2022 U.S. Congressional (and Other) Elections

[N.E. Brigand]

The Republican candidate for Senate from Arizona, Blake Masters, appears to be somewhat hypocritical regarding U.S. relations with China. He's called for a ban on Chinese nationals even working for U.S. companies (which I think is an extreme position) and he's said that his boss, the venture capitalist "Peter Thiel[,] and I have basically avoided doing business with China at all costs ... to my knowledge, there’s not a single startup that Peter invested in or that I invested in at Thiel Capital that’s Chinese." But as shown in the article at that link, that's not true.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Former GOP governor (and former Democratic nominee for governor) Charlie Crist has won the nomination to take incumbent Florida governor Ron DeSantos. An uphill battle for sure.

And longtime NY representative Jerry Nadler (Chair of the Judiciary Committee) has defeated longtime NY representative Carolyn Maloney (Chair of the Oversight Committee) in a district that was combined from parts of both of their districts.

[RoseMorninStar]

Sean Ryan (D) has won the congressional seat in a special election in NY State. :o

[Voronwë the Faithful]

On that note:

Yes, Special Elections Really Are Signaling A Better-Than-Expected Midterm For Democrats

[RoseMorninStar]

OOops. I got the Ryan's first name wrong. I had Pat and then changed it because I thought I had him mixed up with someone from Michigan..

[N.E. Brigand]

Blake Masters, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Arizona, has removed language from his website that said he opposes all abortion rights.

And the Republican nominee for Secretary of State Attorney General in Arizona, Abe Hamedah, has cut references to Donald Trump's endorsement from his website.

Edited to correct the position for which Hamedah is running. Also I'll note that as a teenager fourteen years ago, Hamedah boasted on social media that he (1) voted before he was old enough to do so and (2) altered his mother's mail-in ballot. Ironically, he claimed to have (illegally) voted for Barack Obama.

[N.E. Brigand]

President Joe Biden's approval rating the Gallup poll has risen six points in a month to 44%, which while still underwater, "puts him in better standing in the August before midterm elections than five predecessors over the past 40 years -- Ronald Reagan in 1982, Bill Clinton in 1994, George W. Bush in 2006, Barack Obama in 2014, and Donald Trump in 2018."

Mind you, the President's party still lost seats in at least one of the two houses of Congress in all five of those elections.

1982 -- Republican president, 41% approval >>> Senate: Democrats +1; House: Democrats +26
1994 -- Democratic president, 41% approval >>> Senate: Republicans +8; House: Republicans +54
2006 -- Republican president, 40% approval >>> Senate: Democrats +5; House Democrats +31
2014 -- Democratic president, 42% approval >>> Senate: Republicans +9; House Republicans +13
2018 -- Republican president, 41% approval >>> Senate: Republicans +2; House: Democrats +41

It's especially worth noting that Barack Obama's approval rating in August 2010 tied Biden's now at 44%, and Obama's party went on to lose 6 seats in the Senate and 63 seats in the House. On the other hand, as noted above, Donald Trump's approval in 2018 was three points worse than Biden's now, but Trump's party picked up 2 seats in the Senate. The fact that Democrats in 2014 managed to lose "only" 13 seats in the House is partly a function of them having already lost so many seats in 2010 (and having only picked up 8 seats in 2012).

The poll finds that the improvement in Biden's rating comes mostly from independent voters.

[N.E. Brigand]

Blake Masters, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Arizona, has removed language from his website that said he opposes all abortion rights.

Masters not only removed anti-abortion language from his campaign website, but he's blocked the Internet Archive ("Wayback Machine") from accessing it, apparently intending that no one can look up past versions of the site to see how he's (pretending to have) changed his positions to appeal to independent Arizonans. And reportedly it's Masters himself who managers the campaign website.

But there are screenshots at that link, as well as links to further proof on other internet archives.

[N.E. Brigand]

Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee in Pennsylvania's gubernatorial race, apparently is paying the right-wing social media site Gab for followers: every new account there now automatically follows Mastriano's account. When a reporter contacted the company's anti-Semitic* CEO to ask about this, he replied as follows:

We're taking back this country for the glory of God and there's absolutely nothing you can do to stop us. We are playing the long game and unlike most of you, we have children and thus the future belongs to us because we are raising them up with a Biblical worldview.

Keep writing, you're only making us stronger and galvanizing support from the base. After six years you guys still don't get it and it's hilarious. Repent now and accept Jesus Christ in your heart. Every knee will bow, yours included.

God bless!

*One example of the CEO's anti-Semitism is his claim to be "building up a parallel Christian society because we are fed up and done with the Judeo-Bolshevik one." Another would be how he boasted about the number of visitors Gab received after the maniac who killed eleven people in 2018 at the Tree of Life synagogue (in Pittsburgh, i.e., in the state Mastriano seeks to lead!) was found to have been a frequent poster there. And yet Mastriano agreed to be interviewed by Gab's CEO and told him: "Thank God for what you have done."

The Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, was recorded in 2020 praising Confederate sympathizers.

At Gettysburg.

Which was the site of a famous battle when the Confederacy invaded Pennsylvania.

The men that Mastriano commended were supposedly there to protect a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

In 1863, Pennsylvania's governor Andrew Gregg Curtin, a Republican, was very active in the Union war effort, and was closely involved in the effort to stop Lee at Gettysburg. I imagine that a majority of Pennsylvanians at the time would have cheered if Lee had been killed there.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

In a similar vein:


As a result:

GOP Leaders Endorse Democrat for Pennsylvania Gov. After Republican Candidate Seen Wearing Confederate Uniform

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Things keeping looking better and better for the Democrats, though I still think that they will almost certainly lose the House (with all that will mean). Current 538 numbers are 67-33 for the Senate 24-76 for the House, a considerable movement.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

More evidence of things going better than expected for the Democrats.

[River]

NPR did a feature on her yesterday. She sounds like someone we badly need in government right now.

[Dave_LF]

Palin was the John the Baptist of Trumpism. I still remember the way my guts clenched up hearing the violent anti-Obama chants from her crowds—rhetoric that seems absolutely civilized compared to what those people have become under Trump.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Well she can still win the seat in November.

[N.E. Brigand]

Do Democrats now control a majority of House delegations?

Elections analyst Dave Wasserman notes: "The amount of land mass represented by House Democrats just went up by 104%."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I don't believe so, know, even though they flipped Alaska. I'm pretty sure that they had a lead of 3 or 4 states, with a few ties.

[N.E. Brigand]

Many Republicans are now complaining that since Republican candidates collectively won 60% of the votes in the Alaska special election, that shows that ranked choice voting is unfair. But the Democratic candidate, Mary Peltola, was also the leader after the first slate of votes were tabulated. The problem for Republicans was that they split their first-choice votes between Sarah Palin and Nick Begich and that Sarah Palin just isn't very popular: many people who picked Begich as their first choice either picked Peltola or no one as their second choice.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

If this persists, I would say the chances of Tim Ryan holding his lead in the polls will go up.

'Where's J.D.?:' Vance's Ohio Senate campaign prompts GOP concerns

Let's see what 538 is currently saying ...

... still giving Vance a 73% of winning. I'll be interested to see if that changes in the next few weeks. Overall, the Democrat's chances of holding the Senate are up to 69%, while their chances of holding the House are up to 25%.

[N.E. Brigand]

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the major PAC supporting Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, is being led this election cycle by Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who is perhaps best known for having helmed a company that defrauded Medicare for at least $1.7 billion.

The NRSC has raised more than $181 million this for 2022 -- a vast sum -- but has spent 95% of those funds in a largely failed effort to identify new regular small donors.

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In other news, the Republican nominee to be Michigan's lieutenant governor apparently was hanging out today with members of "Three Percenters" militia, a group which played a role in the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Later today, he deleted that photo from his social media account, claiming that at the time, he didn't notice the militia flag he was standing right next to.