Category Archives: Republican

Ever since Donald Trump won the Republican nomination for president in 2016, an industry of rationalization and justification has thrived. The theme is clear: Look what you made us do. The argument is simple: Democratic unfairness and media bias radicalized Republicans to such an extent that they turned to Trump in understandable outrage. Republicans had been bullied, so they turned to a bully of their own.

No aspect of that theory has been more enduring than what Ill call the Mitt Romney martyr thesis. The Republicans nominated a good and decent manso the argument goesand the Democrats and the media savaged him. Republicans respected norms, Democrats did not, and now those same Democrats have the gall to savage the GOP for Trump?

I happen to agree that there has been, in fact, a Mitt Romney radicalization process. But it is quite the opposite of what this narrative suggests. It isnt rooted in Republican anger on behalf of Romney but in Republican anger against Romney, and over time that anger has grown to be not just against Romney the man but also against the values he represents.

The Mitt Romney martyr thesis is important to understand. Like many popular (but mistaken) theories, its based on some grains of truth. Many of the attacks against Romney were definitely extreme, most notably when in 2012 Joe Biden told an audience that included hundreds of Black Americans that Romneys policies would put you all back in chains.

Biden wasnt referring to literal slavery but rather the chains of, in his view, unfair economic rules. But the language was indefensibly inflammatory. When Biden launched that attack, I was personally infuriated. I was a Romney partisan from way back. In 2006, just as Romney planned his first run for president, I formed a groupalong with my wife, Nancy, and a small band of friendscalled Evangelicals for Mitt.

Our goal was to persuade evangelical Christians to vote for a Mormon candidate. We built our case around Romneys competence and character. (It was sadly naive to believe that the bulk of evangelical voters truly cared about personal virtue in politicians.) We spent countless hours supporting Romney through two separate campaigns, and in 2012 Nancy and I both were Romney delegates to the Republican National Convention.

A partisan mindset is a dangerous thing. It can make you keenly aware of every unfair critique from the other side and oblivious to your own sides misdeeds. I was indignant about attacks against Romney, for example, while brushing off years of birther conspiracies against President Barack Obama as fringe or irrelevant.

Mitt Romney: America is in denial

Then, of course, Republicans nominated Trump, the birther in chief, and the scales fell from my partisan eyes.

And now, in hindsight, the real Romney radicalization is far more clear. You could see the seeds planted during the 2012 Republican primary. On January 19, two days before South Carolina primary voters cast their ballot, Newt Gingrich had a moment during the GOP primary debate.

The CNN host John King asked Gingrich about claims by one of his ex-wives (Gingrich has been married three times) that he pressed her in 1999 to have an open marriage. Gingrich responded by condemning the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media, declared that he was appalled that King would begin a presidential debate on the topic, and said that it was despicable for King to make Gingrichs ex-wifes claim an issue two days before a Republican primary.

The crowd interrupted Gingrich with cheers and hoots of approval. But why? Wasnt Kings underlying question fair? After all, Gingrich had admitted to cheating on his first and second wives, and he admitted to cheating on his second wife at the same time that he was speaker of the House and leading impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton for lying under oath about his own extramarital affair.

Moreover, Gingrich was having his affair after the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in America and a key Republican constituency, had passed a Resolution on Moral Character of Public Officials that contained the following statement: Tolerance of serious wrong by leaders sears the conscience of the culture, spawns unrestrained immorality and lawlessness in the society, and surely results in Gods judgment.

Surely, heavily evangelical voters in a key Republican stronghold would be concerned about Gingrichs scandals? No, they were far angrier at media outlets than they were at any Republican hypocrisy.

From the November 2018 issue: The man who broke politics

Gingrich went on to win the South Carolina primary in a landslide powered by evangelicals. It was the only time in primary history that South Carolina voters failed to vote for the eventual GOP nominee. But South Carolina voters werent out of step; rather they were ahead of their time. They forecast the Republican break with character in favor of a man who would fight.

To understand the emotional and psychological aftermath of Romneys loss, one has to look at the cultural break between the GOP establishmentwhich commissioned an autopsy of the party in 2012 that called for greater efforts at inclusionand a grassroots base that was convinced that it had been hoodwinked by party leaders into supporting the safe candidate.

They wanted a street brawler, and when (they believed) Romney campaigned with one hand tied behind his back, they were angry. Yes, there was anger at Democrats and reporters for their treatment of Romney, but the raw anger that really mattered was their anger at Romney for the way he treated Obama and the press. They were furious that he didnt angrily confront Candy Crowley when she famously fact-checked him in the midst of the third and final presidential debate of 2012.

And so the Republican establishment and the Republican base moved apart, with one side completely convinced that Romney lost because he was perhaps, if anything, too harsh (especially when it came to immigration) and the other convinced that he lost because he was too soft.

Trumps nomination was a triumph of that base. Well before Romney came out against Trump in the primary and well before Romneys first impeachment vote, Trump supporters scorned him. They despised his alleged weakness.

When Trump won, the base had its proof of concept. Fighting worked, and not even Trumps lossalong with the loss of the House and the Senate in four short yearshas truly disrupted that conclusion. And why would it? Many millions still dont believe he lost.

The Mitt Romney martyr theory thus suffers from a fatal defect. It presumes that large numbers of Republicans werent radicalized before Romneys rough treatment. In truth, they already hated Democrats and the media, and when Romney lost, their message to the Republican establishment in 2016 was just as clear as it was in South Carolina in 2012. No more nice guys. The character that mattered was a commitment to punching the left right in the mouth.

Continued here:

Don't Buy the Mitt Romney Martyr Theory - The Atlantic

Republican Sen. Ron Johnsonrepeatedly facedlaughterandboosfrom the audience gathered at Marquette University on Thursday for the final debate between the two-term GOP incumbent and Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin's key U.S. Senate race.

With less than a month to go before the November midterms, Barnes Wisconsin's lieutenant governor took Johnson to task over his opposition to abortion rights, support for cutting Social Security and Medicare, and 2017votein favor of former President Donald Trump's deeply unpopular and regressive tax cut for the rich and large corporations.

"When Senator Johnson talks about making Social Security discretionary spending, that means he's coming for your retirement," Barnes said Thursday night, referring to the Wisconsin Republican'scommentsduring a recent radio interview.

Barnes also spotlighted Johnson's opposition to raising the $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage, which hasn't seen an increase inmore than a decadeeven as costs-of-living have soared. During last week's debate, Johnson went as far assuggestingthe federal minimum wage shouldn't exist, arguing the "marketplace" should "take care of it rather than government."

"It's odd that you can make the argument about inflation and how costs are increasing and not support raising the minimum wage," Barnes said Thursday.

During his time on the debate stage Thursday night, Johnson attempted to counter Barnes' criticism of hislong record of opposing abortion rightsby doubling down on his call for a state referendum that wouldaskWisconsin voters, "At what point does society have the responsibility to protect the life of an unborn child?"

Wisconsin Republicansrecently rejectedDemocratic Gov. Tony Evers' push for a reproductive rights referendum in the state, where anabortion ban from 1849is currently in effect following the U.S. Supreme Court's June ruling inDobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

In his pitch for another term, Johnson declared that he has "honored" his promises to always tell the truth and never conduct himself with reelection in mind remarks that drew laughs from the audience.

Johnson was also booed when he asked why Barnes has "turned against America" in response to moderators' invitation for the candidates to express what they find admirable about their opponent.

Wisconsin is one of a handful of battleground states where Democrats are hoping to flip Senate seats in their push to retain and increase their majority in the upper chamber.

Jake Spence, Wisconsin state director of the Working Families Party, which is supporting Barnes, said in a statement late Thursday that the final debate offered "a glimpse into Ron Johnson's America an America where there's no minimum wage, where no one has access to abortions, where violent insurrectionists are protected by law, while Americans dependent on Social Security and Medicare are tossed aside."

"Trump Republicans like Johnson are good at just two things: restricting freedoms, and raking in millions of dollars for himself and his donors at the expense of working families," Spence added. "As senator, Mandela Barnes will go to the mat for working people, whether it's defending abortion access or ending bad trade deals. It's clear from tonight's debate and it's clear from everything we've heard at the doorsMandela Barnes is the right choice for Wisconsin's working families."

The rest is here:

Debate audience laughed at Republican Ron Johnson's claims and it only got worse from there - Salon

Republican congressional candidate George Santos has refused to walk back comments calling abortion a

Republican congressional candidate George Santos has refused to walk back comments calling abortion a "barbaric" practice comparable to "slavery." (Photo: Santos for Congress/Facebook)

Amid a public backlash to the Supreme Courts June decision overturning Roe v. Wade, some Republican congressional candidates have tried to walk back, downplay or conceal their hardline stances against abortion rights.

But George Santos, the Republican nominee in a Long Island House seat that President Joe Biden won, is one contender sticking to his staunch anti-abortion views and remarks comparing abortion to, among other things, slavery.

As a candidate challenging Rep. Tom Suozzi (D) in New Yorks 3rd Congressional District in 2020, Santos declared his opposition to the 1973 Supreme Court decision recognizing a Constitutional right to an abortion. He said he would vote to ban abortion nationwide if elected to Congress. He even supports criminal charges for doctors who perform abortions, according to local news outletThe Island Now.

Following the Supreme Courts decision, Santos issued a statement clarifying that he would always support exceptions for abortion in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mothers life.

But Santos has also said he wants strict vetting of rape claims. In a 2020 interview, he said he supports allowing rape survivors to seek abortion only in an extreme circumstance with proven police documentation.

Nowadays you sleep with your partner you dont like, you know you had a bad day, and you wake up pregnant, and like, I was raped, he told the conservative talk show, Indivisible with John Stubbins. Thats a little too loose.

Finally, just this past August, Santos told an audience of Republicans in Queens that we are going to be remembered as the most barbaric generation to ever live because of abortions legality. He argued that future generations would frown upon abortion just as we now look down upon slavery.

Story continues

All of us in this room can agree that when we look at slavery, it was barbaric, Santos said in remarks to the Whitestone Republican Club, first reported by the New York Daily News. Fifty years from now, were going to look back at what were doing in this country, and we are going to say, We killed babies out of the womb? We aborted our own? That is barbaric.

Santos, a financier, is competing with Democratic nominee Robert Zimmerman, a small business owner, to succeed Suozzi, who announced plans to retire in January.

Santos and Zimmerman are openly gay and would be Long Islands first LGBTQ members of Congress. Santos, whose father is Afro-Brazilian, is also biracial.

When offered an opportunity to clarify Santos stance on abortion rights or walk back some of his comments,Santos campaign manager, Charley Lovett, did not provide a direct answer.

Instead, Lovett insisted that the question is irrelevant because New York has enshrined abortion rights in state law.

Democrats know that abortion is not under any threat in the state of New York, but they continue to say anything to distract from their disastrous policies that have unleashed a wave of inflation and crime that is crippling New York families, Lovett said in a statement. Liberal politicians like Robert Zimmerman may be fools, but voters certainly arent.

Zimmerman, who does not support any legal restrictions on abortion, has made his support for abortion rights a core part of his campaign in the district.

George Santos represents the greatest threat to women and our democracy of any candidate running for Congress in New York state, Zimmerman said in a statement to HuffPost. His own record makes his position clear: describing legal abortion as barbaric, comparing abortion to slavery, urging the arrest of doctors, claiming that women will use rape as an excuse to obtain an abortion, and supporting a national abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest. This type of vile extremism and disrespect for women has no place in our country.

Santos anti-abortion views are likely a liability in New Yorks 3rd, which includes a swath of Long Islands North Shore and a small corner of northeast Queens in New York City.

Biden carried New Yorks 3rd by more than eight percentage points.

Whats more, 76% of Long Island voters support abortion rights, including 42% who say the issue could determine their vote, according to a recent Newsday poll.

The race between Santos and Zimmerman is nonetheless neck-and-neck. Zimmerman led Santos by one point among likely voters, with 14% undecided, according to a late August and early September poll commissioned by the advocacy group U.S. Term Limits.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

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Long Island Republican Stands By Comments Comparing Abortion To Slavery - Yahoo News

U.S. House Rep. Bill Posey, from FL-8, who we haven't gotten filed the Birther Bill.

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, as well as 2021, Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day published profiles of the U.S. House Representative from Floridas 8th Congressional District, Bill Posey, the U.S. House Representative from Floridas 8th District, the author of HB 1503, aka The Birther Bill that would force all presidential candidates to submit their birth certificates. When asked if he believed President Obama was an American citizen in the wake of that, he refused to answer, calling the question irrelevant.

Poseys also obsessed with overturning the Affordable Care Act, having participated in every attempt to repeal it, and then voted for the 2013 Government Shutdown to attempt to stop it (also voting against re-opening the government when the time came). His one positive quality is that he wants to fund medical research into autism, but it comes with the caveat that hes only doing so because he believes its possible that vaccines cause autism (but he does not believe in climate change). Hes also been a part of GOP efforts to defund Planned Parenthood and voted against the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act.

Bill Posey dodged hosting a town hall in 2017 by instead, opting to call his constituents to let them know he was having a telephone town hall WHILE IT WAS ALREADY UNDER WAY. He was apparently still distressed that upon learning this, ten thousand of his voters bombarded him with complaints, not only about his availability, but how the GOP was planning on exercising control of both Congress and the White House, and defended the move because Gabby Giffords got shot at a town hall. His constituents then further berated him, because Giffords herself called on all members of Congress to hold town halls, as their duty remains to the people.

In July of 2018, after Donald Trump gave a bizarre joint press conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, where he denied Russians interfered in the 2016 election, effectively siding with the Russian dictators denials over his own intelligence community, Bill Posey offered his support to the president, arguing that maybe that interference isnt so bad, because America has done it to other countries for the past 50 years. Posey returned to Washington after being re-elected in 2020 with 61% of the vote, and resumed being a clueless moron as a legislator:

Floridas 8th Congressional District has a +11 lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, which has helped prop Bill Posey up and keep him in place over a decade. Especially when the primary for his seat just gets cancelled. His challenger in 2022 is Democrat Joanne Terry, who had better hold his feet to the fire for having voted against a bill to provide disaster relief to Florida after Hurricane Ian, which is, yknow, a big f***ing deal. Unless shes content watching Posey remain in power until he decides to retire, or shuffles off the mortal coil, thats probably a point she needs to make.

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Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day: Bill Posey- 2022 Update - Daily Kos

Americans across the political spectrum can agree that both the Democrats and the Republicans have dumbed down democracy and promoted many glib, hypocritical people to elected office. This is perhaps inevitable with a duopoly, with election laws and norms that protect both the Democrats and Republicans from third-party challenges even when both major nominees are widely disliked (see Clinton versus Trump in 2016). But only the Republican Party is rapidly moving toward the idea of simply refusing to accept election losses.

The Washington Post reported on Oct. 6 that a majority of Republican nominees on the ballot this November for the House, Senate and key statewide offices299 in allhave denied or questioned the outcome of the last presidential election. This is not trivial. When there is no credible evidence of inaccurate vote-counting, or of non-eligible people voting in any significant number, the refusal to accept an election outcome is a refusal of a fellow citizens right to pursue different political goals than ones own.

[Related: We are increasingly alarmed by the signs of the times: Catholic leaders urge lawmakers to protect voting rights.]

Election denialism by Republicans has been widely reported, but some conservatives object that some Democrats have also questioned the legitimacy of elections, such as the one that put Donald J. Trump in the White Houseor at least they have done so at first. In a blog post from this March at the American Enterprise Institute, Kevin R. Kosar charges the Democrats with hypocrisy on election denialism and cites a poll in which 52 percent of self-identified Democrats said it was probably or definitely true that Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected president.

But that outlier poll was taken in December 2016, when questions about Russian involvement in the election were in the headlines but before investigators concluded that the involvement was limited to propaganda campaigns. The results were different just before and just after that month. In a Gallup poll taken the day after the 2016 election, 76 percent of those who voted for Hillary Clinton accepted Mr. Trump as the legitimate new president, and in a Morning Consult poll taken in January 2017, 65 percent of Democrats said they were confident that the votes were counted correctly in the 2016 election. In contrast, most Republican voters told pollsters immediately after the election that Joseph R. Biden Jr.s victory in 2020 was due to fraud, and they have continued to hold that belief. More significantly, scores of Republican candidates and officeholders have encouraged that belief.

The most common example given of a Democratic candidate refusing to accept an election result is Stacey Abrams, who never formally conceded after losing to Brian Kemp, a Republican, by 1.4 percentage points in the 2018 election for governor of Georgia. The Washington Examiner columnist Timothy P. Carney recently called her an election denier in a whole party of habitual election deniers, and The Washington Posts Glenn Kessler has cataloged times when Ms. Abrams has said that the 2018 election was rigged and stolen and even said, I wonin an interview in which she later elaborated, I believe we won in that we transformed the electorate and achieved a dramatic increase in turnout.

Are Ms. Abramss statements comparable to the repeated claims by Mr. Trump and his political allies that the 2020 presidential election was rigged? Is she comparable to Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for governor of Arizona, who told The New York Times in August, Deep down, I think we all know this illegitimate fool in the White HouseI feel sorry for himdidnt win?

In a recent interview with The 19th, Ms. Abrams rejected the comparison: My point was that the access to the election was flawed. That is very different than someone claiming fraudulent outcome. In particular, Ms. Abrams has criticized the removal of 1.4 million inactive voters from registration lists by Brian Kemp in his tenure as secretary of state (before he ran for governor) and the closure of hundreds of voting sites in Georgia during that same period.

Ms. Abramss we won statements arent so unusual in political organizing and in self-empowerment movements, but they were unfortunate and even reckless in an age when more people mean such statements literally. Still, in contrast to Mr. Trump, she did not demand a new election, and she has said, I have no empirical evidence that I would have achieved a higher number of votes had more eligible citizens been allowed to cast ballots.

What do election deniers propose to do next?

There is a difference between saying that an election outcome might have been different if more people had voted and saying that official election results cannot be trusted because of cheating or tampering. The most important difference is what comes next. Ms. Abramss complaints can lead to election reform, which could be a bipartisan project (balancing Republican demands for ballot security with Democratic demands for easier voter registration). But the grievances of Mr. Trump and his allies enforce the belief that elections can never be fairly administered, which can eventually lead to the logical conclusion that they should be eliminated altogether (or turned into instruments for suppressing political opponents, as has happened in Hungary).

In the meantime, many Republican office holders and candidates are flirting with methods to counteract election results (thus, the suggestion that Vice President Mike Pence could have simply rejected Electoral College votes he didnt like on Jan. 6) or to keep voters from getting to the polls in the first place.

For example, before next summer, the Supreme Court will rule on the independent state legislature theory, advocated by Mr. Trumps legal team. This theory takes the narrowest possible view of a provision in the U.S. Constitution that says the times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof. The interpretation being proposed is that legislatures have unlimited powerunchecked by the executive and judicial branchesto make election rules and, possibly, to choose Electoral College delegates without regard to the popular vote in their states.

Even if the independent state legislature theory does not win at the Supreme Court, there are other moves to give state legislatures unilateral power over the election process. A new law in Georgia removed the secretary of state, who is elected statewide, as the chair of the state election board (the current Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, famously refused Mr. Trumps request to find him more votes in 2020) and replaced him with a chair appointed by the legislature. The same law allows the state election board to temporarily suspend a countys election officials for negligence and take over the administration of elections there.

More alarming than such proposals, at least in the short term, is Mr. Trumps inartful (or artful?) use of violent and often racist language against political opponents and his repeated opinion that violent protests will follow if he suffers any political or legal lossthe same kind of rhetoric that led to the Jan. 6 riot. (Seven months after that riot, Madison Cawthorn, a Republican congressman who has since lost his seat in a primary election, was more explicit than Mr. Trump, saying, If our election systems continue to be rigged and continue to be stolen, then its gonna lead to one place and thats bloodshed.)

Living in New York, I witnessed almost-weekly street protests against Mr. Trump between his election and his inauguration in 2017. They were big and noisy, and people carried signs saying Not my president (and a lot of Love trumps hate signs), but I can remember no suggestion of storming the U.S. Capitol and no threat against election officials or poll workers. Some protesters suggested blocking Mr. Trumps win in the Electoral College, but in the end only a half-dozen Democrats in the House and none in the Senate formally objected to the votecompared with the 121 House Republicans and six Senate Republicans who tried to reject Electoral College votes for Mr. Biden in 2021. Election denialism was and is a fringe view within the Democratic Party; it is now almost a litmus test for membership in the Republican Party.

But here I must risk charges of both-sidesism and point out that the Democratic Party has repeatedly blundered in its response to Mr. Trumps demagoguery. In 2016, Ms. Clinton seemed to think the threats to civility and democracy posed by Mr. Trump absolved the Democrats of any responsibility to address voter concerns about a new economy that left much of the country behind. As Trumpism endures, the Democrats continue to wave away popular concerns about the economy, crime, border security and the excesses of wokeism, and as a result is viewed by U.S. voters just as unfavorably as the party that actually threatens to make elections meaningless.

In a U.S. Senate debate on Oct. 10, Democratic nominee Tim Ryan accused his Republican opponent, J. D. Vance, of running around with the election deniers, the extremists. Mr. Vance shrugged this off and responded, I find it interesting how preoccupied you are with this at a time when people cant afford groceries. I could hear political scientists all over the United States crying, No, inflation is a temporary concern, but the future of our system of government is at stake! We will soon find out who the voters are listening to.

[Read next: Republicans and Democrats agree that democracy is in trouble. They just dont agree on its definition.]

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Both major parties do shady things. Only the Republican Party is threatening to break democracy. - America: The Jesuit Review

A simple dollars-to-dollars comparison likely understates the hole some Republican candidates find themselves in. Generally, candidates can buy television ads at a cheaper rate than outside groups so a dollar from a candidate effectively buys more eyeballs than a dollar from an ad buy backed by a super PAC or a national party committee.

I heard a rumor that campaigns need money to run ads. I dont know if that rumor is true, but if it is then we have the reason why Kari Lake isnt up on TV, said Barrett Marson, an Arizona Republican operative who worked for a super PAC supporting one of Lakes primary opponents and who has been critical of the electability of the statewide GOP ticket.

There has been a dearth of advertising on the Republican side of this race, Marson continued. About the only message TV viewers really get of Kari Lake is her own earned media interviews, which often are not positive.

Lake herself has downplayed the importance of ads as a cornerstone of a successful campaign. She told POLITICO in a recent interview that she was not a huge believer in running TV ads, cutting them off at the end of a contentious primary in which her opponent was outspending her 17-to-1 and then winning the nomination anyway.

I think Im a unique candidate in that I didnt need to run as much advertising to let people know who I am, because they already knew who I was, Lake said in the interview.

She has, however, gotten significant air cover in the state from the RGA for the final weeks of the election, which Marson notes could be a difference maker in a close campaign. The RGA has also sidestepped dealing with the state party, routing millions of dollars worth of spending through the Yuma County Republican Party. That allows the county party to coordinate with the Lake campaign and critically, get a lower ad rate.

While theres a big gap in spending in Arizona, theres little separating Lake and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Katie Hobbs in public polling. Polling averages show them separated by less than a point, and POLITICO forecasts the race as a tossup.

The same, however, can not be said for Mastriano in Pennsylvania, where Democrat Josh Shapiro has clobbered him on the airwaves for months largely without a response, as Shapiro ran up a fairly comfortable lead in recent polls.

Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano stands after concluding his speech during a campaign stop in Erie, Pa. on Sept. 29, 2022.|David Dermer/AP Photo

Mastriano has largely been abandoned by national Republicans his campaign adviser even tried to pick a fight with the RGA for not backing him and an in-state group that was running ads attacking Shapiro apparently cut bait in September.

Mastriano, did, however, launch his first TV ad of the general election last week, in what his campaign called a million-dollar buy skipping most of the far-right talking points he regularly espouses on the trail or in interviews and instead focusing on his military service.

Still, hes being dramatically outspent, in no small part due to Shapiros significant fundraising advantage.

Mastriano didnt have to run a lot of TV in the primary, and Josh Shapiro has had more than $20 million [on air] and Mastriano has had nothing, said Chris Nicholas, a veteran GOP consultant in the state. Through the end of the election, Shapiros total is expected to be even higher: at least $35 million since he launched his campaign.

Even so, Nicholas noted that a spending gap of that size normally means a race is over but that was not the case this year. For Mastriano, running TV ads no matter when you start to do it is a positive, even if it is belated, he said.

Dixon, the Michigan gubernatorial candidate, is also not on television herself, and she has been trailing significantly in recent polls. Instead, her campaign has largely relied on an allied super PAC called Michigan Families United, which was the only Republican entity on air for the month of September.

She has relied on the group to a heavy degree, both in the primary and in the general election. Dixons site at one point contained an unusually extensive memo, which was shared with POLITICO, entitled television, radio, and digital advertising. It laid out specific ad themes that would be helpful for the campaign. Her website also currently links to a Google Drive folder that has over an hour of b-roll footage, which is useful for outside ad makers.

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Republicans are chasing key governorships. There's one big thing missing. - POLITICO

In 2011, the new House Republican majority, egged on by Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy and led by radical Tea Party rightists such as Jason Chaffetz, brought the U.S. to the brink of a default. The disaster was headed off by a last-minute compromise between Speaker John Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and President Barack Obama. A breach of the debt ceiling, meaning the loss of the full faith and credit of the United States, would have been catastrophic. But Chaffetz and many of his colleagues were more than willing to make that happen. In the aftermath, Chaffetz said, We werent kidding around. We would have taken it down.

As it was, the brinkmanship and delays had severe effects. The Dow fell 2,000 points in the months that followed, and borrowing costs for the federal government increased by an estimated $18.9 billion over 10 years, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Chaffetz is now long gone from the House, but the Tea Party radicalswho a few years later formed the Freedom Caucus because the existing right-wing caucus, the Republican Study Committee, was not right-wing enoughhave moved from the fringe to the center among House Republicans. And if Republicans capture a majority in next months midterm election, they will make the Tea Party group look like milquetoast moderates. The prospect of default, along with extended government shutdowns and disruptions and a hamstrung administration, will loom large.

If there is one timeworn clich about elections, it is that the next one is the most significant in our lifetime. There is reason to believe it is true this time. Although the outcomes remain uncertain, one thing is clear: If Republicans win control of the House of Representatives, the country will face a series of fundamental challenges much greater than we have had in any modern period of divided government, including a direct and palpable threat of default and government shutdown. The Republican majority will be more radical, reckless, and willing to employ nuclear options to achieve its goals than any of its predecessors have been, and its leadership, starting with McCarthy, will be either compliant or too weak to head off catastrophe.

From the November 2022 issue: Bad losers

Primaries in New Hampshire have underscored this threat. MAGA radicals were the big winnersDon Bolduc, slammed by GOP Governor Chris Sununu as a conspiracy-theory extremist, prevailed as the Republican Senate nominee, and Trumpists Karoline Leavitt and Bob Burns carried the nominations for the two House seats. Saying flatly that Trump won in 2020 and calling for scrapping the FBI, these candidates are outside any reasonable definition of the mainstreambut they are the rule, not the exception, in this years Republican primary contests for nomination to both federal and state key offices.

Earlier in the year, Republicans were bullish on a sweeping midterm victory, akin to what they achieved in 2010. Those exuberant expectations have been dampened in recent months, especially in the aftermath of the Supreme Courts Dobbs decision, and some of the extremist candidates face uphill battles to win (for example, the Cook Political Report moved the New Hampshire Senate race and one of those two House races from toss-up to leaning Democrat after the victories of Bolduc and Leavitt.) But after redistricting, and given the range of seats that could change parties, the odds remain reasonably strong that Republicans can still win back the House majority, if only by a slim margin.

When it comes to the House, FiveThirtyEight has found that so far, at minimum 117 House Republicans with at least a 95 percent chance of winning are full-blown election deniers or questioners, a good leading indicator of radicalism and a willingness to ignore facts and embrace fantasy. In turn, they are willing, if not eager, to blow up institutions and government itself to accomplish their goals.

The current members of the Freedom Caucus make up barely a fifth of all House Republicans, but they represent a rogues gallery of bombastic pot stirrers and insurrectionist enablerspeople such as Scott Perry, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Louie Gohmert, and Mo Brooks. In the 118th Congress, they will make up more of their party in the House. Their goals include impeaching Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, Alejandro Mayorkas, and more; investigating Hunter Biden, Anthony Fauci, and others; but also crippling the FBI and blocking further investigation or prosecution of Trump and his allies, stopping all future Biden policies, and likely fighting for a nationwide ban on abortions, repeal of the Affordable Care Act, tough immigration policies, and more.

One house of Congress can do a lot on its ownincluding investigations, subpoenas of individuals, resolutions of contempt, and impeachment. Of course, the House cannot remove anyone from office without the Senate, and it cannot legislate on its own. But it can block legislation and use its veto power to demand change. No question, the House Republicans will block any legislative initiative from the Biden administration. Worse, though, would be the ways they could employ the power of the purse.

That starts with the debt ceiling. An anachronistic policy necessity, used only by Denmark and the U.S., raising the debt ceiling requires periodic action by Congress to maintain the full faith and credit of the United States; the failure to do so when the ceiling is reached would mean a default. Although both parties have played partisan games with the debt ceiling, they have always made it through, even if we came dangerously close during the Obama presidency. In 2011, McConnell said, I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting. Most of us didnt think that. What we did learn is this: Its a hostage worth ransoming.

Edward Geist: Nuclear strategists know how dangerous the debt fight is

McConnell and his House counterpart Boehner did use the debt ceiling threat to get some concessions on spending. The concessions demanded by the new MAGA extremist radicals will be non-negotiable. And this time, if Republicans win, a lot more members will be ready to push us over the cliffand the speaker, McCarthy, with no ability or willingness to stop their juggernaut. Of course, other major disruptions could occur, including government shutdowns and costly investigations. But it is the tangible threat of default that looms largest.

What to do? One thing is clear. If the Republicans prevail in November, the lame-duck session becomes an opportunity to take this threat off the table once and for all. The way to do so is by making permanent, perhaps via reconciliation, the ironically named McConnell Rule. The rule was raised by the Senate Republican leader a decade ago to allow the president to raise the debt ceiling. It allows Congress to pass a joint resolution blocking the action, but contains a provision where the president is able to veto that resolutionmeaning, in this instance, that a president would need only one-third of support plus one of the two houses of Congress to avoid default.

We have moved into a new and frightening era in American politics and governance, one when radicals intent on a revolution and craving major disruption will be not just a vocal minority but potentially dominating a governing body. We cannot risk the full consequences of that brutal reality.

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What Happens to the Economy If Republicans Win the Midterms? - The Atlantic

Dwight Weidman| Columnist

New Maggie Haberman book details Donald Trump's take on Ron DeSantis

As Trumps favor wanes within the Republican party, Ron DeSantis is trending up.

Buzz60, Buzz60

With less than a month before the midterm election, the familiar pattern is playing out with liberal media exaggerations of the prospects of Democrat candidates and the usual October surprise attacks on Republican candidates.

Media coverage has made the term bombshell obsolescent and the term should be retired along with the lefts other favorite term, racist.

Regardless of how much hyperbole comes from the Democrats and their media propaganda arm, the outcome of this election will be decided on the issues of inflation and the economy, crime and immigration, and that is bad news for Democrats.

The latest Rasmussen poll, as I am writing this, shows a Republican advantage of 47%-43% in congressional elections. In 2010, with a similar lead, Republicans gained 63 seats in the House and six seats in the Senate. In 1994, Republicans were actually behind the Democrats in most generic polls but ended up gaining 54 House seats and eight Senate seats.

In the Real Clear Politics (RCP) projections for the U.S. House of Representatives, Republicans start out with a majority of 220-180 seats over the Democrats when the solid and lean seats are counted, before any of the 35 tossup seats are decided. That means that the only real question is the size of the Republican majority. Since the House controls the purse strings of the nation, Republican control means that the reckless spending and other excesses of the Biden administration are over.

On the Senate side, it is closer, which explains why the Democrats seem to be concentrating their money and attention there. One troubling statistic for Democrats is that President Joe Bidens approval ratings in the key Senate swing states is under water by an average of 15%.

Despite some races being fluid at this point, the RCP projection for the new Senate is 52 Republicans to 48 Democrats, and if that holds, it will mean an end to the appointment of many leftist radicals to our court system and executive branch positions. The RCP projection already counts the Georgia Senate race as a hold for Democrats, so my Democratic friends shouldnt get their hopes up over the latest media hit on GOP Georgia candidate Herschel Walker.

Republicans are also projected in the RCP averages to pick up two governorships, in Nevada and Wisconsin, giving them a 30-20 state advantage. Also, dont rule out the possibility of a few Republican upsets in states like Michigan, Minnesota or Oregon.

It doesnt look like local hero and Pennsylvania Republican governor candidate Doug Mastriano is going to be in the winners circle, despite our newly crowned local Republican Party leaders all salivating over the possibility of one of them replacing him in the state senate.

Sorry, guys, but your choice of Doug in the primary reminds me of a climactic scene from the movie "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," when the villain seeking the Holy Grail was told to choose from a roomful of chalices and, of course, he and his girlfriend choose the brightest and shiniest one.

And of course, when he drinks from it, he suffers an immediate gruesome demise. The old knight guarding the grail room remarked, He chose poorly.

Lets assume for a moment that the projections hold firm and on Nov. 8, Americans decide to apply the brakes to this Biden and Democrat disaster we have and give the car keys back to the Republicans. What then?

Other than stopping the insanity that is wrecking America, what will Republicans do to reverse the slide? Obviously, without holding the White House or a veto-proof majority in Congress, there is little that can be done legislatively other than obstruct the Democrats actions, but a Republican Congress can and should set the table for a Republican president Trump or DeSantis? in 2024.

Should Congress hold hearings? Yes, and there are lots of things to hold hearings on: the Biden family scandals and the possibility of them creating a compromised president; the failure of our withdrawal from Afghanistan; the willful violation of U.S. law allowing millions of illegal immigrants into the country; and corruption in federal law enforcement.

I could go on, but these hearings need to lead to criminal referrals. In 2024, when Republicans gain control of the executive branch, a bunch of leftists need to go to jail.

Dwight Weidman is a resident of Greene Township and is a graduate of Shepherd University. He is retired from the United States Department of Defense, where his career included assignments In Europe, Asia, and Central America. He has been in leadership roles for the Republican Party in two states, most recently serving two terms as Chairman of the Franklin County Republican Party. Involved in web publishing since 1996, he is the publisher of The Franklin County Journal. He has been an Amateur Radio Operator since 1988, getting his first license in Germany, and is a past volunteer with both Navy and Army MARS, Military Auxiliary Radio Service, and is also an NRA-certified firearms instructor.

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Republicans must make sure this election win will have consequences - Public Opinion

HELENAMatt Olson is a Republican running for Montanas Senate District 42, which encompasses eastern Helena and East Helena. He is running against Democrat Mary Ann Dunwell.

Olson and his wife Chiko owned and operated the Dairy Queen on Prospect Avenue for nearly 28 years. They sold the franchise in late 2020. The Olsons also coached sports in the area.

In an interview with MTN, Olson said his priority issues are addressing how inflation is impacting Montanans, financial literacy for youth and developing natural resources in responsible ways.

Check out the full interview with Olson, including verbatim, below.

Matt Olson Full Interview

What is your name, party and seat you are running for?

Im Matt Olson, candidate for Senate District 42, Republican Party.

What is your occupation and history in the area?

We ran the Dairy Queen on Prospect and owned and operated it for 28 years. At the end of 2020, we did sell the Dairy Queen. After seven days a week for so many years, we had an opportunity and my wife, and I were pretty tired. So now we're looking at the next chapter.

Why did you choose to run for the legislature?

You know, there's so many young people that we hired, and that worked for us for so many years. My kids, I want these people to have the opportunities that we had, and we had amazing opportunities in this state and in this country.

What are three key issues you believe need to be addressed by the next session of the Montana legislature?

You know, as a freshman legislator, I think I have a ton to learn. So first, I probably would go in just knowing that I need to learn a bunch. I think there's lots of bills that are being worked on, you know, I things that I hear about on doors, the biggest, the biggest single issues that I hear out at doors are inflation, it's really hurting a lot of people and it's pinching a lot of budgets, we see that with, you know, with some groups of seniors. You'll see that I think that something that you know, property tax, especially for the seniors is something important. I would love to see us working on financial literacy for our students, I think that it's something that my kids still come and ask me tons of questions. I mean, I think that's good. But it's, I think that we don't teach financial literacy very well in our country, in our state. So I think we could do so much better. I see so many kids buying brand new cars when they're in high school, and how that doesn't really make sense. It doesn't help them in the long run, it kinda is something that doesn't help their future. So that would be an issue. Then, I think the development of our natural resources, you know, that I think we can do it environmentally friendly, and that we can have clean water and in develop these resources, and it's a that's the biggest hedge we have against inflation.

State leaders have indicated that there's likely over a billion dollar surplus possible for the state budget, where do you think that money should go?

You know, I really don't like to spend money on money that we don't have budgets for. So I'd rather have spending money be budget issues that are for the future. So the legislature is figuring out how to pay for things over time not. So I don't really like the idea of just throwing money into new programs, and then have to figure out how to deal with that later. But I do think that in a time when inflation is running kinda rampant. That money being returned to taxpayers that paid the money is something that will benefit all Montanans. So I, I probably do favor, returning it to the people that paid it in at, you know, a good chunk of it anyway.

Over the last couple of election cycles, the state of elections has become a point of political discourse. What are your thoughts on the state of elections here in Montana?

In Montana? I mean, you hear some things. I mean, I don't think that it's probably changed the outcome of elections. But I do think that it is the government's job to make every person in Montana know that the elections are fair and free in it for every person to know that it's not. It's not for some it's not for one side or the other, it's all people need to know. The elections are fair and free. And that's the government's first job.

Is there anything else you want to say? Or think voters should know that we haven't covered so far?

You know, we sure would like you to vote for Matt Olson and we really need the help, I will promise that I'll work my hardest and we will, I will do everything I can to look at every side of an issue and just to put my heart into it, and to you know, the experience that I've learned in the last 28 years in business and how to solve problems. I will put that into practice.

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Meet the Candidate: Matt Olson, SD 42 Republican - KTVH

Minnesota Republicans are optimistic about their chances to turn the state's Iron Range red this election cycle, continuing a trend in recent years that's seen Democratic support decline in rural America.

The shift is culturally significant in northeastern Minnesota, a blue collar region that for decades sent some of the state's most powerful and colorful Democratic politicians to St. Paul and Washington, D.C.

"I think there's a better than 50-50 shot that Republicans win every legislative seat on the Range this year," said state House Republican Minority Leader Kurt Daudt. "I actually think that we have an opportunity this time to win the majority out in greater Minnesota."

Democrats see the suburbs as their best shot to make legislative gains this fall. But they're also defending the last remaining blue members on the Range and eyeing pickup opportunities in the region, making a handful of seats there battlegrounds in the fight to control the House and Senate.

The DFL is reminding voters of the party's St. Paul clout and pro-labor message, which helped them hold sway for decades in the mining towns that grew up around iron deposits on the Range.

Republicans have chipped away at DFL dominance in the region over the past decade, using animosity toward the Twin Cities and environmental concerns over mining among some Democrats as a wedge issue to install Republican Pete Stauber in Congress. Voters in the region picked Donald Trump for president in 2016 and 2020.

"It's a trickle effect, and a lot of the miners see it first," said Jed Holewa, who works for Hibbing Taconite Co. and leads the St. Louis County Republican Party.

He said COVID-19 restrictions and fears about crime are intensifying the trend.

"Lots of people are saying I can't be a Democrat anymore," Holewa said.

This spring, redistricting further scrambled the political dynamics in several northeastern Minnesota House seats, and the retirement of two longtime area senators has created openings that both parties are targeting. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent in five races on the Range, as well as two northeastern seats adjacent to the Range around Cloquet and Hermantown.

In most of those races, Democrats are now running in districts where voters picked Trump over Joe Biden two years ago, in some cases by wide margins.

Hibbing teacher and DFL Rep. Julie Sandstede won her race in 2020 by just 30 votes, the closest margin in any state House race. This cycle, redistricting put her in a matchup against Republican Rep. Spencer Igo in a new seat for a district where voters swung nearly 13 percentage points in favor of Trump two years ago. Igo worked in Stauber's office.

Next door, incumbent DFL Rep. Dave Lislegard, a former Aurora mayor and two-term legislator, is hoping his moderate profile and experience at the Capitol will help him defeat Republican Matt Norri in a district whose voters chose Trump by nearly 5 percentage points.

The same is true for DFL Rep. Rob Ecklund, who is facing Ely Mayor Roger Skraba. Ecklund is a trades worker and four-term legislator from International Falls whose newly drawn district went for Trump by nearly 6 points.

But the closest-watched battleground in the region is the rare opening in Senate District 3, a sprawling seat covering the northeast corner of the state that's roughly the size of Massachusetts. Voters in the new district were nearly evenly split between Biden and Trump in 2020.

Andrea Zupancich, the mayor of Babbitt, is a former Democrat who in 2020 joined several other northeastern Minnesota mayors to endorse Trump. Now she's running for the Senate as a Republican. She says she didn't leave the DFL, but that the party left her, a feeling she says is common in northeastern Minnesota.

"It's not the same party. It used to be for the working class," said Zupancich, a real estate agent and former hockey mom whose husband is an owner of Zup's grocery stores in the region.

"People here might be friends with a certain senator or representative, but if they are not aligning with their beliefs, they are not going to vote for them anymore."

She was recruited and endorsed by longtime Sen. Tom Bakk, a former DFL Senate leader known for his Capitol negotiating skills. Bakk, who is retiring, broke with his party to become an independent, joining Republicans on some issues and gaining the gavel of the powerful Senate Capital Investment Committee in the process.

Along with Republican Zupancich, Bakk also endorsed two Democrats Eckland and Lislegard in their House races.

Zupancich's DFL opponent, Grant Hauschild, said northern Minnesota has a history of electing lawmakers such as Bakk who can deliver for the district. Jim Oberstar represented the area for 36 years in the U.S. House as a pro-labor Democrat who brought home federal funding for local projects.

"The northland has come to expect a senator who can bring home the money north. That is why my slogan is 'just deliver,' " said Hauschild, a Hermantown City Councilmember and leader at a regional hospital foundation. "We need to not be distracted by partisan issues and focus on delivering for our communities."

Hauschild, who has worked on labor and agriculture issues in Washington and supports mining, was endorsed by Doug Johnson, the senator who served the region for decades before Bakk.

Democrats could also have an opportunity in Senate District 7, which is open after the retirement and recent death of longtime Sen. David Tomassoni, who joined Bakk in breaking with the DFL caucus. Tomassoni, a former Olympic hockey player, served the region for two decades, even as the district swung nearly 9 points for Trump two years ago.

Republicans have recruited Rob Farnsworth, a teacher and a former legislative candidate. Ben DeNucci, his DFL opponent, is an Itasca County commissioner, but he could lose votes to write-in challenger Kim McLaughlin, the DFL candidate he defeated in the primary election.

While northeastern Minnesota candidates are still talking about mining, labor and jobs, the campaign talking points are becoming more similar to those in districts across the state, said Hibbing writer and professor Aaron Brown. Culture war issues have seeped into Range politics, he said, fueling the Republican wave in the area. Brown fears clout could be lost, but also the region's distinct brand of politics.

"The thing I hate as a Range political observer is our uniqueness and independence going the way of the dodo and being replaced with much more cookie cutter partisan politics," said Brown.

"All of this together suggests to me a region at the end stages of a period of change. Eventually, Republicans will settle in to be one of the dominant political forces on the Range. Even if they don't do it this time, they're not going away."

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Minnesota Republicans hope to turn the Iron Range red this fall - Star Tribune