2022 midterm election thread

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caltrek
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GOP Senate Candidate Walker's Texas Tax Break Exposed
by Brett Wilkens
November 23, 2022

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Herschel Walker is the beneficiary of a tax break meant for permanent Texas residents—a possible violation of both Texas law and residency rules for voting and political candidacy in Georgia, CNN reported Wednesday.

Records reviewed by the network show Walker benefited from Texas' homestead tax exemption, shaving approximately $1,200 off his 2021 tax bill on his $3 million home in the Dallas-Ft. Worth suburb of Westlake. The Texas Tribune reports the former NFL star is expected to apply for the discount again this year, and would likely save about $1,500.

Reacting to the report, incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock—who will face Walker in a December 6 runoff after neither candidate received 50% of the vote in this month's midterm election—asked on Twitter, "How can Herschel Walker represent Georgians when he doesn't even claim our great state as his primary residence?"
Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022 ... tax-break
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Alaska Democrats, Republicans form coalition Senate majority
Source: Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska state Senate will have a coalition of Democrats and Republicans serving as a majority caucus next January, officials announced. Friday.

The coalition will include nine Democrats and eight Republicans, leaving three members of the 20-seat chamber in the minority.

Gary Stevens, a Republican from Kodiak, will serve as Senate president. Among other leadership positions include Bill Wielechowski, an Anchorage Democrat, as Senate rules chair, and Cathy Giessel, a Republican who previously served as the body’s president and regained her Senate seat in this year’s election, as majority leader.

…snip…

The majority said its priorities will be lowering Alaska’s high energy costs, improving education and revitalizing the state’s economy.
Read more: https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/ ... ority/amp/
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caltrek
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Voting Has Begun in Georgia Senate Runoff
by Pema Levy
November 26, 2022

Extract:
(Mother Jones) Voters in about two dozen Georgia counties began voting today (November 26) in the Senate runoff between Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock and Trump-backed challenger Herschel Walker, despite attempts by the Georgia Republicans to block Saturday voting.

Voting began Saturday with long lines across the state as voters decided to take advantage of the extra day of voting. “We had to take them to court just so you could vote today,” Warnock said at a campaign stop Saturday morning.

Early voting opportunities are especially important in a runoff election because there’s little time to vote by mail. Mail ballots must be received by the time the polls close on the date of the runoff election—December 6—making it difficult to request and return a mail ballot in time. Election officials and voting rights groups are therefore urging Georgians to vote in person.

Warnock heads into the runoff with a lead in the polls and a fundraising advantage over Walker, whose campaign was dogged by his history of abusing romantic partners and accusations of pressuring girlfriends to have abortions, among other revelations of turmoil in his personal and family life.
Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... -georgia/
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The Guy Who Got the Midterms Right Explains What the Media Got Wrong
by Nicole Narea
November 27, 2022

Introduction:
(Vox) In the months leading up to the midterms, many pundits and politicians thought that Republicans had momentum enough for big gains at the state and federal levels, enough to count as a “red wave.” But veteran Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg is one of a few voices in Washington who, despite President Joe Biden’s sagging approval ratings and polls that showed Democrats playing defense on inflation, remained optimistic about the party’s prospects and who was ultimately vindicated by a strong performance.

Rosenberg — who has previously advised the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and is the president of the progressive think tank NDN — says he’s not in the business of predictions. But he thought that the available data consistently pointed to a competitive election, and he became a self-described “info warrior” on Twitter trying to convince the pundit class of that. He believes that, unlike in 2016 and 2020 when polling failed to register Trump’s strength as a candidate, this time around, it was the media analyzing the polls who got it wrong.

“There was a massive media failure this cycle,” he said. “The failure that just took place is more grave than the polling error [in 2020] because there were a lot of really smart people who basically misled tens of millions of people through their political commentary in the final few weeks.”
It’s hard to know whether there was a practical effect of the doom-and-gloom stories about Democrats in the months before the election — whether it suppressed turnout by demoralizing voters or motivated them to show up because they feared what would happen if they didn’t. But even if any negative effect was small, that might have made a big impact.


The article goes on to discuss three factors that may have been underestimated by media pundits:

1. Real election results weren’t given enough credence over poll…

2. Polls were misinterpreted…

3. The enduring salience of Roe was underestimated…

Read more here: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politic ... democrats
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Re: 2022 midterm election thread

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Sums up the 2022 midterms nicely... :D

Image
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Kari Lake’s Lonely and Deeply Absurd Quest to Challenge the Arizona Election Results
by Nicole Narea
November 30, 2022

Introduction:
(Vox) Kari Lake, the defeated Republican nominee for Arizona governor who was the most prominent 2022 candidate running on former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election lies, still refuses to concede a race the Associated Press called for her opponent weeks ago.

Most other election-denier candidates, who lost up and down the ballot and across the country in 2022, have conceded their races with little fanfare. But Lake is an almost singular voice calling her state’s contests one of the “most dishonest elections in the history of Arizona” in a video posted on Trump’s social media network Truth Social on Monday.

“This botched election should not be certified,” she added.

Monday was the county-level deadline to certify the results. All did, with the exception of Cochise County, where the Republican majority on the Board of Supervisors delayed certification until Friday, citing concerns about voting machines. Current Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, the Democrat who won the gubernatorial race, consequently sued the county, arguing that its decision could “potentially disenfranchise” some 47,000 voters.

The AP called the race on November 14, and the results weren’t within the half a percentage point margin required to trigger a recount. In the now complete vote count, Hobbs won the gubernatorial election by 17,116 votes.
Read more here: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politic ... ona-trump
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Re: 2022 midterm election thread

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GA-SEN Runoff (Survey USA/WXIA-11Alive): Warnock 50/46

https://www.11alive.com/article/news/po ... 15beb5ed86

1,214 likely Georgia runoff voters
54% of respondents were women, 46% men
60% of respondents were white voters, 27% Black voters, 8% Hispanic voters, 5% Asian or other voters
41% of respondents were Republicans, 35% Democrats and 22% Independents
Margin of error: 3.6 points
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caltrek
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Right-Wing Extremist Boebert to Guide Policy on House GOP Leadership Team
by Julia Conley
December 2, 2022

Introduction:
(Julia Conley) Despite winning reelection by just 550 votes in a race that's now undergoing a recount, Rep. Lauren Boebert this week won a vote of confidence from her fellow Republican members of the U.S. House as she was elected to join the party's policy committee.

The office of Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold on Thursday announced Boebert's unexpectedly close race with her Democratic challenger, Adam Frisch, would go to a recount under state law.

In Colorado, any election race within a 0.5% vote differential must be recounted; the 3rd Congressional District race is currently within 0.34%.

The close race surprised election-watchers, as former President Donald Trump, with whom Boebert is strongly aligned, won the 3rd District by eight points in 2020.

The recount was announced just after Boebert was elected to be a new member of the Republican Policy Committee, which serves as an advisory panel and provides "conservative policy solutions to the House Republican Conference."
Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022 ... ship-team
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Re: 2022 midterm election thread

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To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
weatheriscool
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Re: 2022 midterm election thread

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Georgia voters are encountering few lines at polling places.
Source: New York Times
The lines that snaked out the doors and down the block at some Georgia polling places during early voting in the Senate runoff don’t seem to have reappeared on Election Day.

In the Atlanta area, where some people waited more than two hours last week to vote early in the runoff between Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, county officials reported few significant lines.

Fulton County, which includes Atlanta, showed just one of its 249 polling places had a wait time of more than 30 minutes around 12:45 p.m., according to its elections website.

The average wait time to vote in Georgia around midday was fluctuating, but remained under five minutes, according election officials.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/06 ... =url-share
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