148 replies to this topic

[rennerpetey]

I looked and didn't see a thread on this, correct me if i'm wrong.

Rep. Darrell Issa to retire, handing Democrats another big pick-up opportunity in California

 

Washington (CNN) - California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa will retire at the end of his term, he announced Wednesday.

 

Issa, one of the wealthiest members of Congress and among the best-known due to his reputation as a conservative attack dog, is bowing out of what would have been one of the nation's most hotly contested congressional races.

 

"Throughout my service, I worked hard and never lost sight of the people our government is supposed to serve. Yet with the support of my family, I have decided that I will not seek re-election in California's 49th District," Issa said in a statement Wednesday.

People forget that the house can be just as important as the Senate, and Democrats have a real chance at taking back the house.

[Jakob]

 

People forget that the house can be just as important as the Senate, and Democrats have a real chance at taking back the house.

 

I really doubt that, the Republicans have a lead of nearly fifty (!) seats. At worst, the Democrats might narrow the gap and put themselves in a position to take the House in 2020.

 

Perhaps we should just have a 2018 elections thread though?

[rennerpetey]

 

I really doubt that, the Republicans have a lead of nearly fifty (!) seats. At worst, the Democrats might narrow the gap and put themselves in a position to take the House in 2020.

yes, they may have a lead not, but every single seat out of 435 seats are up for re-election every election cycle.  If the Trump backlash is strong enough, I would say that the Democrats definitely have a chance.

[caltrek]

There is this thread which has a lot of focus on the 2018 race for the House of Representatives:

 

http://www.futuretim...epresentatives/

[Sciencerocks]

Darell Issa retiring is great news! We democrats have a great chance at taking that seat.

[wjfox]

US House Speaker Paul Ryan to quit in blow to Republicans

 

US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan will not run for re-election this year, in a big blow to Republicans ahead of autumn's mid-term elections.

 

A spokesman for Congress' most powerful lawmaker confirmed he would not stand for another term in his Wisconsin district this November.

 

Republicans are already facing a tough challenge from Democrats to retain control of Congress' lower chamber.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk...canada-43729218

 

 

[Sciencerocks]

COOK POLITICAL: 7 more House Races shift towards Democrats
Speaker Paul Ryan's retirement plans could complicate the House GOP's fundraising math. In 2017, Ryan's joint fundraising committee brought in $44 million and transferred $32 million to the NRCC. His exit could leave GOP donors skittish. But even before last week, Democratic donors had been demonstrating far more enthusiasm on a race-by-race basis, a fact reflected in the newest House fundraising reports.

The newest FEC filings spell danger for Republicans. In the most recent fundraising period, Democrats outraised Republicans in at least 60 GOP-held seats, more than twice the 23 seats Democrats need for a majority. Meanwhile, the reverse is true in just five Democratic-held seats. That's going to force the NRCC and Congressional Leadership Fund to bail out a lot of cash-strapped GOP candidates come the fall.

Ratings Changes:
AZ-08: VACANT (Franks) | Solid R to Likely R
AR-02: Hill | Likely R to Lean R
IL-14: Hultgren | Likely R to Lean R
MI-01: Bergman | Solid R to Likely R
OH-14: Joyce | Solid R to Likely R
SC-05: Norman | Solid R to Likely R
VA-05: Garrett | Likely R to Lean R

http://cookpolitical...ges-7-districts

[Sciencerocks]

TPM: Arizona a huge battleground up and down the ballot in November.

Strategists predicted anywhere from a four-point win to one in the low double digits. Even a 10-point loss would still be a double-digit shift towards Democrats, however. If their candidates can replicate that across the state this fall, Democrats would finally turn their long-time dream of proving Arizona’s really a swing state into a reality.

There are signs that’s already happening. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) leads all of her potential GOP opponents in a new poll of the race to replace retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ). Sinema has a six-point advantage over Rep. Martha McSally (R-AZ), the front-runner in the primary and establishment favorite, and double-digit leads over the pair of hardline Republicans McSally is looking to defeat en route to a tough general election.

Republicans privately admit they have an uphill fight to retain the Democratic-leaning Tucson seat McSally is vacating or to beat freshman Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-AZ) in a district Trump narrowly carried last fall.

Even Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey ®, who once appeared a shoe-in for reelection, is looking like he’ll have a tough race this fall. And Republicans are praying that ailing Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) sticks around the Senate through the end of May, to avoid having to defend a second seat in the state this fall.

With all that in mind, Democrats are excited that Tipirneni is even in the race.

“This is legitimately competitive,” said Andy Barr, a Democratic strategist with deep Arizona ties. “Whether she wins or comes close, that should scare the shit out of them.”

 

https://talkingpoint...-fall-elections

[rennerpetey]

Here are four ways Republicans can guarantee they lose Congress in November

 

Although it’s not their intent, Republicans are on a fast track to handing the November midterm congressional election to the Democrats.

 

The real canary in the coal mine was the March special election surprise in Pennsylvania’s 18th District, where underdog Democrat Conor Lamb upset Republican Rick Saccone in a district Donald Trump won by 20 points in 2016.

 

This electoral outcome would have been unthinkable a few short years ago. This district was so historically red that the previous GOP incumbent, Tim Murphy, didn’t even face a Democratic opponent in 2014 or 2016.

 

So, what happened? Republicans stayed home and Democrats showed up. A lot of them.

 

According to a Cook Political Report, Democratic stronghold Allegheny County saw a voter turnout at 67 percent of 2016 levels. But Republican-leaning Westmoreland County saw turnout at only 60 percent of 2016 levels.

 

With control of the House, Senate and White House, Republicans have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create an enduring legacy of free markets, lower taxes, shrinking debts and economic growth.

 

The Pennsylvania special election results should serve as a political warning shot for Republicans everywhere. It reminds me of an old axiom used by conservative activists: When we act like us, we win. When we act like them, we lose.

 

When Republicans act like Democrats, Republican voters stay home. If the GOP wants to lose its majorities in the House and Senate in November, the playbook is simple: Stay the course. Keep doing what you’re doing.

 

Here are four ways Republicans can guarantee a loss in the midterm elections:

Interesting Op-Ed from the republican side

[caltrek]

Embattled GOP Lawmaker Abruptly Resigns Congress

 

https://www.courthou...signs-congress/

 

 

WASHINGTON (Courthouse News):

 

Introduction:

 

Three months after he announced he would not seek re-election following sexual harassment allegations, Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Patrick Meehan announced on Friday he will resign his position immediately.

 

Conclusion:

 

The Cook Political Report labels Pennsylvania’s Seventh District, which Meehan has represented since 2010, as leaning Democratic in the upcoming election.

 

 

[caltrek]

Pennsylvania Primary Pits a One-Time Trump Democrat Against Bernie Sanders and Emily's List

 

https://theintercept...-against-trump/

 

Extract:

 

 (The Intercept) The most well-known candidate in a Democratic primary in a district carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016 pursued a job with Donald Trump’s administration during its transition into the White House.

 

John Morganelli, a Lehigh Valley prosecutor… opposes legal abortion and has teamed up with Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania to target sanctuary cities, part of a broadly hostile immigration record. He is a longtime opponent of gun control. “I believe in my party’s principles, you know, 80 percent of the time,” he told the Morning Call, a local newspaper.

 

… The race drew national attention in March, when Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee operative Tim Persico met with a local Democratic leader to ask if he thought Susan Wild or Greg Edwards, two other candidates in the race, would be willing to drop out and run for state Senate, a proposition they both rejected. Now, with the primary fast approaching, the resistance is scrambling to shut Morganelli out.

 

Democratic megadonor Tom Steyer has jumped in, announcing on Thursday a six-figure attack aimed squarely at Morganelli. “In 2018, there is no room in the Democratic Party for a man who denies a woman her right to choose and who engages in hateful and dishonest dialogue about immigrant communities,” the billionaire Steyer, president of NextGen America, said in a statement accompanying the announcement. “Democrats deserve better than John Morganelli.”

 

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., will be holding a rally in Allentown for Edwards, a pastor who is leading the candidates in fundraising, on Saturday, and earlier this week he sent an email blast to his supporters rallying donations to Edwards’s campaign. The pro-choice group EMILY’s List is pouring big money into the race, both to crush Morganelli, but also to promote Wild, a former city solicitor.

to the Morning Call.)

 

[caltrek]

He Voted for Trump. Now He’s Running for Congress as a Pro-Pot, Pro-Coal Democrat.

 

https://www.motherjo...-coal-democrat/

 

Introduction:

 

(Mother Jones) On most nights during the nine-day West Virginia teacher strike last winter, Richard Ojeda could be found at his office in Logan County, gesturing wildly at his iPhone. Ojeda, a 47-year-old ex-Army paratrooper who is rarely seen outside the state Senate chamber in anything other than a tight-fitting Grunt Style T-shirt, had been logging on for hourlong Facebook Live segments about once a week since getting elected in 2016. During his first year as a senator, he typically got a few hundred viewers for his riffs about the corruption in his Democratic Party, his campaign for Congress, or his proposal to turn reclaimed surface mines into vast fields of marijuana and lavender.

 

Then, in January, Ojeda became the first politician in Charleston to say out loud what the teachers in his district had begun to discuss among themselves: If the state didn’t shore up public-employee health plans and increase their pay, they’d walk. A few hundred viewers turned into a few thousand. By the time the protests got going, a quarter of a million people were viewing his videos. Families would gather around to see him recount the latest developments. And Ojeda went from a locally known figure to a rising star, someone who, in the eyes of his supporters, could not only upend West Virginia, but maybe offer Democrats in other deep-red enclaves a blueprint for fighting back.

 

“He’s like Elvis right now,” says Jay O’Neal, a middle school teacher from Charleston. “A rock star,” says Katie Endicott, a Mingo County teacher who helped organize the first round of walkouts. Ryan Frankenberry, executive director of the West Virginia Working Families Party, says, “It’s like watching people listen to Jesus.”

 

A gun-loving, pro-life, pro-coal Trump voter who once promised to “fistfight” Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency, Ojeda doesn’t fit the profile of a progressive firebrand, and in many ways he’s not. He’s seeking to replace Republican Rep. Evan Jenkins, who is leaving to run for the US Senate, in a district President Donald Trump carried by 49 points. But the strike was a catalyst for a Resistance of a different sort. In places like West Virginia, Kentucky, and Oklahoma, teachers and other public employees were rebelling less against Trump than against decades of austerity while corporations—particularly extractive industries—bled their states dry. Ojeda, like the man he supported for president, has found a following in West Virginia by talking about the state’s economic and political powers with unusual directness. But he wants to channel that anger toward far different ends. And he might even win.

Mother Jones illustration; Mark Helenowski; Getty Images

[Raklian]

So, Trump Democrats are a thing, eh?

 

I feel sick in my stomach.

[caltrek]

Like it or not, Mr. Ojeda seems to be gaining traction:

 

West Virginia’s Surging Democrat Richard Ojeda Slams Trump

 

https://www.motherjo...da-slams-trump/

 

Introduction:

 

(Mother Jones) On Tuesday, West Virginia state Sen. Richard Ojeda easily won the Democratic nomination in the state’s 3rd Congressional District. Ojeda, as I reported in a profilefor Mother Jones, is pushing a kind of populism that is upending the political landscape in Appalachia; he’s championed the teachers strike, a new marijuana industry, and higher taxes on the state’s sacred cows—oil and natural gas companies. He also voted for President Donald Trump.

 

Ojeda has said that he supported Trump out of regional solidarity—the sagging coal economy had crushed places like Logan, West Virginia, where Ojeda lives, and he believed Trump was more likely to recharge that industry than Clinton. In our interview in April, he put his vote for Trump in context by noting that in 2016 the state also elected Jim Justice, a billionaire coal magnate who ran as a Democrat before switching parties last year:

 

We did the same thing with the governor that we got from this state. He was a billionaire, told everybody, “We’re going to do this, all these great things. I’m a wizard when it comes to business, and I’m going to be a wizard for the state. I’m going to be a wizard for the country.” That’s basically what we were told, and you know what? We’re always like, “Hey, let’s give them a chance. They didn’t become billionaires because they’re stupid.” We didn’t realize that many cases most of them inherited most of it. That’s how it was. We bought it.

 

But Ojeda isn’t buying it anymore.

 

Mark Helenowski/Mother Jones

[caltrek]

Incumbent Walter Jones Wins North Carolina GOP Primary

 

https://www.motherjo...na-gop-primary/

 

Introduction:

 

(Mother Jones) Walter Jones, the 12-term North Carolina congressman perhaps best known for helping to popularize the term “Freedom Fries” during the Iraq War, defeated his Donald Trump-supporting challenger, Scott Dacey, in Tuesday’s Republican primary.

 

Jones’ victory, called by the Associated Press, virtually guarantees him another term representing North Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District, which Trump won by about 20 percentage points in 2016. No Democrats filed to run in 2018.

 

About 45 percent of voters had cast their ballots by 9:30 p.m. Eastern in the three-way primary for Jones, a staunchly conservative Catholic who occasionally has butted heads with GOP leadership over the years, most notably when he came to oppose the Iraq War. Recently, he voted against the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, saying he was unwilling to vote for a bill that added so much to the national debt.

 

Dacey, a Craven County commissioner, tied himself to Trump from the beginning of his campaign. “I’ll be the very best lobbyist Donald Trump could possibly have serving in Congress to advance his agenda,” Dacey told the News and Observer in February. Jones, he argued, was in the president’s way.

The final candidate, business systems analyst Phil Law, had nearly a third of the vote by 9:30 p.m. Eastern.

Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/ZUMA

[caltrek]

Covering the Midterms With Electionland 2018

 

https://www.propubli...ectionland-2018

 

 

Introduction:

 

(Propublica) In the run-up to the 2016 election, ProPublica organized a project called Electionland to cover voting, nationally and in real time. Along with a coalition of news organizations and tech companies, we brought together more than 1,100 journalists around the country to cover impediments like restrictive voting laws, allegations of voter fraud, voter harassment, equipment failures and long lines — all of which can effectively disenfranchise eligible voters and erode the integrity of the vote.

 

Today we’re announcing that we’re relaunching Electionland to cover the 2018 midterm elections. Policies and practices that jeopardize Americans’ fundamental right to vote demand scrutiny. And the concerns raised by the 2016 election — about cybersecurity and foreign attempts to sow doubt about the integrity of the election — make this even more urgent.

 

We’re recruiting newsrooms interested in collaborating with us to cover these issues. Thanks to our coverage in 2016, New York restored access to its elections hotline during early voting, a Texas poll worker misinterpreting the state’s voter ID law was set straight, and two women denied the ability to vote were able to cast their ballots.

If you’re interested in joining Electionland 2018, find out more and how to sign up.

The Electionland newsroom on Election Day in 2016 

(John Brecher for ProPublica)

[caltrek]

Congressional Candidate Swears at the NRA in New Ad

 

https://www.motherjo...ears-in-new-ad/

 

Introduction:

 

(Mother Jones) Democratic congressional candidate Pat Davis of New Mexico doesn’t mince words in his new television ad. Looking straight at the camera, Davis opens with a succinct message: “Fuck the NRA.” 

 

Davis, an Albuquerque city councilman and former police officer, continues: “Their pro-gun policies have resulted in dead children, dead mothers and dead fathers.” Then he finishes: “I approve this message. Because if Congress won’t change our gun laws, we’re changing Congress.”

[caltrek]

Pennsylvania Congressional District Likely to Flip

 

https://www.courthou...s.com/412779-2/

 

Extract:

 

(Courthouse News) CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT LIKELY TO FLIP

 

Mary Gay Scanlon won a 10-way Democratic primary in southeastern Pennsylvania’s 5th Congressional District, which is likely to flip to Democrats following a court-ordered redrawing of the state’s congressional district boundaries.

 

Scanlon is a longtime public interest lawyer and chair of the pro-bono committee at a Philadelphia-based law firm.

 

She will face Republican Pearl Kim, a former state and county prosecutor, in November’s general election in the now-Democratic-leaning district. The seat is open following the resignation of Republican Rep. Pat Meehan amid allegations he used taxpayer money to settle sexual harassment allegations by a former aide.

 

Meehan had represented the Delaware County-based seat since 2010. It was widely viewed as among the nation’s most gerrymandered until the court redrew it in February.

[Alislaws]

I was thinking the other day, can you engage in some sort of reverse gerrymandering in the USA?

 

This would be when, at the last moment* before a big vote, people from areas where your party is way ahead, rent rooms from supporters in borderline areas and move there until vote time, before moving right back after winning?

 

So sort of the opposite of gerrymandering, (where you stay still and the map moves until your vote doesn't count). 

 

*(I expect you need to be there at least a month or so? so the last moment might be 32 days before an election or something)

[rennerpetey]

https://www.realclea..._house_map.html

 

Edit:  Thanks to caltrek for pointing out that I originally posted the wrong link.  This is the right one.