Posts on Wednesday, November 9, 2022
I have argued consistently that fighting against the “transgender” movement is a winner for conservatives. Once people have children, they become very protective of them and do not want their son’s weird, pierced, blue-haired kindergarten teacher to convince him he’s really a girl and, oh, by the way, don’t tell your mommy and daddy that. Ron DeSantis’s decisive victory in Florida indicates that the policy is a winner (with Glenn Youngkin’s 2020 Virginia victory suggesting the same).
Today, the culture war’s importance got in my face in two ways. First, Gateway Pundit ran a post about one of the local winners in the Miss America contest in New Hampshire.
Hey, Lyin’ Ted and Sleepy Joe: Meet Toxic Trump. You know, if the former president had any self-knowledge or even the slightest ability to be self-deprecating, he might consider giving himself this alliterative nickname.
After three straight national tallies in which either he or his party or both were hammered by the national electorate, it’s time for even his stans to accept the truth: Toxic Trump is the political equivalent of a can of Raid. What Tuesday night’s results suggest is that Trump is perhaps the most profound vote repellant in modern American history.
The surest way to lose in these midterms was to be a politician
Washington — Asked whether Elon Musk posed a threat to national security, President Joe Biden said Wednesday that the billionaire’s “relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at.”
“I think that Elon Musk’s cooperation and/or technical relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “Whether or not he is doing anything inappropriate — I’m not suggesting that — I’m suggesting it’s worth being looked at. And that’s all I’ll say,” he continued.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and the new owner of Twitter, has significant business interests in China. China is Tesla’s second-largest market and the company produces around
The populist GOP’s share of the Latino vote jumped by a third to almost 40 percent, compared to 2018, according to the exit polls.
Eleven percent of the electorate are Latinos, so this 2018 to 2022 shift is a gain of 1 percent nationally. That 1 percent shift is more than enough to decide many close races. The GOP share of the black vote also jumped sharply from 2018 — but from the very low level of 9 percent up to just 13 percent. The vote gain is likely enabled by the GOP’s populist stance since Donald Trump pushed aside
Voters between the ages of 18 and 29 cast their ballots in favor of Democrats 63 percent of the time in the 2022 elections, exit polling data found.
Data from NBC exit polls found that the demographic, comprised of Generation Z and the Millennials, voted 63 percent for Democrats and just 35 percent for the Republicans. The age demographic accounted for 12 percent of the electorate, in contrast to those aged 30 to 44, who made up 21 percent of the electorate and voted 51 percent for Democrats and 47 percent for Republicans, the exit poll data found. Meanwhile, those between the ages of 45 and 64 made up 39 percent
Governor Chris Sununu (R-NH) said Wednesday on FNC’s “Your World” that there was no red wave because voters feared former President Donald Trump and the candidates he endorsed were extremists.
Sununu said, “There was clearly no red wave. I’m not going to predict what comes out of President Biden’s mouth because I don’t think anybody, even he, can predict that at times. But clearly, America stood up and said, look, inflation is important, but we don’t think the Republicans that wanted to go to Washington are the short-term fix for that right now. More than anything, America said we know we have to fix policy, but
Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan (R-GA) declared Wednesday on “CNN’s This Mornings” the 2022 election results showed it was time for the Republican Party to put former President Donald Trump “in the rearview mirror.”
Duncan said, “I think a lot of Republicans like me are waking up this morning [and thinking] “what could have been?” What could have been if we had picked a better candidate that could have won with a margin like Brian Kemp? That could have been able to put real leadership on display, put real ideas on display for the hearts and minds of Georgians, and turned the state back to being fully red.”
Atlanta — Gov. Brian Kemp sat down exclusively with Channel 2 Action News to discuss his victory over Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams for the first time since his re-election Wednesday.
Kemp defeated Abrams on Tuesday night for a second time to win a second term in Georgia’s highest office. On Wednesday, the governor visited the WSB-TV studios and talked about his vision for the next four years with Channel 2′s Justin Farmer.
He and his formidable ground game will now also take a direct role in getting fellow Republican Herschel Walker elected to the U.S. Senate.
The governor’s win also proves Republicans can stand up to Trump and win.
MSNBC’s Katy Tur suggests Fetterman
could run for president: 'Makes you wonder
about his future' replies
could run for president: 'Makes you wonder
about his future' replies
MSNBC host Katy Tur speculated on Wednesday that Pennsylvania Senator-Elect John Fetterman could run for the presidency someday. Fetterman’s victory against Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz provided Democrats a flipped Senate seat on Tuesday, in which several MSNBC panelists praised him for bringing new leadership tactics to the Democratic Party. Tur floated the viability of, "Fetterman, as a nominee at some point for president," before later going on to say that his record for surpassing President Biden and former President Trump's vote share in the state. MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell declared that she had extensive experience with Pennsylvania, and praised Fetterman
Joe Biden on Wednesday crawled out of his basement to deliver remarks on the 2022 midterms.
Joe Biden gloated after the Democrats did better than expected.
“It was a good day, I think, for democracy,” said Biden.
Biden answered questions from a pre-approved list of reporters.
Joe Biden was cocky and defiant during the Q & A session of his presser after Marc Elias and the Democrat machine worked to steal races across the country.
Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert is in one of the tightest races of the mid-term elections against Democrat challenger Adam Frisch to re-secure her seat in the US House, with only 60 votes separating them as of 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. The outspoken freshman lawmaker was trailing with 154,060 votes to Frisch’s 154,122 after 95% of expected ballots had been counted.
Frisch, who called himself a “conservative businessman” in a late-October news release aimed at securing Republican support in the red-leaning district, held just 0.02% more votes than Boebert.
For all the recriminations and post-mortem about the lack of a “Red Wave,” the GOP seems to keep picking up or maintaining seats. This one in sleepy Iowa. Republican Zach Nunn unseated two-term incumbent Democrat Cindy Axne 50 percent to 49 percent, cementing Iowa as a truly Red State. Every Senator and congressional representative is a Republican. (Snip) From The DesMoines Register:
Republican Zach Nunn won election to Iowa’s 3rd District seat in the U.S. House, unseating two-term incumbent Democrat Rep. Cindy Axne.
The Associated Press called the race for Nunn Wednesday afternoon. Iowa’s 3rd District includes Polk and Dallas counties,
NYT journo claims Trump ‘furious’
over Oz loss in PA, reportedly blames
Melania for endorsement replies
over Oz loss in PA, reportedly blames
Melania for endorsement replies
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman is claiming that people close to former President Trump say that he is “furious” over the Senate loss in Pennsylvania and is directing his anger at his wife, Melania, blaming her for advising him to back Dr. Mehmet Oz.
According to the report by Haberman, Trump is incensed over the disappointing results for Republicans nationally during the midterm elections Tuesday.
Oz lost to a stroke-impaired John Fetterman who has trouble even articulating his thoughts. That Senate race was watched very closely nationally
The biggest winner of the midterm elections was without a doubt Governor Ron DeSantis, whose landslide victory in the state of Florida was breathtaking. The biggest loser? Donald Trump, whose handpicked loyalist candidates in a number of races struggled to beat vulnerable Democrats. Once again, the former president may have cost Republicans control of the Senate, in a year when it was theirs to lose.
Many will conclude, on the basis of the midterm 2022 results, that the Republican Party is ready to move on, without Donald Trump as its leader.
DeSantis scored a win in Florida that was one for the record books. In Miami-Dade County, a region which
Kayleigh McEnany made a name for herself as Donald Trump’s last White House press secretary. Armed with binders of background information, and often using stinging video montages to rebuke the Democrats and their radical base, she handled the White House press corps with great poise. She used facts to support her answers and deftly batted back some truly stupid questions posed by the media, without ever breaking a sweat. Contrast that with the Biden White House press babes, simpering truth deniers who unravel at the most benign of questions from Fox News’ Peter Doocy.
It was early Wednesday morning when Leigh Finke returned home in St. Paul after the campaign victory party.
Representative-Elect Finke won 81% of the vote in the Minnesota House District 66A race.
“To have that many people come out, and that many people support a first-time trans candidate, it’s really humbling,” said Finke. “It’s really an honor, it’s really exciting.”
The 2023 legislative session will feature a historic class of LGTBQ Minnesotans.
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — A detailed inventory of the top known sources of greenhouse gas emitters launched by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore at the U.N. climate summit in Egypt on Wednesday found that the top 14 individual polluters are all gas and oil fields and their associated facilities, despite their emissions being “significantly underreported.”
The inventory was compiled by Climate TRACE, a coalition of researchers, data analysts and non-governmental organizations who use multiple open sources including satellite coverage, remote sensing and artificial intelligence to track who exactly is polluting, and how much.
Emissions stemming from oil and gas production were already estimated to be
PHOENIX — Margins between Democrats and Republicans narrowed considerably Wednesday in key Arizona races as election officials chipped away at counting more than half a million mail ballots returned on Election Day and shortly before. Democrats maintained small but dwindling leads in key races for U.S. Senate, governor and secretary of state, while Republicans were optimistic the late-counted ballots would break heavily in their favor, as they did in 2020. t could take several days before it's clear who won some of the closer contests. With Republicans still in the hunt, it remained unclear whether the stronger-than-expected showing for Democrats would
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) slammed New York state party leadership on Wednesday after election returns showed the Empire State trending to the right, calling on the president of the group to resign. (Snip) Ocasio-Cortez was responding to a graphic from The New York Times that compared the votes cast in the Empire State’s gubernatorial race this year to the 2020 presidential election. According to the Times, the vote in New York this year shifted more Republican. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), however, still fended off a challenge from Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), securing her first full term as chief
WNBA player Brittney Griner has now been moved to a Russian forced labor camp to complete her 9-1/2-year prison sentence after being convicted on drug charges in Moscow.
Analysts say that the basketball player will face harsh conditions and her family in the U.S. may not even be allowed to know exactly where she is, according to the New York Post.
Griner was convicted of importing illegal drugs into Russia in August several months after she was arrested in a Moscow airport for having cannabis oil in a vaping cartridge in her luggage.
While vaping cartridges such as the ones in her luggage would be ignored by many western countries,
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) was projected to defeat radical Democrat Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D) on Thursday with 93 percent of the vote counted.
The projected victory is significant victory because Wisconsin was one 21 Republican-controlled seats up for election. Democrats only had 14 seats to defend. Wisconsin, along with North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, was among the most competitive Republican seats to hold. (Tweet) Overall, the Badger State Senate race was the fifth most expensive Senate race at $185,811,066, according to Open Secrets. Barnes’s campaign spent $32,040,023 million trying to unseat Johnson.
Senate Republicans will hold its leadership vote on November 16, an election that will determine whether Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will remain the top Republican in the Senate, Politico reported.
McConnell has stated he wants to remain the GOP leader, which would pave the way for his top lieutenants to remain in their positions. Sen. John Thune (R-SD) is reportedly planning to remain the Senate whip and Sen. John Barrasso (R-KY) the chair of the Senate Republican Conference.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) is reportedly expected to replace Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) as chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC).
President Biden on Wednesday admitted that he plans to do “nothing” differently in the second half of his first term to restore Americans’ confidence in the direction of their country, despite the possibility that Republicans reclaim a majority in the House after an otherwise lackluster midterm performance.
Speaking to reporters the day after the midterm elections, Biden was asked what he might do differently to address voters’ concerns about the economy and the widespread sentiment that the country is generally moving in the wrong direction.
Biden replied: “nothing.”
Big Picture, 2022 Midterm Elections Highlight
the Distinct Difference Between Ballots
and Votes replies
the Distinct Difference Between Ballots
and Votes replies
As the political discussion centers on the 2022 wins and losses from the midterm election, one thing that stands out in similarity to the 2020 general election is the difference between ballots and votes. It appears in some states this is the ‘new normal.’
Where votes were the focus, the Biden administration suffered losses. Where ballots were the focus, the Biden administration won.
Reacting on the Fox News Channel to the GOP’s underperformance in the 2022 midterms on Tuesday, economist Stephen Moore described what happened as perhaps the strangest election he’s ever seen in his long career.
Trace Gallagher introduced the segment by pointing out that polling suggested that the Democrats would be on the receiving end of a red-wave rout over the cost-of-living crisis.
“What’s your assessment?” he asked Moore, the FreedomWorks financial expert and former Trump advisor. (Video)
Binance is backing out of its plans to acquire FTX, the company said Wednesday, leaving Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto empire on the verge of collapse.
The reversal comes one day after Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced that the world's largest cryptocurrency firm had reached a non-binding deal to buy FTX's non-U.S. businesses for an undisclosed amount, rescuing the company from a liquidity crisis. Earlier this year, FTX was valued at $32 billion by private investors. On Monday night, Bankman-Fried was "scrambling" to raise money
All Americans who care about the integrity of the US Constitution and its protection of individual liberties can breath a sigh of relief that Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin won his reelection bid. Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, he was the only Senator to question—and ultimately challenge—the federal government’s catastrophic policy response.
In 2020 he was chairman Senate Homeland Security Committee, and he used his position to hold three hearings (on May 6, November 19, and December 8) about the early treatment of COVID-19 and how it was being suppressed by our federal health agencies, and censored by mainstream media and social media platforms such as YouTube and Twitter.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of crypto exchange FTX considered the Democrats’ "newest megadonor" ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, reportedly saw around $6 billion of withdrawals within 72 hours before Tuesday morning, forcing him to sell the company to its biggest rival on Election Day. Reuters reported that Changpeng Zhao, the leader of competitor Binance, said the company signed a nonbinding agreement on Tuesday to buy FTX's non-U.S. unit to help cover a "liquidity crunch" at the rival exchange. (Snip) According to the Washington, D.C.-based non-profit Open Secrets, Bankman-Fried’s total contributions this cycle amounted to $39,826,856. That included a whopping $36,793,956 given to Democratic candidates, with just $235,200 to Republicans.
After last night's shocking loss in the counting of votes, conservatives need a little hope. We got a ton of it from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
He took on LGBT, transgender-mania and Disney. And that was just in March. He opened his state for business during the pandemic panic and triggered an economic boon. He is a fighter for the people.
Floridians rewarded him on Tuesday with a landslide victory.
Florida’s traditionally blue Miami-Dade County went red Tuesday evening as Republicans celebrated victories statewide, representing a significant political shift in the Sunshine State.
Tuesday’s election marked a massive shift in favor of Republicans in Florida, who have made significant gains in the state over the past four years. In late 2021, for the first time ever, registered Republicans outnumbered registered Democrats in the Sunshine State. But, over the past year, that lead has swelled to roughly 300,000 nationwide, and it showed Tuesday evening.
Democratic consultant and political commentator James Carville said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that former President Donald Trump was the reason Democrats did not lose up to 57 seats in the House of Representatives.
Co-host Joe Scarborough asked, “But James, you know, this is just the ebb and flow of politics. Bill Clinton wins big in ’92. Idiots like me get elected in ’94. Obama wins massively in ’08. The Tea Party wins in ’10. Could you explain to people who don’t know politics as well as you how historic last night was?”
Carville said, “I’m going try.
The Associated Press projects that incumbent Rep. Cindy Axne, D-Iowa, has been unseated by her GOP opponent, state Sen. Zach Nunn, flipping a key House seat as Republicans fight to regain a majority in the House.
Axne was first elected to her seat in 2018 winning by narrow margins against the GOP incumbent. Axne is currently the only Democratic member of the Iowa congressional delegation in Washington, D.C.
While votes are still being counted, and there could be a few, rare bright spots left for Republicans, one thing is clear: The red wave didn’t materialize in 2022.
Ironically, some accused me of being too conservative when I predicted the GOP only getting to 235 seats in the House. Now, the Republican Party might end up with a majority far less than that. The Senate is pretty much a wasteland as well, with Mehmet Oz, despite a strong push down the stretch, not being able to overcome his unfavorables in Pennsylvania. Don Bolduc got trounced in New Hampshire, Georgia is headed to a runoff,
It Could Have Been Worse
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Just kidding. Out of the range of possible outcomes, what we saw last night was about as bad as it could be. The GOP’s failure to make progress stunned everyone, not least the Democrats.
What happened?
* Fantasy vs. Reality. It turns out that there are a great many voters who don’t care much about what traditionally have been considered decisive issues: inflation, crime, illegal immigration, lousy schools, etc. Many millions of Democrats, confronted with these facts, didn’t conclude that they should consider voting for someone else. Rather, they seem to have thought, My team is in trouble! All the more reason why I need to support my team.
The Republicans had a pretty good midterm election despite what pundits are claiming. The GOP must win three of the remaining four Senate races to win control of the upper chamber — a goal well within reach as Republicans lead in Nevada and Wisconsin. And the party is within spitting distance of a House majority.
But no red wave. A combination of better-than-expected Democratic enthusiasm and underperforming Republican candidates squandered several opportunities to flip House seats and give the GOP a sizable House majority in January.
How did this happen?
In recent weeks, control of the U.S. Senate looked achievable for the first time in months. Yet, thanks to the underperformance of some of Donald Trump’s hand-picked candidates, that path to a majority is exceptionally slim — things look good for Laxalt in Nevada, which means that control of the Senate will come down to a runoff election in Georgia.
Winning control of the U.S. Senate would allow the GOP to block Biden from filling the judiciary with leftist judges, yet, on Tuesday night, when Colorado Republican candidate Joe O’Dea’s lost to incumbent Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet, Trump’s reaction was, to say the least, shocking.
Following a disappointing night full of failures (and some highs) for Republicans, the Wednesday morning’s broadcast network news shows each moments of gloating and outright laughter that included claims such as country was reminded to not “bet against Joe Biden,” that January 6 mattered, and voters bought the narrative that Republicans were tied to the Paul Pelosi attack.
On CBS Mornings, White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe had just finished arguing that President Biden did well in areas where candidates embraced him and poorly in areas where he didn’t go (which wasn’t true considering his stops in Florida for the hapless Democratic ticket)
Well, that was disheartening, dispiriting, and demoralizing. We went into the party with a president with some of the lowest approval ratings in history and Americans (at least according to the polls) focused like lasers on issues that could be chalked up to Democrat policy failures — namely, inflation and crime. And yet Republicans are hanging on by a thread, and, as of this writing, it's still possible that Democrats will retain their majority in the House and gain a full majority in the Senate. If that happens, the American experiment is over, and the Marxist experiment truly begins.
So how did we get here?
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson will win reelection in Wisconsin, fending off a serious challenge from Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, ABC News projects. With 94% of the vote reporting on Wednesday morning, Johnson had 51% of the vote, followed by Barnes with 49%. Johnson was viewed by race observers and assessments like FiveThirtyEight as one of the most vulnerable GOP lawmakers on the ballot this cycle after the battleground state flipped for Joe Biden in 2020. "Truth has prevailed over lies and the politics of personal destruction," he said in a statement on Wednesday morning. "I want to thank my
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.—The votes are still trickling in, but it’s too close to call a winner for the hotly contested Arizona governor’s race.
With about 66 percent of the votes reported as of 11:22 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs led Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake by 11,726 votes, according to The Associated Press.
With the race too close to call, Lake took the stage at 10 p.m. local time on Tuesday, and told watch partygoers that she was ready to “fight to win,” and, even if it takes hours or days, she’s confident about her chances. She also said her campaign is getting results that in-person voting favored her.
The Gateway Pundit reported earlier that the Democrats were reportedly winning. They want us to believe that a solid red state switched to the Democrat Party in 2020, and then after two years of complete disaster and a wide open border, Democrats came back to sweep the state for the first time ever. (SNIP) Another ballot drop from Pima County this morning brought Kari Lake less than 1 point and less than 12,000 votes behind Katie Hobbs, with less than 70% of the total votes counted.
Trump becomes political punching bag for
underwhelming GOP performance as party
looks to DeSantis replies
underwhelming GOP performance as party
looks to DeSantis replies
“Blame Donald Trump” is the name of the game after the long-promised red wave turned into a red ripple Tuesday night. Republicans appeared likely to narrowly recapture the House, with the Senate still a toss-up.
The former president received the brunt of the blame by some Republicans for the underperformance, with several high-profile Trump-backed candidates on the ballot failing to capture key races and deliver a GOP sweep of both houses of Congress.
Some conservatives argued it’s time for the GOP to dump Mr. Trump and rally around the man who many now view as the future of the party: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“We need a Republican overhaul.
The race for U.S. Senate in Georgia is headed to a runoff after both Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker failed to capture 50 percent of the vote, CNN projects.
Control of the Senate could once again come down to the result of a Georgia runoff, as happened in 2020 when two runoff races in the Peach State gave Democrats control of the upper chamber.
The runoff election will be held on December 6.
Control of the Senate will come down to three key races in Georgia, Nevada and Arizona.
What do Florida voters think about the possibility two Florida men could run for president in 2024? Exit polls from the Sunshine State offer some clues.
With Donald Trump signaling a potential announcement next week, 33% of Florida voters said they want to see the former president run in 2024, according to the preliminary results of the Florida Exit Poll conducted for CNN and other news networks by Edison Research.
There appears to be more of an appetite for a bid by Ron DeSantis, with 45% of Florida voters saying they want the state’s governor – who CNN projects will win reelection – to seek the presidency in 2024.
DeSantis’ strength
The problem with calling what was to come a Red Wave was always that many races were tight. Polling was close in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada. If GOP victory was to be a near-certainty, then the media would frame anything less as a defeat. (snip)
As I’m writing this, Democrats are predicted to control the Senate with a final composition of 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans (snip)Arizona remains in play, although the media’s consensus is that Democrat Mark Kelly is likely to prevail over Republican Blake Masters. We’re not so sure about that. Arizona has somehow only counted 68% of its ballots as of noon Eastern(snip)and Masters performed well
He came in dead first.
A state lawmaker in Pennsylvania was re-elected on Tuesday despite passing away last month.
Early voting numbers Tuesday indicated that the dead Democrat had a sizable lead over the Green Party challenger.
It’s not hard to see why brain-dead Fetterman won in Pennsylvania!
This is a big loss because it may cost the GOP control of the Senate.
But in Pennsylvania, they vote for the party and not for the person they want to represent them!
As widely expected, Republican Wesley Hunt defeated Democrat Duncan Klussmann 64% to 35% to become the first representative of Texas' newly drawn 38th Congressional District.
Hunt, a former Army captain and Iraq War veteran, benefitted from a map that Republican state lawmakers drew largely with him specifically in mind. TX-38 stretches across northwestern Houston and Harris County, including the suburbs of Jersey Village, Cypress, Tomball, and Katy. It includes conservative portions of what was previously Texas' 7th Congressional District, a swing district prior to the 2021 redistricting cycle.
Former President Donald Trump fired another warning shot at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, warning that he “could hurt himself very badly” if he ran in 2024.
snip
Trump then alluded to exposing some dirt on DeSantis without specifying.
“I would tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering — I know more about him than anybody — other than, perhaps, his wife,” Trump said.
Soros Tops List of Biggest Donors This
Midterm Season, Gave $128 Million to Help
Elect Democrats replies
Midterm Season, Gave $128 Million to Help
Elect Democrats replies
Wealthy citizens who’ve donated heavily to political campaigns this year include supporters of both of the major political parties, although none of the others comes close to billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who has given more than $128 million to help elect Democrats, according to a new tally released by OpenSecrets, a Washington-based research organization.
The recipients of donations aren’t limited solely to individual candidates but also include parties, political action committees (PACs), the hybrid PACs known as Carey Committees, and tax-exempt 527 organizations.The next three slots on OpenSecrets’ list are occupied by individuals who’ve spent lavishly to support Republicans.
Amid all the races of note this evening, it is worth drawing attention to the Arkansas governor race where very MAGA Sarah Huckabee Sanders has won the election and will now be the first woman governor in Arkansas history. [Data Link]
Former President Trump Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is buckets of awesome and has won a great election. Congratulations. (Graphic Image)
Senior Kremlin officials on Wednesday announced that Russian forces were withdrawing from Kherson, a key city in southern Ukraine — the latest in a series of embarrassing military setbacks.
In televised comments, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said he was ordering the withdrawal of troops across the Dnieper River, according to Reuters. Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the overall commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, said he had proposed taking up defensive lines on the eastern bank of the river. The announcement of the withdrawal followed weeks of Ukrainian advances
Democrat Senate candidate in Georgia Stacey Abrams lost again to Republican Brian Kemp on Tuesday, wasting over $100 million in campaign funds.
Abrams’ campaign and leadership committee, One Georgia, brought in a combined $105.3 million for her campaign, according to GPB News.
It is unclear exactly how much of the $105 million was spent on Abrams’ campaign, but her donors now know that Abrams is not a good investment in the state of Georgia.
The Kemp campaign and his leadership PAC raised $81.5 million in their election cycle, according to GPB News.
Abrams rode a dramatic wave of Democrat support
Representative Sean Patrick Maloney conceded Wednesday morning to New York state assemblyman Michael Lawler in New York’s 17th congressional district, making Lawler the first Republican to defeat a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman in 40 years.
The concession, first reported by NBC News, comes after a closely fought race: As of Wednesday morning, with 95 percent of the vote counted, Maloney trailed Lawler 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent, according to the New York Times.
Lawler has dealt Democrats an embarrassing loss in an area that President Biden won by 10 points in 2020.
Thanks to the GOP voting in ranked-choice voting, Sarah Palin has election taken from her again.
Sarah Palin deserves a special medal of honor for her attempts to make America a great country. The former governor of Alaska offered to help the helpless John McCain in his run for President and she was hammered by the media like no politician up to that point in history.
After helping McCain increase his popularity with the public, McCain threw her under the bus when he lost.
Thirty-five years ago, Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, who was then serving as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, gave a speech explaining why he was going to vote against confirming Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court.
Biden spoke as a self-proclaimed "child of God" and claimed his opposition to Bork was all about God-given rights.
"I believe that all Americans are born with certain inalienable rights, certain God-given rights that they have, not because the Constitution says they have them," Biden said in the text of a speech preserved in the Congressional Record.
Being of a certain age, I didn’t even attempt to stay up late enough to see all of the close races around the country called. That turned out to be a good choice because quite a few of them are still undecided this morning. That reality raises a lot of questions that some of the more cautious prognosticators were posing before the polls had even opened yesterday. What happened to the red wave, to say nothing of the “red tsunami” that many felt was on the way? Election day wasn’t a total washout for the GOP, but it was hardly the national “realignment” that many of us were anticipating.
President Trump’s handpicked and endorsed candidates largely underperformed or outright lost their midterm contests on Tuesday, deflating the former president’s status as a party kingmaker and likely 2024 GOP presidential nominee.
Trump’s influence was felt across the board: his hand-picked Senate candidates, political novices who secured their respective nominations largely on the strength of his endorsement, drastically underperformed expectations. House Republican challengers and incumbents who embraced his election denialism — and gubernatorial candidates who did the same — faced similar struggles.
After voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of a ballot measure, the constitution of Vermont now enshrines the right to kill unborn babies.
“An individual’s right to personal reproductive autonomy is central to the liberty and dignity to determine one’s own life course and shall not be denied or infringed unless justified by a compelling State interest achieved by the least restrictive means,” the amendment reads.
About seventy-two percent, or 133,000 Vermonters, decided to vote in favor of the measure according to unofficial results from the Secretary of State’s office, while 42,000 voted against it.
While abortion is already legal in the state, such a change to the constitution would mean
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is running for governor, told voters to "prepare" to wait days for votes to be counted in this year's midterm elections.
Hobbs, Arizona's top election official, is facing Republican candidate Kari Lake in a closely watched race that has been deemed a toss-up for weeks leading up to Election Day.
"Every single vote matters, and every single vote counts equally — whether you voted by mail, dropped off your ballot at a secure drop box yesterday, or voted in person today," Hobbs said in a statement Tuesday evening. "We must all be patient and wait for every last vote to be counted." (Tweet)
No, it wasn't cheating
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I have been pretty clear about my take on election fraud: it happens. How could it not? There is fraud in every aspect of human life, and we generally take precautions to minimize it. In elections? Not so much.
It also rarely makes much of a difference, because committing massive fraud is difficult, requires the cooperation of significant numbers of people to pull off, and when it matters a lot the lawyers get involved.
I think it happens a lot more than Democrats are willing to admit, but I also think it affects the outcomes of elections a lot fewer times than many Republicans suppose. It is a marginal
With the red tsunami just beginning to swell on Election Day, with only a few races called early in the night, CBS was already in damage control mode. They insisted that despite Republicans taking control of the House, they wouldn’t have a mandate from Americans to investigate aspects of the Biden administration.
Near the top of their America Decides: Campaign '22 coverage, chief election and campaign correspondent Robert Costa reported that he had just gotten off the phone with future Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who laid out an agenda of fixing America’s problems and investigating the administration:
Red Ripple
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I’m appalled. Appalled at my country. I thought I had grown out of it, but I guess that lurking in the back of my mind was the assumption that, if confronted with the truth of what’s going on, the Common Man will ultimately decide for common sense. Last night was a particularly nasty wake-up call, flying in the face of even liberal polling. (snip). I’d be a fool not to be open to the possibility of election fraud. On the other hand, that’s not the whole story. (snip)it’s clear that there is quite a bit of ticket splitting going on
In a normal time, in a normal country, voters would reject record gas prices, record inflation, record crime rates, war and corruption.
But not today.
Once again, Democrats proved they can survive anything as long as they have their fraud.
Americans reject every single dish the Democrats served. Yet, Democrats shocked Americans on Tuesday to win the US Senate, steal battleground states, and possibly keep the US Congress in Nancy Pelosi’s control, one of the most corrupt and dishonest politicians in US history.
Well, that was certainly … underwhelming.
Commentators last night began talking about a “normal” midterm after all, but this seemed almost like a stasis. We may yet have a Republican House, but not by much — and the same is true in the Senate, where both parties took back seats (or appear to have done so) while not changing the lay of the land much. Unfortunately, as we discovered last night, it will take a few days to unwind everything and get final answers to the question of control of Congress.
So what do we know?
The red wave that many Republicans had been anticipating on Election Day failed to materialize, and as of early Wednesday it was still unclear which party would control the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.
Big GOP wins in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis and Senator Marco Rubio cruised to easy victories, seemed to signal the beginning of a strong night for Republicans. The GOP also flipped at least three House seats in Florida, which is increasingly looking like a Republican stronghold.
But Republican optimism for a wave or tsunami election quickly faded as mixed results
NEW JERSEY - Republican Thomas Kean Jr. has declared victory in the election for the New Jersey 7th Congressional District seat he failed to win 2 years ago. He defeated Rep. Tom Malinowski to represent a wide section of the state that stretches from the New York City suburbs to the Pennsylvania state line. Kean represented District 21 in the state senate from 2003 to January 2022 and was the N.J. senate minority leader during his tenure. He has also previously served in the New Jersey General Assembly. He ran against Malinowski in 2020 and lost by just over 5,000 votes.
Meta is laying off 13% of its staff, or more than 11,000 employees, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to employees Wednesday.
"Today I'm sharing some of the most difficult changes we've made in Meta's history," Zuckerberg said in the letter. "I've decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13% and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go. We are also taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1."
As vote counts continue to be posted, it is clear that Republican hopes and dreams of a huge wave election have been dashed. (snip) But in one state, Florida, Republicans have triumphed in tsunami-like proportions. With 98% of the vote counted, Marco Rubio has a 16.4% landslide lead over Senate challenger Val Demings, and Governor Ron DeSantis has a 19.4% lead, a gigantic increase over his fraction of one percent squeaker victory 4 years ago.
It’s going to take some time to figure out why the rest of the country isn’t behaving like the Sunshine State, but 3 factors suggest themselves.
Ron DeSantis is getting the lion’s share of national attention for his sweeping victory...adding almost 20 points to his margin of victory in 2018, when he barely won the governorship. Among his pillars of support was his strong opposition to COVID shutdowns of businesses and schools and his opposition to vaccine mandates.
But 2 other statewide races on Tuesday featured incumbent candidates who vigorously fought against COVID shutdowns and mandatory vaccines. And in both races the incumbents won victories with even bigger margins than DeSantis.
In Kentucky, with 87% of the vote counted, Rand Paul is winning re-election to the Senate with a 22.8% margin)
Pennsylvania Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman was winning the outstanding in-person and absentee votes in Philadelphia and in a suburban county.
That meant essentially that most of Dr. Mehmet Oz’s votes had been counted and allowed the Associated Press to call the race early Wednesday for Fetterman.
At times early in the cycle, it seemed Fetterman would run away with the election after handily defeating his primary opponents, but Oz tightened the race, attacking Fetterman as soft on crime and relentlessly questioning whether his Democratic counterpart was fit to serve after he suffered a stroke in May.
The anticipated red tsunami didn’t hit the U.S. in the midterm elections, which is a disappointment. Even so, beginning next year the Republicans will probably have a majority in the House and likely 50 lawmakers or, possibly, even a slight majority of 51 in the Senate.
If what the Democrats and their propagandists in the media have been saying for years is correct, we’ve now entered America’s fascist stage. It’s a lie, of course, but let’s play along and take a look at what to expect from this coming regime of “fascism.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in an interview before the midterm elections claimed President Biden wasn't a "drag" on Democrats, even as they faced economic and political headwinds to hold onto power in Washington, D.C.
"Has he been a drag for Democrats this year?" PBS anchor Betsy Woodruff asked Pelosi, D-Calif., in an interview that aired shortly before polls closed Tuesday.
"No, no, not at all. He has been a great president," Pelosi responded. "He has not received the respect and the appreciation, whether we are talking about lowering the cost of prescription drugs and protecting Social Security, Medicare, whether we're talking about ten million jobs created under his presidency."
It’s Ron DeSantis’ GOP Now
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"The Red Wave.”
If you’ve been watching Fox News and frequenting conservative websites the last few weeks (and this commentator admits he does more than his share of both), you were hearing how Republicans were going to have another one of those massive 2010-style seat pickups in the House.
Win 56 seats in the Senate.
Celebrate upsets in Michigan and even New York governors’ mansions.
Yeah, right. Fox News commentators (yeah, doing it again) in the wee hours of Wednesday morning were struggling to justify salvaging at least a “Red Ripple.”
Turned out to be a Red Puddle. Of blood.
Kari Lake promised she will 'fight for days' to ensure the 2022 midterms in Arizona were conducted 'fairly' before a final count is reported as she falls behind her Democratic challenger by 5 percent amid chaos with voting machine malfunctions.
Lake delivered a speech from Scottsdale, Arizona on Tuesday evening when she was trailing her opponent Katie Hobbs by double digits, claiming that the 'cheaters' are trying to tell Republicans they didn't have the 'red tsunami' they predicted.
The former broadcast journalist made significant strides from the time of her speech to a few hours later, gaining more than half the ground
The Biden administration, Democrats, and the leftist media are all out in force repeatedly telling Americans it will take days if not weeks to count the votes and that it has always been that way.
The Washington Post, for example, is bleating, “Results are not official on Election Day. States often take weeks to announce the final results.” But that is a recent development created by Democrats instituting mail-in voting and other political shenanigans to give them an edge in competitive races.
“You may see stories or social media posts Tuesday evening that declare winners. But even in this time of powerful computers and other speedy technology, the election process isn’t completed
Bye-bye Beto!
Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott won reelection against Democrat Beto O’Rourke on Tuesday night.
This will be Abbott’s third term as Texas governor. (Tweet) Beto spent almost $100 million to lose against Senator Ted Cruz in 2018.
He lost again to Governor Abbott tonight.
Apparently telling Texans, “hell yes, we are going to take your AR-15s” is a losing strategy in Texas. (Video)
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) won reelection on Tuesday night, defeating Never Trumper and Utah independent Senate candidate Evan McMullin, according to projections.
Fox News called the race in favor of Lee, who will enter his third term. (Tweet) Unlike most states, Lee did not face off against a Democrat as his primary opponent. Instead, he had independent candidate McMullin. Instead of pushing their own candidate, the Utah Democrat Party endorsed McMullin’s bid to oust Lee instead of their own.
Lee and others have consistently criticized McMullin for his cozy ties with the Democrat Party,
All of a sudden, even left-leaning media are flagging President Joe Biden’s lies. Those fibs are no more enormous or absurd than before; why did they become “news” just before the midterm elections?
In recent days, CNN’s fact-checker recounted a boatload of Biden’s whoppers, calling them outright “false, misleading or lacking important context.” The New York Times — which has repeatedly gone to bat for the prez — ran not one but two stories flagging his lies.
The Washington Post awarded Biden his first “bottomless Pinocchio” for falsely claiming he’s traveled 17,000 miles with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Is it just a coincidence that a slew of articles appeared in the nation's socialist media with almost the same storyline to expect delays in election results?
Up until a few days ago, the nation's far left and the nation's socialist media were silent about how long it would take for the midterm results to be resolved. Then, as someone else noticed, they all published almost identical versions of the same article: "prepare to wait for election results that could take many days." Almost all of them within the same narrow timespan:
There are videos making the rounds showing President Trump standing on stage in Miami's pouring rain while imploring Americans to get out and vote. The metaphor is striking. There's Trump, battling the elements, lively as ever, refusing to give up, insisting on finishing what he's started. Citizen Free Press appropriately notes that "President Trump is truly a force of nature."
I know that the months ahead will make for some spirited political debate among friends, but I encourage you to cement in your minds this quintessential image
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) on Tuesday emerged the victor of her state’s gubernatorial election against Democrat opponent Jamie Smith.
“In the South Dakota gubernatorial race, Republican Kristi Noem will win reelection,” ABC News announced just before 10:00 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday:
Another speech, another presidential-sounding declaration from Ron DeSantis.
This isn’t getting old.
On Election Day, at his victory party at the Tampa Convention Center, Governor Ron DeSantis celebrated with around 4,000 of his supporters as he cruised to a 19+ point victory for reelection over Republican-turned-Democrat Charlie Crist. In his speech, DeSantis gave yet another full-throated defense of liberty, freedom, taking on wokeism, and putting a stop to pandemic lockdowns.
He gave several memorable lines, with Churchillian overtones, and a clear and repeated message to keep fighting, never give up, and never back down.
While we all wait for the polls to close today, I thought I would circle back to a topic that hasn’t been generating as many headlines in the MSM lately as it did earlier this year, though there has certainly been activity taking place inside Congress and the Pentagon. The subject is the ongoing drama involving the Pentagon’s UFO investigation office, currently known as the AARO. (The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office.) I say “currently” because that office has gone through a lot of name changes over the past 18 years, evolving from AAWSAP to ATTIP to AOIMSG and others, with yet another name expected to be announced later this year.