The Gop Has Yet To Land A Single Top Recruit To Run For The Senate Anywhere In The Country
The surest way that Republicans can stop whatever legislative agenda President Biden has in mind after the 2022 midterm elections is to win a majority in the US Senate.
Even more than the House, a simple majority in the Senate could let Republicans gum up everything from gun control legislation to Supreme Court nominations.
On paper, it seems easy enough. Republicans need to win just a single seat in order to flip the 50-50 Senate and possibilities for doing so are all over the map. Given that midterm elections often benefit the party out of power, and Democrats control two out of three levers of the federal government, Republicans wouldnât be overly optimistic in assuming Mitch McConnell might soon rule the Senate again.
But here is the thing about the GOPâs chances: At this early stage, they are having problems getting good candidates to sign up. And while the historical trends look good for Republicans you canât win something with nothing.
Republicans have yet to land a single top recruit to run for the Senate anywhere in the country â even in places where they have an opportunity to flip a seat â and a good candidate could make all the difference.
In Nevada, Republicans are pinning their hopes on getting former state attorney general Adam Laxalt in the race to challenge Masto, who won in 2016 by just 3 percentage points. So far, Laxalt has not announced plans to run and he comes with baggage: he lost a bid for governor in 2018.
House Republicans Voice Optimism On Winning Back The House Following Special Election Victories
Coming on the heels of two special election wins, House Republicans are feeling a new sense of optimism about their odds of taking back control of the lower chamber, with National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom EmmerThomas Earl EmmerCrypto industry seeks to build momentum after losing Senate fightTrump-backed Mike Carey wins GOP primary in Ohio special electionJuan Williams: Biden’s child tax credit is a game-changerMORE saying he feels the House is more than just in play.;
While independent political forecasters have largely projected that Republicans face a steep uphill climb to win back the majority citing the number of retirements, the number of seats that flipped in the midterms and the fact that Democrats have a cash advantage top GOP lawmakers say Rep. Mike Garcia’s victory over Democrat Christy Smith in a competitive swing district indicates political analysts may be underestimating the partys momentum.;
The Garcia election in Los Angeles I think was a wake-up call to all the skeptics out there that in the middle of all of these difficult challenges, a Republican just flipped a seat in the suburbs of L.A., and that hasnt been done in 22 years, House Minority Whip Steve ScaliseStephen Joseph ScaliseLouisiana delegation asks for additional relief funding after IdaFEMA has funds to cover disasters for nowWatch live: Scalise holds news conference on Afghanistan MORE told The Hill.;
Al Weaver contributed.
Gerrymandering Texas Could Help Republicans Take Back The House In 2022
HOUSTON Fort Bend County was a sleepy suburban outpost of Houston when KP George arrived in the late 1990s, dominated by conservative politics and represented in Congress by Republican Party star Tom DeLay.
Twenty years later, the areas population has more than doubled in size, driven by fast-growing Asian, Latino and Black communities that in 2019 helped elect George an immigrant from southern India as Fort Bends first non-white county judge.
The wave of left-leaning voters that elevated George and other Democrats to local office in recent years may also help the area land a new congressional district. Texas gained two House seats in the 2020 U.S. Census, driven by a population boom in the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan regions, among other parts of the state.
But the Republican-controlled state legislature will be in charge of drawing the new districts, leaving Democrats on the sidelines, worried they may not benefit from the regions changing demographics.
You feel like youre not being counted, George said. My county is benefitting from people like me. But when it comes to the seat at the table , we dont have it.
Redistricting is a byzantine process that plays out behind closed doors, but the stakes are high. New congressional and state legislative lines will remain in place for the next decade, giving the parties that benefit most from redistricting considerable clout in policymaking and upcoming elections.
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Democrats And Republicans Vote Straight In Line With Their Parties
Every Republican voted no Wednesday as the Democratic-led U.S. House passed the $1.9 trillion legislation. No Senate Republican voted for the bill when it;came before that chamber;Saturday.
During weeks of debate,;Republicans said the bulk of the spending would go;to an array of items unrelated to COVID-19 from Amtrak railroad service to arts and humanities programs.
Former President Donald Trump issued a short statement after the bill’s passage Wednesday, taking credit for development of COVID-19 vaccines in what could be a glimpse into Republican talking points.;
If I wasnt President, you wouldnt be getting that beautiful shot for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldnt be getting it at all. I hope everyone remembers! Trump said.
The bill; to Americans, extends unemployment benefits, addresses child poverty and health care programs;and speeds up programs to supply COVID-19 vaccinations and school reopenings; all items Democrats frequently tout.
Chris Taylor, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said “the;American people will remember that House Republicans voted against cutting childhood poverty in half” and “getting stimulus checks into the hands of struggling Americans,” among;other benefits.
“House Republicans left American families out to dry,” he said. “The people won’t forget that.”;
Its Not All Bad News For Democrats
While it was unquestionably a good night for Republicans, Democrats still held onto most of the seats they won in 2018 and will continue to be the majority party in the House. Thats in part because they retained most of the suburban districts they picked up in 2018.
Of the 233 seats that Democrats held coming into the election,2 186 of them were in districts that were predominantly or partly suburban in nature, according to density categorizations by Bloombergs CityLab. Thus far, Democrats have lost seven of those seats, but they captured one GOP-held suburban seat around Atlanta. And thanks to redistricting, theyve also won two formerly Republican seats around Greensboro and Raleigh in North Carolina, which reflect the partys strength in more populous areas.
Because of their relative success in the suburbs, Democrats kept many seats in places President Trump won in 2016. Coming into the election, Democrats held 30 seats in districts Trump carried in 2016, and they wouldve lost their majority if theyd lost more than half of them . But theyve won 18 of them so far and picked up one from the GOP . In fact, more than half of Republicans gains have come in seats representing places that Trump won by a pretty sizable margin in 2016. Well have to wait a bit before data can tell us how congressional districts voted in 2020,3 but for now it seems many Republican gains were made by picking off the lowest-hanging fruit.
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The Justice Department Puts States On Notice About Election Audits And Voting Changes
“If they’re going to try to rely on rigging this game, because they don’t have a plan for the future and they can’t talk to the voters about their ideas and their vision, well, I think that makes me proud to be a Democrat.”
Maloney also posits that GOP turnout will be depressed in an election that doesn’t feature former President Donald Trump himself.
“There’s no evidence that this toxic Trump message will motivate voters without Trump on the ballot,” he says. “If the other side is making one big mistake, I think that might be it, which is a doubling down on this toxic Trump message of division and anger and racism and yet there’s no evidence they can pull out voters with the message without the messenger.”
He points to Texas Republican Jake Ellzey as a recent example. Ellzey was sworn in to the House on Friday, days after winning a special election that saw him defeat a Trump-backed candidate.
Maloney underscores: “It seems like the Trump endorsement’s not what it used to be.”
Here are more highlights from his conversation with NPR’s Susan Davis.
On polarization in Congress:
On the Republican Party:
On his own reelection in 2022:
I Do Not Buy That A Social Media Ban Hurts Trumps 2024 Aspirations: Nate Silver
sarah: Yeah, Democrats might not have their worst Senate map in 2022, but it will by no means be easy, and how they fare will have a lot to do with the national environment. And as we touched on earlier, Bidens overall approval rating will also make a big difference in Democrats midterm chances.
nrakich: Yeah, if the national environment is even a bit Republican-leaning, that could be enough to allow solid Republican recruits to flip even Nevada and New Hampshire. And then it wouldnt even matter if Democrats win Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
One thing is for sure, though whichever party wins the Senate will have only a narrow majority, so I think were stuck in this era of moderates like Sens. Joe Manchin and Lisa Murkowski controlling every bills fate for at least a while longer.;
sarah: Lets talk about big picture strategy, then, and where that leaves us moving forward. Its still early and far too easy to prescribe election narratives that arent grounded in anything, but one gambit the Republican Party seems to be making at this point is that attacking the Democratic Party for being too progressive or woke will help them win.
What do we make of that playbook headed into 2022? Likewise, as the party in charge, what are Democrats planning for?
With that being said, the GOPs strategies could still gin up turnout among its base, in particular, but its hard to separate that from general dissatisfaction with Biden.
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Rising Violent Crime Is Likely To Present A Political Challenge For Democrats In 2022
But there are roadblocks to fully enacting Democrats’ agenda. Their thin majorities in both chambers of Congress mean nearly all Democrats have to get on board with every agenda item in order to push through major legislative priorities. And without adjusting or eliminating the legislative filibuster in the Senate, Democrats need 10 Republicans to join them for various legislation a near-impossible task.
Will 2022 Be A Good Year For Republicans
A FiveThirtyEight Chat
Welcome to FiveThirtyEights politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.
sarah : Were still more than a year away from the 2022 midterm elections, which means it will be a while before we should take those general election polls too seriously. But with a number of elections underway in 2021, not to mention a number of special elections, its worth kicking off the conversation around what we do and dont know about Republicans and Democrats odds headed into the midterms.
Lets start big picture. The longstanding conventional wisdom is that midterm elections generally go well for the party thats not in the White House. Case in point: Since 1946, the presidents party has lost, on average, 27 House seats.
What are our initial thoughts? Is the starting assumption that Republicans should have a good year in 2022?
alex : Yes, and heres why: 2022 will be the first federal election after the House map are redrawn. And because Democrats fell short of their 2020 expectations in state legislative races, Republicans have the opportunity to redraw congressional maps that are much more clearly in their favor. On top of that, Republicans are already campaigning on the cost and magnitude of President Bidens policy plans to inspire a backlash from voters.
geoffrey.skelley :Simply put, as that chart above shows, the expectation is that Democrats, as the party in the White House, will lose seats in the House.;
nrakich : What they said!
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Possible 2010 Or 2014 Midterm Repeat
Big bets on policy also don’t necessarily pay off at the ballot box, a lesson Democrats learned a decade ago when they passed the Affordable Care Act. President Barack Obama’s domestic policy achievement also helped decimate congressional Democratic majorities in the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections.
It’s just one reason why Republicans feel good about their chances in 2022, along with structural advantages like the redistricting process, where House districts are redrawn every decade to reflect population changes. Republicans control the process in more states and are better positioned to gain seats.
“This deck is already stacked, because they’ve been gerrymandering these districts,” Maloney says. “And now they’re trying to do even more of it and add to that with these Jim Crow-style voter suppression laws throughout the country.”
He maintains that efforts among Republican-led state legislatures to enact more voting restrictions show the party has a losing policy hand for the midterm elections.
Jim Jordan: Biden Has Not Done One Thing Right Gop Will Take Back House In 2022
OPINION: This article contains commentary which reflects the authors opinion
Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan says that Joe Biden has not done one thing right and that he thinks Bidens incompetence will cost Democrats next year.
During an interview on FNCs FOX News Primetime, Jordan said Republicans will take back control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2022 midterm elections.Guest host Tammy Bruce said, What is your message to the American people as we deal with the unfolding disaster of the Biden administration?Jorden said, Well, yeah, defend anyone who gets attacked. These people running for school board because they
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Republicans Winning Money Race As They Seek To Take Over House In 2022
By Alex Rogers and Manu Raju, CNN
The National Republican Congressional Committee announced Wednesday that it had raised $45.4 million in the second quarter of 2021, the most it has ever raised in three months of a non-election year, as Republicans seek to take over the House in 2022.
This story has been updated with additional developments Wednesday.
Republicans Are Well Positioned To Take The House In 2022
Although we dont yet know the winners of some House races, we can already look ahead to the 2022 midterms and see a fairly straightforward path for the GOP to capture the House. Midterm elections historically go well for the party thats not in the White House, and the out-of-power party is especially likely to do well in the House, since every seat is up for election .
Since the end of World War II, the presidential party has lost an average of 27 House seats in midterm elections, as the chart below shows. No matter how many seats Democrats end up with after 2020s election at this point, they will probably end up somewhere in the low 220s a loss of that magnitude would easily be enough for Republicans to retake the House.
The recent history of midterms in a Democratic presidents first term seems especially promising for the GOP, too. Following Bill Clintons election in 1992, Democrats lost more than 50 seats in 1994, and after Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, Democrats lost more than 60 seats.
If Democrats had added five to 10 seats this year, they could have survived a 20-seat loss in the midterms. Instead, Republicans will probably need to win fewer than 10 seats to gain a slender majority in 2022.
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Top Republicans Think Taking Back House And Senate Would Force Biden To Center
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says if Republicans can win back control of Congress in the 2022 midterms, it would force President Joe Biden into a political corner.
Speaking at an event in his home state of Kentucky, McConnell says Americans will have a big decision to make come midterms when control of the House and Senate will be up for grabs.
Do they really want a moderate administration or not? If the House and Senate were to return to Republican hands that doesnt mean nothing will get done, McConnell said.
What I want you to know is if I become majority leader again its not for stopping everything. Its for stopping the worst. Its for stopping things that fundamentally push the country into a direction that at least my party feels is not a good idea for the country. I could make sure Biden makes his promise to be a moderate, he added.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested Monday that he would block a Supreme Court nominee in 2024 if Republicans regain control of the Senate after the 2022 midterm elections.
— USA TODAY
One of the things McConnell would be guaranteed to block from Biden would be a Supreme Court nomination, much like he did with former President Barack Obama and his last nominee, Merrick Garland.;
The Democrats hold a slim lead of nine seats in the House with all 435 seats up for grabs.
