Category Archives: Republican

Republicans are substantial favorites to take over the U.S. House of Representatives following this Novembers midterm elections, but the U.S. Senate is much more competitive, according to FiveThirtyEights 2022 midterm election forecast, which launched today. Democrats are also favored to hang on to the governorships in a trio of swing states in the Rust Belt Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan although they are significant underdogs to win high-profile gubernatorial races in Georgia and Texas against Republican incumbents.

The split diagnosis reflects the difference between macro- and micro-level conditions. The national environment is quite poor for Democrats. Of course, this is typical for the presidents party, which has lost seats in the House in all but two of the past 21 midterm elections. But Democrats are also saddled with an unpopular President Biden and a series of challenges for the country, including inflation levels that havent been seen in decades, the lingering effects of the still-ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and fraying trust in civic institutions caused, in part, by Republican efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Democrats, as a predominantly urban party, also face a longstanding problem in the Senate, where every state has equal representation regardless of its population, resulting in a substantial built-in bias toward white, rural states. And although Democrats are very slightly better off following the redistricting process in the House than they were under the 2020 maps, there are still more Republican-leaning seats than Democratic-leaning ones.

True, the political environment is dynamic. The Supreme Courts decision last week to overturn Roe v. Wade is too recent to be fully reflected in polls, but there are reasons to think it will help Democrats. Roe, which granted the constitutional right to abortion, was a popular precedent, and Democratic voters are more likely than Republican ones to say the decision will encourage them to vote at the midterms.

Moreover, in striking down Roe and other popular laws like restrictions against the concealed carry of firearms, the Supreme Court has in some ways undermined one of the traditional reasons that the presidents party tends to lose seats at the midterms. Typically, voters like some degree of balance: They do not want one party to have unfettered control of all levers of government. But the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, is a reminder of how much power Republicans have even if they dont control the White House.

The insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 can also serve as a reminder to voters about what might happen if the Electoral College certification process takes place in 2024 amid Republican control of both chambers of Congress. Democrats have had trouble getting the public to treat threats to democracy as a high priority, but polls do show that the public is sympathetic to the Democrats case, especially after the recent congressional hearings on the events of Jan. 6.

So, this is not a typical, low-stakes midterm election. On the contrary, there are strong forces tugging at each side of the rope, some of which are potentially of existential importance.

But Democrats majorities in both chambers of Congress are narrow, the historical precedent toward the presidents party losing seats is strong, and polls so far such as the generic congressional ballot, which asks voters which party they would support in an election suggest that voters slightly prefer Republican control of Congress.

Or at least thats the story in the House, where there are dozens of competitive races and candidates are relatively anonymous. There, big-picture factors tend to prevail. An unusually weak Republican candidate in one district might be counteracted by a strong one in another, for example.

In the Senate and gubernatorial races, by contrast, individual factors can matter more. And the GOP has nominated or is poised to nominate candidates who might significantly underperform a generic Republican based on some combination of inexperience, personal scandals or having articulated unpopular conservative positions. This is not a new problem for Republicans: underqualified or fringy candidates have cost them seats in the Senate in other recent cycles.

So lets briefly run through the models forecast for House, Senate and gubernatorial races. Then Ill describe some changes to the model since 2020 which are modest this year but reflect how congressional races are changing in an increasingly polarized political environment.

Republicans have an 87 percent chance of taking over the House, according to the Deluxe version of our model. Thats far from certain, but Democrats are fighting the odds: Their 13 percent chances are equivalent to tossing a coin and having it come up tails three times in a row.

Thats not to say House control will be a matter of luck, exactly. A change in the political environment could have ripple effects. For instance, sometimes one party wins nearly all the toss-up races, as Republicans did in 2020. However, even if Democrats were to win all 13 races that our model currently designates as toss-ups (meaning that no party has more than a 60 percent chance of winning), plus hold on to all the seats in which theyre favored, they would still wind up with only 208 seats, 10 short of the number they need for a majority.

Instead, Democrats will also have to win some seats where Republican candidates are currently favored, and that requires the national political environment in November to be more favorable for Democrats than our model is currently expecting.

On the one hand, the task isnt that daunting for Democrats. Our model calculates that Democrats would be favored to keep the House if they win the House popular vote or lose it by less than 0.7 percentage points something that Democrats did in both 2018 and 2020.

Moreover, Democrats are down by only about 2 points in our current average of generic-ballot polls. Given the inherent error in polling, and how much time there is between now and November, it isnt hard to turn a 2-point deficit in the polls into a 1-point win.

However, in important ways, that 2-point deficit understates the degree of trouble that Democrats are in. One reason is because many of those polls are conducted among registered voters rather than likely voters, and the electorate that turns out in November is likely to be more Republican than the broader universe of all registered voters. Historically, the patterns in midterm elections are that: 1) Republicans turn out more than Democrats, and 2) voters for whichever party doesnt control the presidency are more enthusiastic and turn out more. In 2018, those factors canceled one another out. Democrats, not controlling the presidency, were the more enthusiastic party, helping to neutralize the Republicans historical turnout advantage. This year, though, they both work in the favor of Republicans.

Thus, the model adjusts those registered-voter polls based on its estimate of what likely-voter polls would show, and when it does that, the Republicans generic-ballot lead is really more like 4 points than 2 points. I should note that this adjustment is not rigid in the model. Although the model uses historical turnout patterns as its baseline assumption, it will override that based on polls. In other words, if polls come out showing Democrats holding their own among likely voters such as because of increased Democratic enthusiasm in the wake of Roe being overturned the model will adjust to reflect that. Put another way, a very strong turnout would give Democrats a fighting chance of keeping the House.

But also, the generic ballot isnt the only input that the model considers, and some of the other factors look worse for Democrats than the generic ballot does. Based on the historical tendency for the presidents party to lose seats in the midterms and Bidens poor approval rating, for instance, the situation is more likely to get worse for Democrats than better. The model also evaluates factors such as polling and fundraising data in individual races.

Overall, the Deluxe forecast expects Democrats to eventually lose the popular vote for the House by closer to 6 points, about the margin that they lost it by in 2014. And it expects Republicans to wind up with 237 seats in an average outcome, a gain of 24 seats from the 213 they had at the start of the current Congress.

As I mentioned, this analysis is based on the Deluxe version of our model, which accounts for polling, fundamentals or factors such as fundraising and incumbency and expert race ratings such as those put out by the Cook Political Report. The Classic version of our model, which leaves out the expert ratings sacrificing the additional accuracy they add but sticking to purely quantitative factors tells a similar story, with Democrats also having a 12 percent chance of keeping the House. The Lite version of our model, meanwhile, which tries to forecast as much as it can based on polls alone, does paint a more optimistic picture for Democrats, giving them a 22 percent chance of keeping the House. But that version leaves out a lot of useful information, especially given that there isnt much polling in a number of competitive House races.

Democratic hopes of keeping the Senate are much more viable, however. Part of this, as I mentioned, is because they appear to have stronger candidates in a handful of key races. Pennsylvania, for instance which is an open seat after the retirement of Republican Sen. Pat Toomey is ordinarily the sort of seat that youd expect Republicans to win since Pennsylvania is a purple state in a Republican year. However, the Democratic candidate, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, is ahead of Republican Mehmet Oz, the doctor and TV personality, in every poll conducted so far. The model, though, is trained to be a bit skeptical given the fundamentals of the race, so it hedges against those polls and, at this point, has determined that Pennsylvania is best thought of as a toss-up. Still, that means Democrats have roughly a 50-50 chance of gaining a GOP-held Senate seat, offsetting potential losses elsewhere.

Indeed, our forecast sees the overall Senate landscape to be about as competitive as it gets. The Deluxe forecast literally has Senate control as a 50-50 tossup. The Classic and Lite forecasts show Democrats as very slight favorites to keep the Senate, meanwhile, with a 59 and a 62 percent chance, respectively.

Part of this is because Senate terms last for six years, and so most of these seats were last contested in 2016, a mediocre year for Democrats in which they lost the popular vote for the House and also lost Senate races in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Arizona. Of the 35 Senate seats up for grabs in November, 21 are currently held by Republicans. True, most of these are not competitive, but in addition to their chances to gain a GOP-held seat in Pennsylvania, Democrats also have credible chances in Wisconsin and North Carolina (and outside chances in Ohio and Florida, although those are a stretch given how GOP-leaning both states have become).

Republicans dont have any surefire pickups, meanwhile. Our model regards their best chances as being in Georgia, but that race is rated as a toss-up. And the races in Arizona and New Hampshire merely lean toward the Democratic incumbent, meaning they are still highly plausible GOP pickup opportunities.

Still, the picture isnt as bad as you might expect for Democrats. If the political environment really deteriorates for them, theyll be in trouble, lose most of the competitive races and even blue states like Colorado could come into play. But if things are merely pretty bad for Democrats instead of catastrophic, the outcome of the Senate will remain uncertain enough that stronger candidates could make the difference for them.

Its hard to talk about gubernatorial races on a systematic basis since theres no particular prize for winning a majority of governorships. But, for the record, our model does run these calculations, and the Deluxe version estimates that theres an 83 percent chance that Republicans end up with a majority of governorships following this Novembers elections, compared with a 7 percent chance for Democrats. (There is an 10 percent chance that neither party has a majority.) However, a lot of these governorships are in smaller, lower-population states, and the model thinks theres a 73 percent chance that the majority of the U.S. population will reside in states run by Democratic governors.

Overall, though, gubernatorial contests take the theme from the Senate a step further: Individual candidates can matter a lot. Indeed, partisanship matters less in gubernatorial races than in races for Congress, even if it matters more than it once did. Consider, for instance, that there are currently Democratic governors in Kansas and Louisiana and Republican ones in Massachusetts and Maryland, although several of those seats could flip parties this year.

However, incumbency is a powerful force in gubernatorial races. For instance, even though Michigan is a slightly red-leaning state, its incumbent Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, is a clear favorite against a Republican field marred by fraudulent attempts to access the ballot and the arrest of a leading candidate for his participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection. Meanwhile, Wisconsins Tony Evers, also a Democratic incumbent, is a favorite against a Republican field where the most likely nominee is Rebecca Kleefisch, the former lieutenant governor. This is the sort of race where abortion could matter: Technically, Wisconsins 173-year-old abortion ban which outlaws all abortions, except in cases to save the life of the mother is now in effect following the Dobbs decision, although the Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul has said he wont enforce the ban. But Kleefisch has said she opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest.

However, Republicans also have some strongly positioned incumbents. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is an 86 percent favorite to hold on against Democrat Stacey Abrams, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is a 95 percent favorite against Democrat Beto ORourke. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a co-favorite with former President Donald Trump to be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, is also a 94 percent favorite to win a second term.

Perhaps the most important gubernatorial race is in Pennsylvania, an open-seat race as the Democratic incumbent governor, Tom Wolf, is term-limited. There, the Republican nominee, Doug Mastriano, was present outside the Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection and worked to overturn Bidens win in Pennsylvania, potentially yielding a constitutional crisis if hes governor in Pennsylvania and the election outcome is close again there in 2024. But Mastriano is an underdog against Democrat Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania attorney general.

Overall, were happy with our congressional and gubernatorial forecasts, which last underwent a major revision before the 2018 elections. They performed very well in 2018 and fairly well in 2020 (despite a challenging year for the polls in 2020; it helped that our model also considers a number of other factors in addition to the polling). Therefore, the overall methodology is largely the same. However, after assessing the performance of the models, we did make a few changes around the margins:

Finally, a couple pieces of housekeeping. A number of states havent held their primaries yet, so in those cases, we guess at the most likely nominees based on polling, fundraising and other factors. These presumed nominees are designated with an asterisk in the interactive. If you see anything egregiously wrong such as a candidate listed as a presumptive nominee when theyve dropped out of the race please drop us a line.

Were also still thinking about how best to handle Alaska, which has a new system in place this year in which the top-four finishers in the primary advance to the general election regardless of political party, and then the general election outcome is determined by ranked-choice voting (or, as some call it, an instant runoff) if no candidate receives a majority. This is not entirely dissimilar to the way elections are conducted in Louisiana, in which all candidates from all parties appear on the ballot in a blanket nonpartisan primary in November, and then theres a runoff later between the top-two candidates if no candidate gets 50 percent of the vote. In fact, were currently taking a bit of a shortcut by using the Louisiana code for Alaska, essentially treating the instant runoff as though its an actual runoff where voters go to the polls again.

We may revisit this assumption later, but it does avoid one potential pitfall. In Alaskas House, Senate and gubernatorial races, its fairly likely that well end up with one Democratic candidate but two or three Republican candidates following the Aug. 16 primaries. If the Republican vote is divided two or three ways, it may well be that the Democrat initially receives the plurality of the vote. However, this lead is unlikely to survive the instant-runoff process assuming voters for one Republican rank the other Republicans ahead of any Democrat. The process we use for Louisiana assumes that votes mostly tend to stay within the same party in the event of a runoff, and this same assumption is in place in Alaska. Thus, we have Republicans as fairly heavy favorites in the Alaska races, although the new system introduces some uncertainty.

The forecast itself will update continuously whenever new polls or other information are added to our database. Well also publish a written update to the forecast once per week or so, usually on Fridays, to review new data and other changes in the landscape, before upping the frequency as the election draws closer. We hope youll regularly visit FiveThirtyEight as part of your midterms rotation.

Read more here:

Why Republicans Are Favored To Win The House, But Not The Senate - FiveThirtyEight

But even Republicans who didnt take that vote are running into stronger primary opposition than in the last midterm, the analysis shows. The average incumbent House Republican pulled 88 percent support in party primaries four years ago. Thats dropped this year to 75 percent for GOP members who didnt vote for the Jan. 6 commission and cratered to 62 percent for the incumbents who did back it.

Altogether, the numbers paint a portrait of an angry base sending a message to its ambassadors in Washington: Dont step out of line, or else.

Simply being an incumbent puts you in those crosshairs, said Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah).

POLITICOs analysis averaged results of all of the completed vote counts in House GOP primaries so far this year.

The current House Select Committee on Jan. 6, which has grabbed the spotlight with televised hearings this month, is not the commission that 35 House Republicans supported. That proposed investigative body died in the Senate, but that nuance is often lost on voters and ignored by opponents eager to exploit an angry GOP electorate looking to punish any whiff of disloyalty to Trump.

The irony is the commission that I voted for would have avoided this current commission, said Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah), who won his primary but, with votes still being tallied, has less than 60 percent support from GOP voters. My challenger looks at this as an opportunity, thinking he can disingenuously persuade people otherwise. Its just not accurate.

Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) talks to supporters during a Utah Republican election night party on Tuesday, June 28, 2022, in South Jordan, Utah.|George Frey/AP Photo

Five of the 35 Republican members who voted for that investigation had primaries on Tuesday night. One, Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.), prevailed after being forced into a runoff in which his opponent continued to weaponize the commission vote. Another, Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), lost to Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) in a redistricting-created clash where Miller leaned heavily on Daviss Jan. 6 vote.

The stats for the commission voters are stark. Heading into Tuesdays primaries, more than half (eight out of 15) of the members who voted for the Jan. 6 commission got less than 60 percent of the vote in a GOP primary dangerous territory for an incumbent. For comparison: Of the 102 House Republicans who had GOP primaries earlier this year, only 15 of them fell under that threshold.

So far only three members who backed the commission have lost, all under additional difficult circumstances. One of them also voted to impeach Trump, and two others faced fellow incumbents in redistricting-fueled primaries.

But the specter of costly, months-long primaries and too-close-for-comfort winning margins, which dozens more House Republicans are facing this year, could ultimately deter others from bucking party orthodoxy or taking a tough vote of conscience in the future.

In TV ads, debates and mailers, challengers seized on the Jan. 6 commission vote to cast the incumbents as insufficiently conservative. Some were even inspired to launch bids because of the vote.

The perils of the vote were apparent from the start of the primary season. Rep. Van Taylor (R-Texas), one of the 35 Republicans to back the commission, drew several opponents for his March 1 primary and was ultimately forced into a runoff. (He announced plans to retire shortly after the primary, after admitting to an extramarital affair with the widow of a former member of ISIS.)

Every time I talked, [I] brought it up, said Keith Self, who won a runoff slot with Taylor and is now the GOP nominee.

It was the central point, Self said. There were other votes. There were other things. But that was a big one. I mean Ill admit that was a big one. It was a big meaningful one here in the district.

In Idaho, GOP Rep. Mike Simpson had to beat back a rematch from an attorney who previously ran against him in 2014 and launched a second bid zeroing in the commission vote. Simpson won with 55 percent, after spending nearly $1 million in the run-up to the primary.

Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) also faced another matchup with the same candidate he faced during his first run in 2014. He prevailed, but with less than 60 percent of the primary vote, a notable dip for the incumbent.

Some of the lower-than-usual victory margins could be ascribed to redistricting. Nearly all members inherited some new voters amid changes to the lines of their districts. But Democrats are also dealing with redistricting, and their average incumbents performance in party primaries hasnt shifted compared to the last midterm, holding steady at 90 percent.

Plus, many Republicans had only minor tweaks to their constituencies and at least one didnt see any change.

In South Dakotas at-large district, GOP Rep. Dusty Johnson got just under 60 percent after a serious primary challenge from state Rep. Taffy Howard, who took aim at the incumbent for backing the commission and for voting to certify the election results.

A pro-Howard super PAC went beyond Jan. 6 in its attacks on Johnson, running a spot warning that Johnson denies that the communists stole the election from President Trump.

I do think you see a lot more primaries, Johnson said. I think that there are so many disagreements within the Republican Party that people feel like they need to litigate those in primaries.

Dusty Johnson speaks during a news conference.|Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo

But Johnson said he didnt regret any of his votes, either for the commission or to certify the election results.

Im a big believer in the Constitution thats generally an important characteristic of a Republican, Johnson said. A clear and plain reading of the Constitution is: Members of Congress will be witnesses to a ceremonial event, not super-judges.

Its not just Republicans who backed the Jan. 6 investigation that have had primary trouble.

Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) and William Timmons (R-S.C.) all got under 55 percent of the vote. None backed the commission, though Mace faced a Trump-endorsed challenger anyway.

They are very polarized, very angry, said Rep. Tom Cole, a former GOP campaign chief, of the electorate. So thats a high-risk time for an incumbent.

Every time I talked, [I] brought it up

Keith Self, who defeated Rep. Van Taylor (R-Texas) in a runoff.

Theres always a frustration when youre the minority, Cole said, adding that reality is often ignored. You can fight awfully hard, but youre still going to lose given the vote total.

In interviews, many of the GOP members said they were forced to repeatedly explain that the Select Committee on the Jan. 6 attacks is not the version of the investigation they supported. The proposal they backed would have been an independent commission modeled after the one that investigated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, with equal say for GOP members and not just Trump foes Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.

But when that proposal died in the Senate, Speaker Nancy Pelosi unilaterally created a new committee. And after some partisan bickering, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy yanked all five of his picks from serving on the panel and refused to participate

That kind of distinction is often lost on voters.

When they hear what I voted for, theyre fine with it, said Curtis, who sailed through his Utah primary on Tuesday despite his support for the commission. But the assumption is that I voted for the one that were actually seeing right now, so it takes some explaining.

In Smiths New Jersey seat, the distortion was even greater. He said he was fielding constant questions from voters on why he voted to impeach Trump which he didnt. And he accused his opponent of spreading that falsehood.

Frankly, there were more lies in this race than I ever had in 23 races. I first ran in 78, Smith said in an interview after his primary.

His defeated GOP challenger, Mike Crispi, said he never accused Smith of that but added that voters were so angry at his Jan. 6 commission vote that they look at it as a third impeachment.

People are connecting a Jan. 6 vote to impeachment, I cant help that they do that, Crispi said. I cant help that they look at his record that is so left and then correlate it with being anti-Trump.

Crispi hasnt ruled out another challenge and he believes hes already had an impact on Smith, after receiving grateful calls and texts last week when the incumbent declined to support Congress new bipartisan gun safety package.

He definitely is voting more carefully, Crispi said. That gun control bill shows that were in his head because in any other circumstance, he would have voted yes on that.

Read the rest here:

Republicans who backed Trump Jan. 6 probe face fierce backlash at the polls - POLITICO

Jerry Springer| Sarasota Herald-Tribune

It's frightening to realize how close our country came to losing our democracy because of former President Donald Trump and his insurrectionist minions.

But here' s what may be even more frightening: We no longer have two major political parties that are committed to ensuring that America stays a democracy.

These arenot the ravings of an incurable partisan, though I do admit that all things being equal, I do mark my ballot for Democrats. But, of course, all things arent equal these days. So my critique about the Republican Party,which was once fondly knownas the "Grand Old Party,"is an honest attempt at offering some objective observations.

And here's one very objective observation: While we still havetwo major political parties that are fiercely battling and contesting each other, only one of them is doing sowhile displaying a deep love for democracy in our country. And it's not the Republican Party.

MyRepublican friends and, yes I do have some always modify their declarations of being Republicans by saying, Yes, Trumps a whacko. And, yes,there are some extremists, racists and Proud Boys in our party. But ourparty's basic principles conservatism, limited government and low taxes for corporations and the wealthy are still worth believing in and supporting."

But is that really what todays Republican Party stands for?

Consider this. A near-majority of Republicans still believe President Joe Biden didn't win the 2020 election. And they still believe that Biden's victory by slightly more than7 million votes should be overturned simply because the loser wants to keep insistinghe was the real winner,even though he has provided absolutely no evidence to back up his endless complainingabout fraudulent voting

Is this how we show our love for our country? Or for America's democracy?

And, no, we're not talking about just about afringe segment of Republicans, In fact, the Texas Republican Party recently approveda platform suggestingthat if there any federal laws that Texas happens to dislike, they should just "be ignored, opposed, refused and nullified. It also declares hatTexas "retains the right to secede from the United States," and urgesthestate Legislature to give Texansa chance to vote on a secession referendum.

Of course, this was tried back in the 19th century and it didn'twork out so well. But apparently the Republicans in Texas think it's worth another try in the 21st century.

Once again, this is not merely a fringe group: thisis the official TexasRepublican Party, which is one ofthe largest state parties in America. And, by the way, in addition to secession the party is also in favor of:

As uncomfortable as it is to admit, todays Republican Party does not stand up for American democracy and it does not unequivocally support that principle, either. It isnow clearly in favor of making America an undemocratic theocracy, and those who long for the Republican Party that once existed had better stop their daydreaming. It islong gone, and it isnot coming back.

Jerry Springer is a longtime nationally syndicated television talk show host who resides in Sarasota. Springerhas a law degree from Northwestern University and served one term asthe mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio.He is the host of "The Jerry Springer Podcast."

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Jerry Springer: The Republican Party used to be reasonable. Not anymore - Sarasota Herald-Tribune

WASHINGTON, June 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a Republican-backed appeal that could give state legislatures far more power over federal elections by limiting the ability of state courts to review their actions, taking up a North Carolina case that could have broad implications for the 2024 elections and beyond.

The justices took up the appeal by Republican state lawmakers of a February decision by North Carolina's top court to throw out a map delineating the state's 14 U.S. House of Representatives districts approved last year by the Republican-controlled state legislature.

The North Carolina Supreme Court determined that the boundaries for the districts were drawn by the legislature in a manner that boosted the electoral chances of Republicans at the expense of Democrats. It rejected Republican arguments seeking to shield legislature-drawn maps from legal attack in state courts.

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North Carolina House Speaker Timothy Moore, a Republican, hailed the high court's decision to hear the appeal.

"This case is not only critical to election integrity in North Carolina, but has implications for the security of elections nationwide," Moore said.

Voting rights advocates disagreed.

"In a radical power grab, self-serving politicians want to defy our state's highest court and impose illegal voting districts upon the people of North Carolina," said Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause, a voting rights group that is among the plaintiffs challenging the legislature's map.

In March, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Republican request to put on hold the lower court rulings that adopted the court-drawn map, a decision seen as boosting Democratic hopes of retaining their slim House majority in the November midterm elections. Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented from that decision.

The Republican lawmakers said the state court impermissibly imposed its own policy determination for how much partisanship can go into crafting congressional lines. They acknowledged that the case would have an impact beyond redistricting, extending to "the whole waterfront of voting issues, from absentee voting deadlines to witness requirements, voter ID to curbside voting."

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case in its next term, which begins in October, with a decision due by June 2023. The ruling is not expected to come before this November's elections but could apply to 2024 elections including the presidential race.

Two groups of plaintiffs, including Democratic voters and an environmental group, sued after North Carolina's legislature passed its version of the congressional map last November. The plaintiffs argued that the map violated the North Carolina state constitution's provisions concerning free elections and freedom of assembly, among others.

The North Carolina Supreme Court struck down the map on Feb. 4, concluding that the way the districts were crafted was intentionally biased against Democrats, diluting their "fundamental right to equal voting power."

A lower state court on Feb. 23 rejected a redrawn map submitted by the legislature and instead adopted a new map drawn by a bipartisan group of experts. According to some redistricting analysts, the new map includes seven Republican districts likely to be won by Republicans, six likely to be won by Democrats and one competitive seat.

The dispute is one of numerous legal battles in the United States over the composition of electoral districts, which are redrawn each decade to reflect population changes measured in a national census, last taken in 2020. In most states, such redistricting is done by the party in power, which can lead to map manipulation for partisan gain.

The Supreme Court in 2019 barred federal judges from curbing the practice, called partisan gerrymandering. Critics have said that such gerrymandering warps democracy.

The North Carolina Republicans' defense of the legislature's map relies on a contentious legal theory called the "independent state legislature doctrine" that is gaining traction in conservative legal circles and, if accepted, would vastly increase politicians' control over how elections are conducted.

Under that doctrine, the U.S. Constitution gives legislatures, not state courts or other entities, authority over election rules including the drawing of electoral districts.

The doctrine is based in part on language in the Constitution stating that the "times, places and manner" of federal elections "shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof." In their appeal to the Supreme Court, the Republican lawmakers decried the "state supreme court's usurpation of that authority."

The state's Department of Justice said in a legal filing that, contrary to the Republican lawmakers' assertions, North Carolina state law specifically authorizes state courts to review redistricting efforts.

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Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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U.S. Supreme Court to hear Republican bid to curb judicial oversight of elections - Reuters.com

Rep. Barry Loudermilk led a Capitol rioter on a tour of House offices the day before the January 6 attack.

Now, he could be next in line to lead the committee that oversees security at the Capitol.

The current most senior Republican, Rep. Rodney Davis, lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger on Tuesday.

Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, who led a January 6 rioter on a tour of the Capitol complex the day before the attack, could now be next in line to lead the committee that oversees Capitol security.

That's because Rep. Rodney Davis of Illinois, currently the ranking member on the Committee on House Administration, lost his primary to fellow Republican Rep. Mary Miller on Tuesday and Republicans are widely predicted to regain control of the House in 2023. Loudermilk is currently the second-highest ranking Republican on the panel. The committee has jurisdiction over both the Capitol Police and security on the House side of the Capitol complex.

Miller, who recently said that the overturning of Roe v. Wade was a "victory for white life" a remark her campaign later said was an unintended "mishap" had the backing of former President Donald Trump and criticized Davis for voting to establish a bipartisan January 6 commission.

Earlier this month, the January 6 committee released footage of Loudermilk leading a tour group through the House office buildings on January 5, 2021. The following day, at least one member of that tour group returned to the grounds of the Capitol, and could be heard yelling violent threats against Democratic lawmakers.

"When I get done with you, you're going to need a shine on top of that bald head," the rally attendee says in the video, referring to Pelosi.

It remains unclear whether the man entered the Capitol building itself. January 6 committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi also noted that the man and other tour attendees took photos of areas in the House office buildings that wouldn't normally be of interest to tourists, including stairwells and tunnels.

Story continues

Seeking to explain himself the day the footage was released, Loudermilk claimed that the man was simply photographing a golden eagle light fixture on the wall.

"Obviously, I do not support anything he said, but nobody in that group talked or spoke that way," said Loudermilk, referring to the man's violent threats against congressional Democrats.

But Loudermilk's story about the tours has changed a number of times as new information has emerged. He's continually pointed to a letter from Capitol Police to Rep. Davis stating that they didn't consider "any of the activities we observed as suspicious," though they noted that Loudermilk left the tour group unattended at one point.

Though Loudermilk is next in line in terms of seniority, his position atop the committee is not necessarily assured; ultimately, House Republican leadership is in charge of committee assignments for their members.

In a statement to Insider, Loudermilk said he would "have to give serious consideration" to chairing the committee if asked to do so by the next Speaker, but emphasized that his current focus is on "the important work the Republicans are doing on the Committee."

"Rodney Davis has done a tremendous job as the Ranking Republican on the Committee on House Administration. It has been an honor to work under his leadership, and we still have a lot of work to be done this year," said Loudermilk. "Who becomes the chairman of the committee for the 118th Congress will ultimately be the decision of the incoming Speaker."

In 2013, facing criticism for appointing only white men to lead major committees in the House, former Speaker John Boehner appointed then-Rep. Candice Miller to chair the committee, despite the fact that she had not previously served on it.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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The House Republican who led a rioter on a tour the day before the January 6 attack could lead the committee overseeing Capitol security - Yahoo News

Obama and his party combated it not with a norm violation of their own such as a temporary (and legally dicey) recess appointment of a justice but with reasonableness. Surely appointing a modest and moderate justice like Merrick Garland would lead public pressure to force McConnell to relent or would push voters to punish Republicans for their transgression. Neither happened. And the seat was filled by a Republican.

This is a pattern weve seen repeated ever since. Republicans attempt some unprecedented and shocking move; horrified Democrats respond by trying to be the adults in the room; and then the Democrats go unrewarded for it.

To be sure, a country is probably better off with one responsible party than with zero. But in important ways, this kind of asymmetry can be dangerous, making the government less and less representative of its people.

Now, time for some game theory.

In the game known as the prisoners dilemma, two players are competing against each other, and each has just two options cooperate or defect. If they both cooperate, they both get a nice reward. However, if Player 1 defects while Player 2 cooperates, Player 1 gets an even bigger reward while Player 2 pays a penalty. (The reverse happens if Player 1 cooperates while Player 2 defects.) If both players defect, neither gets a reward nor pays a penalty. Thus, each player wants the other to cooperate, and both prefer jointly cooperating to both defecting. But since neither can trust the other to cooperate, the usual outcome is for both to defect, leading to no payoff for either player. (The ferryboat scene in The Dark Knight (2008) remains my favorite, if imperfect, example of the prisoners dilemma.)

Playing this game many times can lead the players to develop norms of trust. Neither is happy with the low payoff, so reaching some sort of agreement about cooperation can be beneficial to both.

This hasnt been the pattern in national politics. On a range of issues and tactics, Republicans have defected while Democrats have cooperated. This includes how the GOP secured multiple Supreme Court justices, Donald Trump giving White House jobs to his daughter and son-in-law, Trump profiting from the presidency while refusing to release his tax returns, the Republican National Committee declaring the Jan. 6th riots to be legitimate political discourse, and many, many more. (I am not including Trumps efforts to steal the 2020 election or his instigation of the Capitol riot since those were, appropriately, met with impeachment and investigations.)

Were seeing this dynamic again in the wake of the Supreme Courts decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. This ruling, while opposed by most Americans, was a longstanding goal of Republicans and particularly conservatives on the court. And Democratic leaders had, thanks to POLITICOs bombshell disclosure of the draft opinion, ample warning that it was coming. And in response, they have done virtually nothing.

As Jamelle Bouie notes, there are things the president or Congress can do to rein in an out-of-control Supreme Court. Lawmakers can impeach justices (perhaps the appointees that appear to have deceived senators or even lied under oath in their confirmation hearings). They can curtail the courts jurisdiction or constrain judicial review. They can add more justices. No, Democrats may not have the votes to do any of these things; such efforts would likely fall at least one or two votes short in the Senate amid opposition from people like Sen. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, though they may at least be open to discussion on some ideas. But its not clear that Democrats are even trying to broach the topic. Instead, they have read poems and sung patriotic tunes.

Even if Congress doesnt act, the Biden administration could push back on its own. One possible policy response would be to put abortion clinics on federal lands within states that have banned abortions; the administration has taken that off the table. Biden also could verbally attack the legitimacy of the court, as a previous Democratic president once did. He hasnt.

To be clear, most of these moves would be treated as significant norm violations in Washington. But thats the point. When a norm violation is met by another, that gives both parties an incentive to find a new equilibrium down the road, and suggests to the first violator that they may have gone too far. If the majoritys rulings to end the federal right to abortion and restrict the states ability to regulate guns were met with an attempt to add four justices to the court even if that attempt failed it would send a message that there is a price to be paid, and that a future Congress might finish the job.

A classic economics article by David Kreps et al. outlines a version of the prisoners dilemma that spans many iterations. In this game, it may make sense for one player to act irrationally in the short run, forgoing some payoffs, in order to give that player a reputation of unpredictability or craziness. This can improve that players negotiating position further down the road. It could make sense for Democrats to adopt a similar strategy, at least to the point that Republicans believe that Democrats are as willing to damage institutions as they are.

For now, though, the lack of any fulsome Democratic response simply sends the message that there will be no penalty for GOP transgressions. And the courts conservative majority is just getting started.

Read more:

Opinion | Why Are Democrats Letting Republicans Steamroll Them? - POLITICO

During that report, local anchor Kyle Clark called out Ganahl for the exact sort of crafted language that the Posts national political desk willingly parroted. This whole, Joe Biden is the president, as if that settles it, Clark said, exasperated by Ganahls infuriating rhetorical nods. Saddam Hussein was president, you know what I mean? Like Robert Mugabe led Zimbabwe, but like, they didn't have clean elections. The question that people want to know is, does Colorado have clean elections? (Indeed, Ganahls ally Bannon has described Biden as an illegitimate president.)

Station reporter Marshall Zelinger explained the Ganahl campaigns official line was that it had seen no direct evidence of cheating in elections, but wanted to see investigations of claims by people who complain about it.

Yeah, because as we try to point out, it's not a joke, Clark responded. If our elections are rigged, it's the biggest story in the history of ever. And if this is a lie, made up to get people afraid and giving money, its a big story.

Clark and Zelinger were correct; it ought to to be a big story that Republican candidates will put on a friendly face to Big Lie supporters, while avoiding the topic in mainstream settings as a deliberate political strategy. Its a shame when a major national media outlet falls for that strategy and pushes the desired propaganda line.

Read more:

The Washington Post falsely promotes a moderate Republican candidate who has admitted to hiding extremist stances from voters - Media Matters for...

PEORIA, Ill. Darren Bailey, a far-right state senator who was the beneficiary of an extraordinary effort by Democrats to help his candidacy, has won the Republican primary for governor in Illinois.

Mr. Bailey, whose crushing victory was called by The Associated Press on Tuesday, topped a field of five other Republicans in the contest to oppose Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire Democrat who invested $35 million to influence the G.O.P. primary.

The Illinois governors race is on track to become the most expensive campaign for a nonpresidential office in American history. More than $100 million has been spent on television advertising in the primary.

A farmer from Southern Illinois who was endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump at a rally on Saturday, Mr. Bailey was virtually unknown in state politics before he upset a Republican incumbent in a 2018 primary for a State House district.

One of his first legislative proposals once in office was a bill to remove Chicago from the state. When the pandemic began, he refused to wear a mask during legislative sessions and sued Mr. Pritzker to block public health mitigation efforts.

In 2020, Mr. Bailey advanced to the State Senate, where he and a few other conservative legislators from Southern and southeastern Illinois are collectively known as the Eastern Bloc.

Mr. Bailey, 56, began his campaign for governor in February 2021, a month into his State Senate tenure. He has spent the last 16 months barnstorming the states Republican precincts.

In that time, he gathered sufficient support from conservative voters aligned with Mr. Trump to survive a $50 million primary campaign from Mayor Richard C. Irvin of Aurora, who was backed by the hedge fund executive Kenneth Griffin, and a $12.6 million campaign from Jesse Sullivan, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who relocated to Petersburg, his Central Illinois hometown, to run for governor.

Mr. Bailey had two patrons in the primary: Mr. Pritzker, whose relentless advertising campaign bashed Mr. Irvin while highlighting Mr. Baileys conservative credentials, and Richard Uihlein, the Chicago-area megadonor who has supported an array of far-right Republican candidates. Mr. Uihlein has spent $17 million so far on Mr. Baileys campaign and on a political action committee that attacked Mr. Irvin.

Mr. Pritzker will now be a heavy favorite to win the general election against Mr. Bailey. Had Mr. Irvin, a moderate with an inspiring personal story, no ties to Mr. Trump and access to hundreds of millions more dollars, advanced, the race was expected to be highly competitive in November.

In an interview last week in Green Valley, Ill., Mr. Bailey expressed confidence that he would be competitive with Mr. Pritzker in a general election even though Mr. Trump lost Illinois by 17 percentage points.

Life is different now under Joe Biden, and especially with J.B. Pritzker, Mr. Bailey said. Lifes a lot different now for Illinois than it was then. And I think people realize that.

Original post:

Darren Bailey Will Be the Republican Nominee for Illinois Governor - The New York Times

During former President Donald Trumps second impeachment, even when Republicans insisted that the assault on the Capitol was an unfortunate consequence of heated rhetoric, most did not attempt to defend Trumps conduct on the merits. Instead, they relied on the absurd technicality that the president was no longer in office, and therefore could not be convicted.

That was the rationale of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who accused Trump of a disgraceful dereliction of duty and afterward voted to acquit. McConnell then suggested that Trump could be criminally prosecuted, comfortable in the suspicion that would never happen.

Other Republicans, including Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, insisted that seeking accountability for an attempted coup would be incredibly divisive, and was therefore not worth doing. The notion that were going to spend a week or two weeks on a trial on somebody whos not even in officeit sounds to me like a waste of time, Rubio told Politico in 2021.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas offered a more affirmative defense. After voting to acquit, Cruz said, Donald Trump used heated language, but he did not urge anyone to commit acts of violence. Whether they based their decision on the flimsy excuse that he was no longer president, or on the idea that he never meant to inspire the violence that followed his incitement, Trumps defenders have always insisted that the former president acted recklessly but not deliberately.

David Frum: Kevin McCarthy, have you no sense of decency?

I do not recall these excuses simply to point out how pathetic they seem in hindsight, given the gravity of the allegations and the clarity we now have about Trumps conduct. I raise them because the thinness of the Republican rationales for acquittal is strong evidence that any justification, no matter how strained, would have sufficed, and yesterdays revelations are unlikely to change the minds of many Republican legislators now. It is nevertheless crucial to establish for posterity what happened and why. But make no mistake: If those who collaborated with Trumps attack on American democracy escape accountability, the calculus of high-ranking administration officials next time will be that there is a greater price to pay for opposing a coup than supporting one.

Yesterdays sworn testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, before the January 6 committee, if sustained, would leave Trumps enablers without even a pathetic sliver of an excuse for refusing to punish an attempt to overthrow the constitutional order. Hutchinson is just one person, and her testimony could be contested by future witnesses or revelations. A certain level of caution is warranted; it is not unheard of for people to lie under oath. With that said, the picture Hutchinson painted is shocking, if not surprising. According to Hutchinson, not only did Trump understand his own conduct as encouraging acts of violence, but he hoped to make it easier for the mob to reach its targets equipped to carry out those acts.

The extent of Trumps campaign to overturn the 2020 election has been clear since long before the Hutchinson testimony. The mob was Trumps last resort, not his first. In the aftermath of his loss, Trump pressured GOP secretaries of state to not certify the election results; he pressed Republican state legislatures to overturn the election results; he demanded that the courts invalidate the results; and he tried to coerce Vice President Mike Pence to declare him the winner during a ceremonial counting of the votes. When all of that failed, Trump encouraged the mob that sacked the Capitol by telling its members they could fight to overturn the results, and that they had to do so, because if you dont fight like hell, youre not going to have a country anymore. The justification for this was baseless allegations of voter fraud that both the president and his entourage knew to be false, even as they inundated their supporters with them.

These actions amount to attempts to forcibly remain in power, and alone would have been sufficient reason to impeach him and bar him from office forever.

David A. Graham: The most damning January 6 testimony yet

Hutchinsons appearance before the committee adds to these already damning facts insight into the former presidents personal motives and behavior, which were so pivotal to Republican senators weak rationales for acquittal. She testified that Trump believed the mob would turn violent, knew it was armed, and urged the Secret Service to allow the mob through with its weapons. In short, Hutchinsons testimony indicates that Trump was not merely irresponsible or foolish at the rally; he deliberately riled up the mob with falsehoods of a rigged election in the hopes that it would successfully overturn the election results by force. Trump then refused to call off the mob, because he wanted it to complete its mission. Hutchinson also testified that she heard from a colleague that Trump physically assaulted a Secret Service agent in an attempt to get him to drive them toward the Capitol; the Secret Service later told the press that it would dispute that aspect of her testimony under oath.

Whether or not that outburst occurred, the more significant aspect of Hutchinsons testimony was Trumps awareness of the mobs capacity for violence and its intentions. I was in the vicinity of a conversation where I overheard the president say something to the effect of, You know, I dont even care that they have weapons. Theyre not here to hurt me, Hutchinson testified. When the mob began to chant Hang Mike Pence, Hutchinson recalled, she overheard Meadows tell White House Counsel Pat Cipollone that he thinks Mike deserves it. He doesnt think theyre doing anything wrong. Trump understood that the people the mob wanted to hurt were standing between him and power, and therefore did not want the mob sworn to place Donald Trump in power impeded by those who had sworn to defend the Constitution. As my colleague David Graham wrote, Trumps allies defense of his conduct has never been especially plausible, but Hutchinsons testimony demolishes it.

Even without this information, the Senate should have convicted Trump. The plain facts are that the former president attempted to violently overthrow the government of the United States, and Senate Republicans ensured that he would face no consequences for doing so by acquitting him during his second impeachment. Their rationales for refusing to hold Trump accountable are laughable in hindsight, but also disturbing in their frailty, because history suggests that when attempts to seize power by force are not punished, they are both more likely to reoccur and more likely to succeed when they do. Attempting to seize power by violence was not sufficient to turn Republican senators against Trump when his influence was at its ebb; now that he has reasserted his grip on the party, there is little chance they will discover a reserve of courage. The only Republicans in elected office who were punished by the party in connection with Trumps overthrow attempt were those such as Representative Liz Cheney, who was censured for speaking out against it.

Anne Applebaum: The reason Liz Cheney is narrating the January 6 story

Hutchinsons testimony provoked the now tired ritual of Republicans soliciting favorable coverage from reporters by privately expressing their horror while publicly defending Trump; at this point, no one should be fooled by this. The truth is that Hutchinsons testimony, had it been given at Trumps second impeachment trial, may not have changed a single vote. Joining with Democrats to hold Trump accountable would have done too much damage to the party. Better to erode the foundations of American democracy than risk giving the rival party any advantage.

This is cowardice, but also ideology: Since liberals are not Real Americans, it is no sin to deprive them of power by undemocratic means. In this view, Trumps behavior might be misguided, but his heart remains in the right place, in that his mob sought to ensure that only those worthy to participate in American democracy can hold the reins of power, regardless of whom the voters actually choose.

Although seven Republican senators broke ranks and voted to convict Trump, most of the caucus remained loyal to a man who attempted to bring down the republic, because in the end, they would have been content to rule over the ruins.

More:

Don't Forget That 43 Senate Republicans Let Trump Get Away With It - The Atlantic

from the spam-spam-spam-spam dept

What a dumb news cycle. As we noted, mainly driven by the preferred political spam mongers for Republicans, a study from some computer scientists was completely misrepresented to argue (falsely) that Google was deliberately censoring Republican politician emails. As weve repeatedly noted, the study actually found that while a clean Gmail account would flag more Republican emails as spam than Democrats, (1) the reverse was true of the two other most popular web-based email providers, Yahoo and Outlook, and (2) the researchers found that if someone actively manages their spam flags, that this discrepancy disappears in Gmail.

But, Republicans and their favorite spammer cant let facts or accuracy get in the way of a moral panic. So they got Fox News to spin it into a bullshit, inaccurate story about Google censoring conservatives, then got some Republicans to file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission arguing that this was an unfair advantage that Google was giving Democrats. Finally, they got an incredibly stupid bill introduced in both the House and the Senate to basically say that email providers can no longer mark political emails as spam.

Apparently, this stupid misleading culture war, that anyone with even the slightest understanding of how spam filters work could have debunked for anyone, was apparently gaining steam. And in this ridiculous world we live in, once the narrative takes over, facts and any sense of reality go right out the window.

So, just after Google CEO Sundar Pichai visited Capitol Hill, where he was apparently yelled at by a bunch of Republicans, Google has announced a pilot program to whitelist candidate emails. The program is not live yet, but Google has first asked the FEC for the greenlight, to make sure that this program doesnt run afoul of any election laws.

Googles pilot program, per the June 21 filing, would be for authorized candidate committees, political party committees and leadership political action committees registered with the FEC.

Basically, because a bunch of Republicans (1) are bad at political emails, (2) cant take any personal responsibility at all, (3) love any kind of moral panic about big tech not liking them we all now will have to deal with more political spam in our inboxes.

What a stupid world.

Filed Under: elections, email, filtering, politics, spamCompanies: google

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Google Gives In To Republican Political Spammers: Launching Pilot Program To Whitelist Them Out Of Spam - Techdirt