Pelosi: Virginia Loss Won’t Change Democrats’ Path On Reconciliation Infrastructure
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Wednesday morning the upset win by Republican Glenn Youngkin in Virginia’s governor’s race isn’t going to affect Democrats’ plans to pass their massive reconciliation spending bill and the bipartisan infrastructure bill in Congress, Fox News’ Kelly Phares reported.
“No,” Pelosi said when asked if the election will change the House’s agenda.
Some moderates were warning that a failure to pass the infrastructure bill might be hurting McAuliffe, while progressives argued that Democrats needed to go big to energize their base to get out and vote.
Those debates are likely to continue with even more intensity with not only a GOP win in Virginia, but the outcome of the New Jersey gubernatorial race still in doubt.
Glenn Youngkin: Win For Republican In Virginia Governor Vote
Republican Glenn Youngkin has been elected as Virginia’s next governor in a major upset, with his Democratic opponent conceding the race.
The ballot has been widely seen as a referendum on Joe Biden’s presidency, and defeat will unnerve the Democrats.
He won by 10 points in Virginia in the presidential election just a year ago.
But rising inflation, a slow economic recovery, a deadlocked legislative agenda and the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan have hit his popularity.
In a speech to cheering supporters, Mr Youngkin promised to get to work straight away to transform the state.
“We work in real people time, not government time,” the Republican declared.
Mr McAuliffe served as governor from 2014-18. His opinion poll lead vanished in recent weeks, and in a statement after his loss said he had “come up short” but insisted the state remained on a path towards “inclusion, openness and tolerance for all”.
The state’s current, Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, was unable to stand for re-election as Virginia does not allow governors to serve consecutive terms in office.
In more potential good news for Virginia Republicans, their candidate, former US Marine Winsome Sears, is tipped to become the first black female lieutenant governor of the state, which was the former seat of the pro-slavery Confederacy during the American Civil War.
In other elections across the US on Tuesday:
Education A Mobilizing Factor For Virginia Voters
Voters across Virginia told USA TODAY that education, specifically Critical Race Theory, was one of the key reasons they cast a ballot in the commonwealths pivotal gubernatorial race between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin.
Youngkin has leaned into parents anger over education during the race. His campaign and supporters criticized McAuliffe for comments he made during a gubernatorial debate on Sept. 29. I dont think parents should be telling schools what they should teach, McAuliffe said.
Critical Race Theory is a legal framework that examines how systemic racism continues to permeate U.S. law and society. Virginia public schools do not currently teach Critical Race Theory in K-12 levels.
GOP voter Walter Foreman, 23, said he supports Youngkins plan to ban Critical Race Theory. This election is about parents rising up and demanding whats best for their kids, said Foreman, who voted in Manassas.
Retirees Bob and Judy Allen support Youngkin because they want parents to be able to object to curriculum that involves Critical Race Theory. If my kids were to be educated right now, I wouldnt put them in Fairfax County schools. I would probably homeschool them, Judy Allen said.
McAuliffe called the battle over Critical Race Theory a racist dog whistle.”
Retired public schoolteacher Mary Wagner, switched from supporting the Republican party to volunteering for Democrats because of the education issue.
Read Also: How Many States Are Controlled By Republicans
Runoff Likely In Atlanta Mayoral Race
ATLANTA Former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed is trying to return for a third term and City Council President Felicia Moore is seeking to move up to the top spot as voting concludes Tuesday in the city’s mayoral race.
Confronting rising crime has been a major focus, but candidates have also addressed concerns about affordable housing, bolstering struggling city services and keeping the wealthy Buckhead neighborhood from seceding. Attacks on Reed over corruption in his administration have been a major subplot, although Reed says the federal investigation regarding him was closed without charges.
With a total of 14 candidates in the nonpartisan race, a Nov. 30 runoff is likely. Other top candidates include attorney Sharon Gay and council members Andre Dickens and Antonio Brown, with large numbers of voters undecided.
Meanwhile, Republicans are watching for any mistakes in Atlanta that could justify a state takeover of elections in heavily Democratic Fulton County, under a sweeping new state law approved amid unproven claims of fraud by former President Donald Trump and his allies.
The race was jolted when Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced in May that she wouldn’t seek a second term. Bottoms broke a decades-long tradition of mayors serving eight years, saying she wasn’t interested in a reelection bid. The last Atlanta mayor who served only a single term was Sam Massell, who lost to Maynard Jackson in 1973 as African Americans took power in city government.
Associated Press
Federal Standards For Voting By Mail
This bill would let everyone request a mail-in ballot and require a minimum amount of drop boxes to drop it off once its filled out.
Would any Republicans support this? Probably not after Donald Trump made a big deal during the 2020 election about states expanding mail-in voting during a pandemic. Trump tried to raise doubts about a new way of voting for most Americans to question the integrity of the vote. Despite no evidence of widespread fraud, mail-in voting and drop boxes have become policies that Republicans in some states Trump lost are actively trying to curb.
But before the 2020 election, a number of states and localities had mail-in voting that elected both Democrats and Republicans, and very few if any Senate Republicans raised any objections.
Also Check: Difference Between Republican Party And Democratic Party
Republican Presidential Nomination 2020
| Presidential election changes in response to the coronavirus pandemic |
The Republican Party selected President Donald Trump as its presidential nominee at the 2020 Republican National Convention, which was held from August 24-27, 2020.
Prior to the national convention, individual state caucuses and primaries were held to allocate convention delegates. These delegates vote at the convention to select the nominee. Trump crossed the delegate threshold necessary to win the nomination1,276 delegateson .
George H.W. Bush was the last incumbent to face a serious primary challenge, defeating political commentator Pat Buchanan in 1992. He was also the last president to lose his re-election campaign. Franklin Pierce was the first and only elected president to lose his party’s nomination in 1856.
Sixteen U.S. presidentsapproximately one-thirdhave won two consecutive elections.
Promotion Of Conspiracy Theories
Before and throughout his presidency, Trump has promoted numerous conspiracy theories, including , the theory, , and . In October 2020, Trump retweeted a QAnon follower who asserted that was still alive, a had been killed in his place, and that “Biden and Obama may have had killed.”
During and since the 2020 presidential election, Trump has promoted various conspiracy theories for his defeat including the “dead voter” conspiracy theory, and without providing any evidence he has created other conspiracy theories such as that “some states allowed voters to turn in ballots after Election Day that vote-counting machines were rigged to favor Mr Biden and even that the FBI, the Justice Department and the federal court system were complicit in an attempt to cover up election fraud.”
Also Check: House Senate Races 2016
Virginia Counties Can Start Counting Absentee Ballots At 3pm
Virginia counties can start counting absentee ballots beginning today at 3pm ET, meaning that counting is likely underway already across the state, according to the Associated Press.
It means that mail ballots can be counted and released on Election Night soon after the polls close at 7pm, meaning that we will have our first indication at that point of how the night might turn out.
Counties are expected to release the results of their mail ballots first, followed by early in-person votes and then the votes cast at polling places on Election Day.
Democrat Eric Adams Elected New York City Mayor Defeats Longshot Curtis Sliwa
Eric Adams, the former police captain who campaigned on a message of public safety, was elected New York City mayor Tuesday.
Adams will become New York’s second Black mayor and inherit a city at a pivotal time in economic recovery from the pandemic.
Adams, a Democrat, defeated longshot Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa after he narrowly won his party’s nomination in June during a crowded Democratic primary.
The Brooklyn borough president and former state senator will replace the term-limited Mayor Bill de Blasio in January.
Ryan Miller
Don’t Miss: Republican Lapel Pins
Virginia: Youngkin Leads Big But Outstanding Votes Remain To Be Counted
With 54% of the vote counted, Republican Glenn Youngkin enjoyed a double-digit lead over Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor’s race but the Associated Press and the networks held off on projecting a winner because many Democratic areas have yet to report.
“Virginia governor’s race too early to call,” CNN said shortly after 8:30 p.m.
Virginia has also to count absentee and mail-in votes, and those could well favor McAuliffe.
The Democratic candidate did sound a note of resignation in an e-mail thanking supporters.
“So when the results of this election come in win or lose we can rest assured that we did everything we can to create the future that we want,” McAuliffe said.
– David Jackson
Nbc News Poll: 50 Percent Of Republicans Doubt Their Vote Will Be Counted Accurately
WASHINGTON Theres been a significant decline over the past year in voters who think their vote will be counted accurately, a trend driven mainly by Republicans most of whom still believe false claims that President Joe Biden didnt legitimately win the 2020 election, according to a new NBC News poll.
Two-thirds of all registered voters, 66 percent, say they are confident their vote will be counted accurately, down from 85 percent in October 2020. And 29 percent say they are not confident that their vote will be counted accurately in the future, compared to 11 percent who said the same a year ago.
While Democrats have stayed steady on the issue , Republicans’ confidence in the vote has fallen dramatically as former President Donald Trump has spent much of the past year making baseless and false claims about fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Last year, 84 percent of Republicans said they were confident in the vote count, about on par with Democrats. But now, 41 percent of Republicans share that view, while 50 percent say they are not confident their vote will be counted accurately.
Theres been a slight uptick in distrust among independents, too from 84 percent confident and 13 percent not confident in October 2020 to 76 percent confident and 22 percent not confident now.
Over that time, the vast majority of Republicans said that Bush’s election was legitimate, but the portion of Democrats who said the same grew from 20 percent to 32 percent by November.
You May Like: Trump Used To Be Democrat
Republican Mike Carey Wins Ohio House Seat
Republican Mike Carey, a coal lobbyist, won the House seat in Ohio’s 15th Congressional District, according to the Associated Press.
Carey defeated Democrat Allison Russo, who was endorsed by President Joe Biden, in the Republican-leaning district. The election was held to replace former Rep. Steve Stivers, a Republican, who resigned his seat for a role in the private sector.
Sean Rossman
Minneapolis Voters Reject An Amendment To Replace The Police Department
MINNEAPOLIS Minneapolis residents rejected an amendment on Tuesday that called for replacing the citys long-troubled Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety, The Associated Press projected.
The ballot item emerged from anger after a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd last year, galvanizing residents who saw the policing system as irredeemably broken. But the amendments failure showed that even in a liberal city where skepticism of the police runs deep, many Americans are not prepared to get rid of the police.
Minneapolis leaders now face the challenge of filling staffing shortages in a Police Department that is about a third smaller than it was before Mr. Floyds killing, and at a time when the city is facing the most homicides since the mid-1990s. Even though voters were bitterly divided over the charter amendment, the city has been largely united in a view that meaningful reforms to policing are needed.
We all agree that we cant sustain as we are now with the way policing has been, said Brian Herron, the pastor of a church on the citys North Side and an opponent of the amendment. But he added: We dont have time to reimagine. We got bodies dropping in the streets. We got innocent folk being killed.
Supporters of the measure had framed it as an opportunity to rethink law enforcement and perhaps become a national model for a different approach.
Nate Cohn
Richard Fausset
Recommended Reading: Did Trump Call Republicans Stupid In 1998
Virginia Governor’s Race ‘litmus Test’ For National Elections Voters Say
Voters outside the Dorothy Hart Community Center in Fredericksburg said they cast their votes Tuesday in hopes that the outcome of the gubernatorial election would have ripple effects across the nation.
Andrew Brunson, a 25-year-old line cook and student at Carnegie Mellon University, said he voted for Democrat Terry McAuliffe in a tight race that he thinks will be a litmus test for future elections.
Ive been proud of the progress Virginia has made in the past four years, and Youngkin is very much a symptom of the hyper-right Trumpism radicalism taking over the country, Brunson said. Weve got to hold our ground.
Jimmy Whitman, a 47-year-old custom homebuilder, who canvased with his wife Tuesday afternoon for Republican Glenn Youngkin, said he thinks a Youngkin victory would encourage voters to favor more moderate conservatives in national elections.
McAuliffe vs. Youngkin:How this suburban school board became the hottest issue in the Virginia governor’s race
We hope it sets a tone for the rest of the country that if moderates can win Virginia, we can do well throughout the country, he said.
Barbra Anderson, a 55-year-old teacher at King George High School, who voted with her mother and son, said she favors bipartisanship but voted for McAuliffe to give Democrats the best footing in the midterm elections.
If the Democrats lose Virginia, the Democrats will lose 2022, Anderson said. Unfortunately, we have Terry McAuliffe, who I think is a weak candidate.
Trump Claims Aoc Never Studied Climate Crisis And Dismisses Environmental Threats
Former President Donald Trump unloaded on the Democratic Party in a wide-ranging interview on a conservative broadcasting network early Wednesday after it was reported that Republicans had won the Virginia governors mansion and performed well in other key races.
Speaking about President Joe Bidens trip to Glasgow, Scotland for the COP26 climate summit, Mr Trump characterised Mr Bidens mission abroad as a failure while seemingly claiming that the Democrats climate provisions in the two-pronged infrastructure package working through Congress were the creation of Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive who has called for much further drastic action on the issue.
Targeting the young congresswoman as he often does, Mr Trump claimed: It came from AOC, who never even studied climate. They just made up the stuff.
They talk about it, they have no idea whats going to happen, he added, apparently referring to predictions from leading scientists around the world regarding sea-level rise and the frequency of severe weather.
Mr Trump also repeatedly claimed, without explanation, that nuclear weapons were the real climate change that US lawmakers should be worried about.
The risk we have is nuclear weapons. Thats your climate change, Mr Trump said, without mentioning which countrys nuclear program to which he referred.
Read more:
Trump unloads on Democrats in interview after GOP victories in Virginia, Ohio
Don’t Miss: How Many Senate Democrats
Red States And Blue States
Since around the 2000 United States presidential election, red states and blue states have referred to states of the United States whose voters predominantly choose either the Republican Party or Democratic Party presidential and senatorial candidates. Since then, the use of the term has been expanded to differentiate between states being perceived as liberal and those perceived as conservative. Examining patterns within states reveals that the reversal of the two parties’ geographic bases has happened at the state level, but it is more complicated locally, with urban-rural divides associated with many of the largest changes.
All states contain both liberal and conservative voters and only appear blue or red on the electoral map because of the winner-take-all system used by most states in the Electoral College. However, the perception of some states as “blue” and some as “red” was reinforced by a degree of partisan stability from election to electionfrom the 2000 election to the 2004 election, only three states changed “color” and as of 2020, fully 35 out of 50 states have voted for the same party in every presidential election since the red-blue terminology was popularized in 2000.
Ohio Special Election Tests Presidential Endorsements
Ohios 15th congressional district could be another litmus test for the endorsement of the two major political party leaders.
President Joe Biden jumped into the districts special election with an eleventh-hour endorsement of Democratic state Rep. Allison Russo on Monday. Former President Donald Trump already had backed Republican Mike Carey, a coal lobbyist.
The two candidates are running in a district that favors the GOP to replace former Rep. Steve Stivers, a Republican who resigned to take a job in the private sector.
Carey also has gotten a boost from national Republican groups and a campaign visit from former Vice President Mike Pence, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
Rick Rouan
Recommended Reading: What Is Difference Between Democrats And Republicans
