Election

Democrats head into the midterms praying that abortion-rights supporters will reward them for failing. If the Democratic Party has stood for anything over the past half-century, it has stood for the right to end a pregnancy. All the party had to do was to defend the status quo established by Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. But it proved unable to do that, despite the two-term administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, despite controlling the Senate from 2007 to 2015 and again from 2019 until now, and despite the virtual monopoly Democrats enjoy on the sympathy of the news and entertainment media. With all these advantages, Democrats could not safeguard a right that their voters consider fundamental. Now Democrats expect voters to trust them to regain what they lost.

With the 2022 midterms now only a month away, there isn't a candidate anywhere who can avoid fielding questions about abortion. The issue is fair game thanks to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in its recent decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. And all the more so because, at least in theory, Congress could act to either federally legalize abortion or federally ban it. So it is that abortion has become a major topic of conversation in the US Senate campaign in Georgia, where NFL legend Herschel Walker and incumbent Senator Rafael Warnock are locked in one of the most pivotal races this year.

John Fetterman has prompted a fierce debate in the hotly contested race for Pennsylvania’s US Senate seat (the Cook Political Report just moved the race from “leans Democrat” to “toss-up”) by attacking his opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, for drinking wine at a Penn State football tailgate: https://twitter.com/JohnFetterman/status/1577304936345387009 Pennsylvania natives quickly came to Oz’s defense. The American Thinker compiled a list of spot-on responses, including one “Pennsylvania regular” who said she would totally drink wine because “Beer makes me have to pee.” Others pointed to the fact that Pennsylvanians are, in fact, normal people, and drink wine like those from other states. They even have wineries in Pennsylvania — 400 of them!

Beto O’Rourke’s campaign for Texas governor is, to put it mildly, not going so well. The latest polls have him trailing Greg Abbott by seven or eight percentage points. The Democratic candidate, and enthusiastic furry, could really use a shot in the arm from his old pal and political ally Beyoncé. But Cockburn is skeptical about how likely that is. When Robert Francis O’Rourke, aka Beto, ran to be one of Texas’s senators in 2018, high-profile Texan and Democrat Beyoncé Knowles-Carter waited until the day of the midterm elections to endorse him, after many had already voted. Donning a “Beto For Senate” hat in an Instagram post, the singer encouraged her fans to run along to the polling station.

John Fetterman is hungry for victory. The Democratic candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania has taken umbrage with what he perceives as “nasty” comments about his health and diet from his opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz. But, according to a landmark investigation from the Washington Free Beacon, Fetterman used to hector his constituents to “eat more vegetables” during his tenure as mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania. Per the Beacon’s Joe Simonson: On the corner of 4th Street in Braddock… sits a city sign likely not seen anywhere else in the United States. The sign doesn’t display the speed limit or parking hours, but rather an order to passersby: "NOTICE: EAT MORE VEGETABLES.

Last week, with fewer than 50 days to go before the midterm elections, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy put it bluntly: elect Republicans to save what's good about America. McCarthy introduced the Commitment to America, a policy plan he insists will put the country back on the right track. In doing so, McCarthy was looking to former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, hoping to recreate the magic of the 1994 Contract with America, which crystallized America's then-conservative movement. The Contract with America has a mythical quality in the minds of most pundits. It’s often credited as the reason behind the Republican Revolution of 1994, which saw Republicans gain control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1953.

The blue wave cometh — or does it? Contra reports that a cerulean tsunami is bearing down on Congress, RealClearPolitics still projects that the GOP will win the Senate this November, and Tuesday's dismal inflation numbers have only boosted Republican hopes. So...back to the red wave then? Or maybe the red and blue waves will combine into a purple wave, which, in conjunction with a chartreuse wave, will bury Politico's offices in a sea of multicolored futility? Midterm election predictions are always a fool's game, which is why pundits love them. Yet allow this much: the political climate right now is uncertain. And it's into this tense atmosphere that Senator Lindsey Graham has chucked what some are saying could be a game-changer.

It was a surprise to no one that Geoff Diehl won Tuesday's Massachusetts Republican gubernatorial primary. It was expected, but it puts an end to any chance of having a Republican in the governor’s seat come 2023. Diehl’s opponent, Chris Doughty, ran on a moderate platform modeled after incumbent Republican governor Charlie Baker. Baker is one of the most popular governors in the nation, with an approval rating of 74 percent — in a state that voted for Joe Biden by a margin of 33.5 points — so he is doing something right. There is no getting around the fact that he is not particularly conservative, especially on social issues, but he is a tempering force on the progressives that dominate Beacon Hill. Indeed, Baker is the only elected statewide Republican.

Besides the 13 mentions of “MAGA” and how it represents a threat to our democracy, I’d say President Biden’s speech on Thursday night was a real kumbaya moment for the country. With the hellish red lights drenching the stage, two Marines positioned behind him and his old man face taut with rage, Biden railed against his political opponents in a taxpayer-funded tirade. While this was undoubtedly the strongest example yet of Joe’s divisiveness, it was only the cherry on top of months of disgraceful statements made by the Unifier-in Chief. Fueled by desperation and a myriad of disasters, Biden is ramping up his attacks on anyone who might question the left’s progressive plans to radically transform America.

At first, I thought Joe Biden's address to the nation on Thursday was going to be one of those Star Wars crawl-type soliloquies that liberals love to deliver. You know the kind: "It is a period of great strife. RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS, pouncing from their TRUTH Social accounts, have struck at the very heart of OUR DEMOCRACY..." The difference, though, is that in those addresses, the speaker at least tries to sound objective, to remain above the hurly-burly he's criticizing. This was not the approach taken by Joe Biden. Joining us from what looked like a cross between Philly's red-light district and some marble Pentagon imperium, Biden jumped straight into the ring with what he called the "MAGA Republicans.

“I became a Democrat because I am sincere.” So insisted Florida gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist while campaigning earlier this year. Crist is so sincere, in fact, that he is the only person in American history to have run for state-level elective office as a Republican, Democrat, and an independent. He has lost at least once in all three guises. Crist has been pro-life and pro-abortion. He has opposed and supported LGBTQ rights. He has opposed tax increases and raised taxes. He has been for and against gun control. He has wanted to repeal and to maintain Obamacare. As Buzzfeed accurately put it the last time Crist ran for governor in 2014, “there is almost nothing Charlie Crist hasn’t flip-flopped on.

Earlier today, I went outside and threw a frisbee at a tree. Then I came back inside and the chyron on CNN read: "VIRGINIA MAN'S FRISBEE GAMBIT COULD BE GAME-CHANGER IN MIDTERMS." Yes, it is political silly season, which is to say election season, which is to say any one of the four seasons. Pundits have been hyperventilating about the 2022 midterms since approximately 1922, so what a delight that we're finally a mere seventy-seven days out. At least this cycle isn't being trumpeted as THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR LIVES, a moniker that's been applied to every presidential contest since the delightfully sleepy Clinton/Dole showdown of 1996. Think of it: back then, MTV was actually worried about voter apathy! Don't ever tell us '90s kids we have nothing to be nostalgic for.

Just a few months ago, Blake Masters was strongly criticizing Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, expressing hopes, as other conservative candidates have this cycle, that he would receive a viable challenge to his Senate leadership after November. But on Friday, Masters was sounding a different tune, outright hoping that McConnell would back his campaign in the Arizona Senate race as the Senate leader has for J.D. Vance in Ohio. “I’ll tell Mitch this to his face,” Masters said during a GOP primary debate in June. “He’s not bad at everything. He’s good at judges. He’s good at blocking Democrats. You know what he’s not good at? Legislating.” On Friday, Masters predicted McConnell will get another term as GOP leader and no Republicans will challenge him.

Laramie, Wyoming Liz Cheney’s concession speech, delivered from the Mead Ranch near Jackson before a small group of subdued supporters last night, was a thundering anti-climax that shook what remained of the glaciers free from the granitic steeps of the Grand Tetons. The quiet, almost matter-of-fact tone of the address differed strikingly from the modestly grandiloquent substance, which was “Now, the real work begins;” an implicit acknowledgement that, for its defeated representative-at-large, Wyoming and its interests have been of small importance in her ascent to greater things.

Liz Cheney, who sounds and looks increasingly like Hillary Clinton, has effectively consigned the 70 percent of Wyoming citizens who voted for Donald Trump two years ago to the category of “deplorables.” Less than a week out from the open Republican primary, she was reported by the New York Times to be reconciled to losing her bid for a fourth term as Wyoming’s sole congressional representative. As Emerson said on learning that Margaret Fuller, the American journalist and Transcendentalist, had decided to accept the universe, “She’d better.” Still, La Cheney continues to fight hard for something; the question is what.