for the first time in recent months, in a poll of registered voters, conducted after the "Mar A Lago" search warrant was executed, cost of living is no longer the most critical issue facing the country. the top 3 most critical issues are as follows: 21 % of voters rank "threat to democracy" as the most critical issue, 16%, down from 30+ %, pick "cost of living", 14% pick "jobs and economy" in view of this emerging trend, the Repugs need to come up w a new rhetorical attack on the Biden presidency
They're literally running a tv snake oil salesman with a 9 figure net worth as their candidate and they're trying to make Fetterman be the elitist/out of touch candidate.
More Republican underperformance in the two Congressional special elections in NY. We're now up to 5 special elections of consistent Republican underperformance relative to expectations.
Dems hold NY-19 in a big upset. What a failure by the GOP. They even nominated an excellent candidate and still lost. Well you definitely can't feel optimistic about a red wave if you're the GOP. They are consistently underperforming in the specials post-Dobbs and this was in New York where abortion rights aren't even threatened. For reference this was a Biden +1 district. The Rs should have easily flipped this and instead the Dems are somehow holding this. These are the kind of districts that Rs have to win to take the House and the expectation was that they'd have little difficulty in doing so.
I've been saying this years ago...GOP going to regret the SCOTUS returning Roe to the states. Doesn't help that many of them are doubling down on the stupid and hinting that if they win they might do a federal ban and then you have these states moving to bans ASAP. Just doubling down on a clearly unpopular policy. Abortion going to be on the ballot every election now and all these people that told me it wasn't an important issue were wrong. It's been rising in importance every time it's polled on now because now people know its in play and that things can get worse.
It didn’t follow the NY 19 race but my understanding was that the Republican candidate was a moderate who wasn’t for strict bans on abortion. The problem for people running in districts like that is the whole Republican brand is now defined as being so extremists on issues like abortion.
Pat Ryan's entire campaign was basically "Hi I'm a West Point graduate and a veteran and I support abortion rights." The Republicans outspent him 4-1 and ran as good a candidate as they could ever hope to find. And Ryan still ended up outperforming Biden's 2020 margin.
Dems have a real chance to make Manchin/Sinema irrelevant by getting to 52 seats. Still a bit of an uphill climb, but it looks like they have a good chance to defend all their current seats and add PA. Then they need 1 of WI, OH, NC, or FL - all of which they are underdogs but competitive. Unfortunately, they'll likely do that just as they lose the House so nothing will get accomplished, but if Dems can somehow keep their momentum another 80 days (a tall order, realistically), there's even an outside chance of holding the House. In that crazy scenario, 2023 would be the biggest legislative year in decades, with everything from abortion rights to voting rights to more climate and tax reforms getting passed.
Good luck figuring out how to handle and attack John Fetterman politically. He standouts literally and figuratively, he keeps his message simple and concise. He looks like and appeals to a class of voters that politicians, especially on the left always struggle to get support from. He is charismatic, he is very quick witted and he has populist appeal.
No one wants to see a man that young have health issues like he has had. If he can overcome those, he will be a juggernaut.
You look at him and you are not sure if he has a Bernie Sanders sign in his garage of his StormFront password scribbled on his work bench.
Every Democrat candidate for any office should have this list of questions memorized, if only to use them rhetorically in both campaign ads and actual debates. There's no need to get wonky about their own policy ideas (although an ability to hit bullet points for said policies would be a plus) - Republicans don't have any legitimate policy ideas and it needs to be highlighted every moment possible. The GOP won't debate the nuance of Democrat policies in good faith anyways - might as well focus on putting them on the defensive. Read the full article if you can. MAGA Republican Senate candidates should have to explain themselves By Jennifer Rubin
