in their own or nearby countries.  This would make it possible for them to find out whether their claims are legitimate without having to make the dangerous journey to the United States in the hands of smugglers.

Biden has taken a step in that direction already. He restarted the Central American Minors (CAM) program to reunite qualified Central American children with parents who are lawfully present in the United States.

The original CAM program did not live up to expectations. According to the fiscal 2018 Proposed Refugee Admissions report to Congress, it was phased out because the vast majority of the participants were not eligible for refugee resettlement.

To be successful — and to help unaccompanied children — the program would have to be expanded.

With some exceptions, Biden’s CAM program just reunites qualified children with parents or legal guardians who are lawfully present in the United States. Biden would have to include all of the unaccompanied alien children if he wants the CAM program to be an alternative to making the dangerous journey to the United States.

This would only help unaccompanied children who have legitimate persecution claims, but our laws do not offer refugee status or asylum to the ones who don’t.

Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an Executive Branch Immigration Law Expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years. Follow him at https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/2306123393080132994

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Ducey condemns Biden fist-bumping 'murderers and despots'

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) on Sunday condemned President Biden’s recent trip to Saudi Arabia, saying he should instead focus on increasing domestic energy supply to stem high gas prices.

“President Biden is flying to the Middle East and fist bumping with murderers and despots asking for more supply,” Ducey told CNN “State of the Union” co-anchor Dana Bash.

“What he could do is open up the Keystone pipeline,” Ducey continued. “What he could do is work with America, energy leaders and provide more supply of fossil fuels of clean energy and solve this crisis.”

Biden has received criticism for fist bumping and meeting with Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who U.S. intelligence concluded that he ordered the killing of Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. 

The Biden administration portrayed the trip to Saudi Arabia as primarily a visit to a Gulf Cooperation Council summit, but the meeting with the crown prince was largely seen as an appeal for Saudi Arabia to increase oil production.

The White House for weeks downplayed Biden actually meeting Salman face-to-face, portraying it as the two men merely being in the same room as part of a larger meeting with Saudi leaders.

Biden has declared fighting inflation and high gas prices as his top economic priority, but Ducey and others argue the president should center efforts on increasing domestic supply to solve the problem.

U.S. field production of crude oil has increased by 9 percent since Biden took office but remains below pre-pandemic levels.

Biden has put forth other proposals for stemming the high gas prices, including a federal gas tax holiday and calling on governors to do the same at the state level.

Some states, like Georgia, have moved to suspend their gas taxes, but a federal suspension appears to have stalled without sufficient congressional support.

“We’re not going to do anything in Arizona that’s temporary or a gimmick or puts my successor in a terrible spot with the voters,” Ducey said on Sunday when asked if he would back a state gas tax suspension. 

“We’re going to have good policy here and Joe Biden could lead from the White House as well,” Ducey said.

U.S. gas prices had peaked at just over $5 a gallon before falling in recent weeks to a national average of $4.53, according to AAA. 

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Biden economic adviser: 'Nobody can see reliably around the corner' on gas prices

White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein said on Sunday he expected gas prices to continue falling through the end of July but cautioned that he couldn’t predict the cost too far into the future.

“Nobody can see reliably around the corner when it comes to those prices falling a couple of quarters away,” Bernstein, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, told CNN “State of the Union” co-anchor Dana Bash.

Gas prices had peaked at just over $5 a gallon before falling in recent weeks to a national average of $4.53 as of Sunday, according to AAA. 

But an internal Treasury Department analysis, reported by The Washington Post, indicates that a planned partial ban of Russian oil shipments to European Union countries set to take effect on Dec. 5 could send the price of oil soaring 50 percent above today’s levels. Bernstein on Sunday cast doubt on that projection.

“I would say, really don’t pay a lot of attention to those forecasts, because it’s just too much volatility,” Bernstein said. “What I can say is that I think it’s very likely that gas prices continue to track down, say for the rest of this month.” 

Meanwhile, annual inflation ending in June soared to a nearly 41-year high of 9.1 percent, with a surge in oil prices helping drive the increase. 

The Biden administration has cast the report as “out-of-date”, noting the recent drops in both oil and gas prices that the report did not factor in.

“We have more work to do in that space,” Bernstein said on Sunday, adding that President Biden does not view the recent drop as a “mission accomplished.”

“But it gives Americans a little bit of breathing room at the pump,” he said.

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NASA’s James Webb Telescope reveals the beauty of the universe

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is now operational. The latest space-based observatory, a joint effort by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, has returned the first images of the vast universe.  

One reason why many are fascinated with space is that the universe is beautiful. Who has seen images of stars, nebulae, galaxies, planets and even moons and has not felt awe?

In the past few decades, space-based telescopes have enhanced astronomy, unclouded by Earth’s atmosphere. The Hubble Space Telescope has not only advanced our knowledge of the universe, but our appreciation for its beauty with the images it has returned.

Now, it is the Webb Telescope’s turn to add to the knowledge and reveal the beauty of the universe.

NASA revealed the first image at the White House to President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. The image was of a galactic cluster, a colorful array whose light had come across over 13 billion years. The image was replete with details about how galaxies formed toward the very beginning of the universe. As spectacular as the image is, it represents only a tiny portion of the night sky.

The next day, NASA revealed four more images taken by the Webb telescope, each more spectacular than the last. They are:

• The Carina Nebula: “This landscape of ‘mountains’ and ‘valleys’ speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula.”
• Stephan’s Quintet: “a visual grouping of five galaxies, is best known for being prominently featured in the holiday classic film, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’”
• The Southern Ring Nebula: “The dimmer star at the center of this scene has been sending out rings of gas and dust for thousands of years in all directions.”
• Wasp-96-B: “the distinct signature of water, along with evidence for clouds and haze, in the atmosphere surrounding a hot, puffy gas giant planet orbiting a distant Sun-like star.”

Later, NASA released JWST images of Jupiter and some of its moons, taken with its near infrared camera. The images proved that the space telescope could show nearby objects within our solar system as well as distant stars and galaxies.

The Webb telescope was 25 years in the making. Its slipping schedule and ballooning costs had caused some to suggest that it was a fiscal black hole. Its launch and deployment was so complex that it was a $10 billion gamble.

The Webb telescope has survived all of the technical, fiscal and political challenges that beset it over the long years of its design and construction. It will spend the next 20 years, at least, ferreting out the secrets of the universe with its infrared and near infrared imaging technology.

From time to time, critics of big science projects like the Webb telescope wonder if the time and resources spent to bring them into being might not be better spent on other priorities, such as solving the social ills of poverty, hunger and environmental degradation. The late Richard Feynman suggested that science has an intrinsic value because the knowledge thus won allows us to make and do things that we would otherwise not be able to.

The critic might respond that, yes, that might be an argument for applied science research, such as an effort to discover cures for diseases or ways to produce more food cheaper. Does that principle apply to astronomy and astrophysics, which might not have any obvious practical applications?

No one can know in advance what practical results of projects like the Webb telescope will be. We cannot know the unknown until we set out to know it.

Besides, as mentioned before, the images being returned by the telescope are beautiful in the same way that a great work of art is. The beauty of the universe, and its ability to inspire, has its own value and is well worth the cost and effort to reveal it.

Mark R. Whittington is the author of space exploration studies “Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?” as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond,” and “Why is America Going Back to the Moon?” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. 

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Fringe GOP nominees give Democrats hope for the midterms

Republicans have every reason to be optimistic about their party’s political prospects in this year’s midterm elections.

Democrats are widely blamed for soaring inflation, President Biden’s approval rating just hit a record low and the GOP has approximately a 2-point advantage in the generic ballot for Congress. On top of that, the party of the president has lost House seats in every midterm election — except for two — since 1946 and has only gained Senate seats in four.

Even though it is essentially a guarantee that the GOP will win control of the House, the fate of the Senate is much less uncertain. Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight rates the Senate as a toss-up and gives Republicans a 53 percent chance of taking control of the chamber; comparatively, his forecast gives the GOP an 88 percent chance of winning the House.

Ultimately, this pronounced disparity is explained by the fact that, in several key toss-up Senate races, Republicans are running weak candidates whose extreme positions, lack of experience or personal embattlements make them far more vulnerable in a statewide race than a more mainstream Republican would be.

In the race for Pennsylvania’s open Senate seat, which is being vacated by Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, the progressive Democrat John Fetterman leads Trump-ally and television doctor Mehmet Oz in every general election poll conducted thus far, and FiveThirtyEight’s forecast model gives Fetterman an advantage.

During a red-wave election year in a purple state like Pennsylvania, one would expect a progressive candidate like Fetterman to fare much worse than his Republican opponent, especially in an open-seat race. However, Oz has a very high negative rating coming out of the primary because of opponent David McCormick’s effective attacks, and has few, if any, ties to Pennsylvania.

In Georgia, the GOP is also running a celebrity Senate nominee with no experience, who seems to be even less viable as a general election candidate than Oz, notwithstanding the fact that Georgia leans further right politically than Pennsylvania.

Former NFL star Herschel Walker, Trump’s handpicked nominee, has been embattled in a number of problematic personal scandals, including the discovery of three children he told staff he did not have and lying about working in law enforcement. Walker also openly espouses conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election, COVID-19 and evolution.

As a result, Walker is underperforming Georgia’s G.O.P. gubernatorial nominee Brian Kemp by roughly four points in public polling. Though Georgia is one of the redder swing states, both FiveThirtyEight and The Cook Political Report rate Walker’s race against incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock as a toss-up. 

In Arizona, another purple state, Trump-backed venture capitalist Blake Masters will likely be the Republican candidate facing incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who FiveThirtyEight gives a slight edge in their forecast.

Masters is one of the most politically extreme GOP Senate candidates in a swing state. He is a staunch proponent of far-right conspiracy theories, including Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ about the 2020 election and the anti-immigrant Great Replacement Theory. He is also anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion and anti-American aid to Ukraine, placing him well out of the mainstream.

In Nevada, Republican Adam Laxalt, former state attorney general, is running against Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. While Laxalt supports Trump and largely embraces the right’s 2020 election lies, he is an experienced politician who is considered somewhat more mainstream within his own party compared to Oz, Walker and Masters.

The result of this toss-up Senate race — between an establishment Democratic incumbent and an experienced Republican — will arguably be more indicative of Democrats’ overall midterm performance than the races in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona. Indeed, a Cortez-Masto victory could signal pared-down House and state-level losses for Democrats this year.

To be sure, Democrats are by no means a shoo-in to win any of these races — or control of the Senate — in November. However, the G.O.P.’s failure to nominate more moderate and palatable candidates in these key statewide races is giving Democrats a reasonable chance of retaining their slim Senate majority, even in a red-wave election year.

On the other hand, the fact that these Senate races are rated as toss-ups — even with Republicans running fringe candidates — is indicative of how favorable the national political climate is for the G.O.P. 

And to be sure, if 2022 ends up being a red-wave election like 1994 or 2010, the weakness of individual GOP candidates will be less important than the overall pro-Republican tide.

In that same vein, the Biden administration’s policies on the border and immigration could end up badly hurting both Cortez-Masto and Kelly, notwithstanding the individual positions these candidates might well take.

If Democratic candidates in these swing-state Senate races — and national Democrats as a whole — aren’t able to effectively sell themselves as a reasonable and moderate alternative to extreme Republicans, President Biden and his party will face several trying years in opposition in both the House and Senate.

Douglas E. Schoen is a political consultant who served as an adviser to former President Clinton and to the 2020 presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg. He is the author of “The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise and America in Retreat.”  

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Have you considered that the Democrats aren’t actually doomed?

If the media are to be believed, Joe Biden will be put out to pasture any day now, even before he can oversee the midterms, which are billed to be a “nightmare,” “ominous,” and a “wipeout,” depending on the source.

And I don’t deny that there’s good reason for concern. President Biden’s approval rating hit an all-time low in the past few days with only 36 percent approval in the latest CNBC survey. Inflation remains the top issue for Americans and 69 percent of voters disapprove of how Biden is handling the economy. What’s more, 88 percent think the country is on the wrong track and only 26 percent of Democrats report that they want Biden to be the nominee in 2024.

Taken together with the fact that a president’s party usually does poorly in the midterms and Republicans have been favored on the generic ballot for several months, it doesn’t look good for Democrats in November.

But there is an emerging counter-narrative that isn’t making its way into written and TV commentary and deserves consideration. Plus, who doesn’t like a little game of devil’s advocate?

Bear with me here.

The generic congressional ballot has been the centerpiece of the “Democrats are doomed” narrative. There were certainly polls, like an ABC/Washington Post survey that found the GOP with a 10-point advantage that made it seem impossible Democrats would come out of the midterms losing fewer than 50 seats. Today, things look different. With the new New York Times/Sienna and Politico/Morning Consult polls, there have been 11 independent polls of the generic congressional ballot since Roe v. Wade ended and the Democrats have led overall. They now hold a 2.2-point advantage in the post-Roe polling world. And if the election were held today, Republicans would gain seven House seats — enough to regain control of the House but far from a red wave.

Gas prices increased through the first half of 2022 and were a major component of voter dissatisfaction with the Biden administration. Having peaked at over $5 a gallon, it’s easy to see why. But they have been declining for four weeks, and not just by a few cents per gallon. They’re down just shy of 40 cents from a month ago and energy analysts say American consumers are spending $140 million less on gas today than they were four weeks ago. If the drop in prices continues, we are on track to be under $4 a gallon by the middle of August. If that happens, a core element of the case against Democrats is substantially weakened. It doesn’t fix inflation, which will persist, but it’ll make a big difference.

We’ve witnessed a divergence in Biden’s approval and support for Democrats overall. As Nate Silver wrote recently in FiveThirtyEight, Biden’s popularity may not tell us much about the midterms. If you look at crucial Senate races in states such as Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania, Democratic candidates are outperforming Biden by huge margins. According to recent polling, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) holds a 3-point edge over Herschel Walker, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) leads JD Vance by 9 points, and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is up 9 nine points over Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania. Biden is underwater in all three states, and in Georgia, for example, a split-ticket voter is emerging with Kemp-Warnock voters becoming a potentially serious factor in the election.

No one in their right mind would argue that abortion will supplant inflation or the economy as the most important issue to Americans, but the shift in significance to voters is undeniable. It has jumped to the fourth most important issue overall in FiveThirtyEight polling and 19 percent rank it as their leading concern, up from 9 percent in early June. Republicans are scrambling to deal with the consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe and having to contend with horror stories like the 10-year-old from Ohio who was raped and forced to go to Indiana for an abortion. With some prominent Republicans such as Indiana’s Attorney General Todd Rokita saying the license of the doctor who performed the procedure should be investigated, Republicans are far out of step with Americans who support the right to abortion, albeit with some restrictions. The potential for this to backfire on the GOP is tremendous; they look more like zealots than protectors of life.

The last bright spot for Democrats worth mentioning is that, according to recent reporting, Donald Trump not only will run for president again in 2024 but wants to announce his candidacy before the midterms. Between the impact of the Jan. 6 hearings on Trump’s support, and the rise of other potential candidates such as Florida Gov. Ron Desantis, who is surging in Republican rankings overall and leading the president in his home state of Florida, Trump is rightfully worried about losing his grip on the party. Throwing his hat in the ring before the midterms gives Democrats a great opportunity to seize upon one of politics’ most successful messages: We can’t let Trump back in the White House. 

Biden’s ratings may be terrible, but he still beats Trump in a head-to-head matchup, 44 percent to 41 percent. Not only is the prospect of Trump on the ballot a huge boon for Democrats, there’s always the hope that he will continue to spew his lies about the authenticity of the 2020 election and perhaps, if Democrats are really lucky, tell his supporters not to turn out since the election is rigged anyway, as he did in the Georgia runoffs last time around.

In my wildest dreams, I would not allow myself to think the Democrats will hold the House. But there is ample evidence to suggest they could avoid the predicted shellacking and retain the Senate. If that happens, Biden would have overseen one of the most successful midterms for the party in power in decades.

Bottom line: Voters may be sour on Biden, but that doesn’t mean they’re sweet on Republicans.

Jessica Tarlov is head of research at Bustle Digital Group and a Fox News contributor. She earned her Ph.D. at the London School of Economics in political science. Follow her on Twitter @JessicaTarlov.  

Source: TEST FEED1