Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: US Elections 2022

Americans voted in midterm elections on November 8. Democrats lost their majority in the House of Representatives, where 435 seats seats were contested. They defended their majority in the Senate, where 35 of 100 seats were contested. Many states also held gubernatorial, legislative and mayoral elections.

  • Don’t Blame Polls for Bad Predictions

    United States Capitol Washington
    United States Capitol in Washington DC (Shutterstock/Brandon Bourdages)

    The red wave wasn’t, and American journalists blame the polls.

    Before the midterm elections on Tuesday, many media predicted a “red wave” of Republican victories that would repudiate Democratic president Joe Biden.

    37 House and three Senate elections remain to be decided, but it’s clear the red wave didn’t materialize. Some two dozen out of 435 seats in the House of Representatives changed hands, switching the majority from Democratic to Republican. Control of the Senate is still in the balance. At best, Republicans would net two seats. Even that would make this the most lackluster Republican midterm-election victory since 1962.

    Reporters blame the polls for giving them the wrong impression, but they didn’t cite the polls in their stories. They predicted a “red wave” or even a “red tsunami” based on everything from “abortion peaking too soon as a motivating issue” (Axios) to Joe Biden’s absence from the campaign (National Review) to Donald Trump’s analysis (The Wall Street Journal) to Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman’s poor debate performance (The Hill) to a moral panic about non-existent fentanyl-flavored Halloween candy (Fox News) to “fundamentals” (CNN) and “momentum” (Washington Examiner) and “growing signs” (The New York Times) to increased Democratic campaign spending in blue districts (NBC).

    They should have trusted the polls. (more…)

  • Midterms Could Have Gone Worse for Democrats

    United States Capitol Washington
    Skyline of Washington DC at night (Shutterstock)

    Tuesday’s midterm elections in the United States could have gone worse for Democrats.

    Many states are still counting their votes, but early results suggest Republicans underperformed.

    371 of the 435 elections for the House of Representatives have been called: 172 for Democrats and 199 for Republicans. Democrats are still expected to lose their majority of 220 seats.

    In the Senate, where 35 out of 100 seats are contested, the parties may swap Pennsylvania and Nevada but keep fifty seats each, which would give Vice President Kamala Harris the deciding vote.

    Democrat John Fetterman is projected to win outgoing Republican senator Pat Toomey’s seat in Pennsylvania, defeating Mehmet Oz. Republican challenger Adam Laxalt is ahead of Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada, but only by 22,000 votes with 72 percent of the votes counted.

    Democratic incumbents Mark Kelly and Raphael Warnock are leading in Arizona and Georgia. With 99 percent of the votes counted, it looks like Republican senator Ron Johnson will win reelection in Wisconsin by 30,000 votes, a margin of 1 percent. (more…)

  • Where Is the Party of Middle America?

    United States Capitol Washington
    Workers clean the steps of the United States Capitol in Washington DC in the early morning of January 8, 2021 (Victoria Pickering)

    59 percent of Americans believe Democrats will “open the US-Mexico border” if they win the election on Tuesday. 53 percent worry they will cut police funding.

    They won’t. Nor will they step up border enforcement or raise police budgets, and they should: illegal border crossings and violent crime are rising. But only far-left extremists believe in open borders and defunding the police. Few have been nominated by Democrats. Even fewer will win elections.

    The other half of the country sees Republicans as the extremists: 56 percent believe a Republican Congress would ban abortion and overturn democratic elections.

    There is more justification for those beliefs. Many Republican candidates support a federal ban on abortion. Many were complicit or silent when Donald Trump tried to steal the 2020 election. But the party is divided on both questions.

    More than anything, the results of the CBS poll reveal that Democrats and Republicans believe the worst about each other.

    What about the 40 percent of Americans who identify with neither party? (more…)

  • American Midterm Elections Guide

    United States Capitol Washington
    United States Capitol in Washington DC (Shutterstock/Orhan Cam)

    Americans vote in midterm elections on Tuesday. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate are contested. President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party is projected to lose its majority in at least one and possibly both chambers of Congress.

    This guide explains how the elections work, why Republicans are up in the polls, why Democrats may yet defend their majority in the Senate, and which states will decide the outcome. (more…)

  • What Are Republicans For? The Far Right Knows

    United States Capitol Washington
    The United States Capitol in Washington DC, December 10, 2019 (Unsplash/Julien Gaud)

    Two years ago, Republicans avoided a debate about their party’s principles by copy-pasting their 2016 manifesto and slapping Donald Trump’s name on it.

    I had hoped Trump’s defeat might repudiate what he stood for, and bring Republicans back to the center-right, but that hasn’t happened.

    Worse, the Trump wing is the only one with a plan to move forward. Senate leader Mitch McConnell has resisted outlining a governing agenda for a Republican Congress. House leader Kevin McCarthy’s “Commitment to America” — modeled on Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” that returned Republicans to a majority in 1994 — is a summary of ambitions few could disagree with: create good-paying jobs, curb wasteful government spending, fund border security, lower the price of gasoline, strengthen Medicare and Social Security. But none of McCarthy’s “plans” answer the obvious question: how? Which means they aren’t plans, but slogans.

    Only the Republican Study Committee, formerly a fringe faction in the House of Representatives that has come to encompass three in four members, has made concrete proposals in the form of a counterbudget.

    I read all its 122 pages, so you don’t have to. But first: why Republicans need a plan. (more…)