2022 midterm election thread

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weatheriscool
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2022 midterm election thread

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Grassley will seek reelection, boosting GOP's majority hopes
Source: Politico
Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley announced on Twitter Friday morning he will run for an eighth term, a move that makes it more likely the GOP can keep control of his seat in next year's midterm elections.

Grassley romped to a seventh term in 2016 by 25 percentage points and will face former Democratic Rep. Abby Finkenauer in next year's general election.

Grassley turned 88 this month but Republican Party leaders have nonetheless pressed him to seek reelection amid their broader efforts to claim the Senate majority next year.


Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/2 ... owa-514090
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caltrek
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Re: 2022 midterm election thread

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Biden's progressive agenda, including the protection of democracy itself, increasingly threatens to be obstructed by a coalition of Republicans and a couple of conservative Democrats in the Senate. Moreover, midterm elections can often favor the party out of power. So, the upcoming midterm elections will be very important. Democrats will need to buck the historical trend and actually pick up some Senate seats (and hold onto the House). Not an easy task, but achievable.
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Congressman Kinzinger Will Not Seek Re-election in 2022
by Erin Doherty
October 29, 2021

https://www.axios.com/rep-kinzinger-not ... 0431f.html

Entire Article (Less Photo):
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) announced Friday that he will not run for re-election in 2022.

Why it matters: Kinzinger is one of two Republicans to serve on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and is one of former President Trump's fiercest GOP critics.

Go deeper: https://www.axios.com/adam-kinzinger-ur ... 0536.html
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Re: 2022 midterm election thread

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Indivisible Announces First 2022 Endorsements to Boost Power of Democrats' Left Flank
by Jessica Corbett
November 9. 2021

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/ ... left-flank

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) Indivisible on Monday launched a national endorsement program "dedicated to protecting and expanding the number of progressives in public office," and began by formally backing seven candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, including three current members.

"So much is at stake and these are the candidates who will help deliver real progressive change."
Exactly a year away from the 2022 midterm elections, the group endorsed Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus and represents Washington's 7th District; Ilhan Omar of Minnesota's 5th District; and Mondaire Jones of New York's 17th District.

The other four candidates are all also running as Democrats: Jessica Cisneros of Texas' 28th District; Odessa Kelly of Tennessee's 5th District; Kina Collins of Illinois' 7th District; and Melanie D'Arrigo of New York's 3rd District.

"Since our start, our grassroots network has shown that people power can and does influence policy and win elections," said Lucy Solomon, Indivisible's national political director, in a statement. "Primaries are the best opportunity to debate competing visions for our country, and we know they determine the future of our party."

"That's why we're continuing our endorsements program—because so much is at stake and these are the candidates who will help deliver real progressive change," she added.
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Re: 2022 midterm election thread

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Progressives Warn of GOP Attack on 2022 Elections
by Brett Wilkins
November 8, 2021

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/ ... -elections

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) Citing "unprecedented and coordinated" Republican efforts to undermine public trust in the U.S. electoral system, nearly 60 advocacy groups warned Monday of the need defend democracy ahead of the 2022 midterm elections—including by passing the Freedom to Vote Act.

"Our democracy faces an existential threat—the very real possibility that the outcome of an election could be ignored and the will of the people overturned by hyperpartisan actors," 58 groups including MoveOn.org, Protect Democracy, Public Citizen, SEIU, and the Sierra Club assert in an open letter.

"Since the 2020 election, we have seen unprecedented and coordinated efforts to cast doubt on the U.S. election system," the letter states.
"These efforts have taken many forms," the authors explain, including "widespread disinformation campaigns and baseless claims of election fraud,... intimidation of election officials and administrators just for doing their jobs, new state laws to make election administration more partisan and more susceptible to manipulation or sabotage, and outright violence."

Noting that "exaggerated and unsubstantiated fears about voter fraud have been a vote suppression tool for some time," the letter argues that "these efforts took on entirely new ferocity with the advent of former President [Donald] Trump's 'Big Lie' regarding the 2020 presidential election."
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Re: 2022 midterm election thread

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Vermont Senate Race
by Ryan Grim
November 14, 2021

https://theintercept.com/2021/11/14/ver ... ick-leahy/

Introduction:
(The Intercept) SEN. PATRICK LEAHY, the longest serving Democrat in the Senate, held a press conference on Monday morning in the Vermont Statehouse, announcing that he will not seek reelection in 2022. Leahy stepping back opens up a new likely Democratic seat, raising the question of whether Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., will endorse the state’s lone congressional representative, Peter Welch, or allow an open primary to play out.

Welch, a Democrat, is known to be planning a run to replace Leahy if and when he retires. If Sanders endorses Welch, he functionally forecloses any challenge from the left. State Rep. Tanya Vyhovsky is also contemplating a run for Senate if Leahy steps down but told The Intercept she won’t do so if Sanders gets behind Welch. “I don’t want to lose any capacity I have [in the state legislature] in a race that’s unwinnable,” she said. “That is a big piece of this — if Bernie is going to endorse Peter there’s not much point doing it.”

Vyhovsky broadly shares Sanders’s politics and was endorsed by him the previous two cycles. Meanwhile, Welch and Sanders are much closer personally than they are politically. If Sanders does freeze the field by endorsing Welch, it would come out of personal loyalty rather than as a way to advance his political revolution. His penchant for such loyalty was on display during the presidential campaign, when he repeatedly resisted efforts by advisers to get him to go on the attack against Joe Biden. “Joe is a friend,” he would often say.

Leahy remains popular in Vermont as well. Asked by The Intercept if he planned to endorse a candidate or allow a race to play out, Leahy said recently that he wasn’t ready to make a public statement either way. Sanders, historically, has taken large amounts of time to make endorsements; Vermont political observers and those around Sanders are unsure if he’ll endorse Welch. (A Sanders spokesperson declined to comment.)
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Re: 2022 midterm election thread

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Leahy gives emotional speech in Senate on retirement plans
Source: AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after announcing he will not seek reelection, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont told his colleagues in an emotional speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday that they have become like family to him over the last nearly 47 years.

The 81-year-old Leahy, who as the Senate’s president pro tempore is third in line to the presidency, said that he’s been honored to fight for Vermont and that he did not make the decision to retire lightly.

“Here’s the thing about the Senate. Here’s where small states like Vermont have not just a seat at the table but a voice at the table,” he said, noting that Vermont had championed farm-to-school programs and revitalization of historic downtowns, ideas that gained traction nationally.

He thanked his staff and his family, particularly his wife, Marcelle.


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/vermont-patr ... 7b66f68948
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Trump-backed Senate Candidate Sean Parnell Suspends Campaign After Losing Custody Battle
by Allan Smith
November 22, 2021

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/electi ... g-n1284407

Introduction:
(NBC) Sean Parnell, a candidate for the Senate in Pennsylvania who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, suspended his campaign after a judge ruled Monday in favor of his estranged wife in a court fight over custody of their three children.

His estranged wife, Laurie Snell, had testified about abuse she said she and occasionally their children endured from him.

"I strongly disagree with the ruling today and I'm devastated by the decision," Parnell said in a statement, adding, "There is nothing more important to me than my children, and while I plan to ask the court to reconsider, I can't continue with a Senate campaign."

A Butler County judge wrote in a docket entry Monday that Snell would have sole legal custody and primary physical custody of the couple's three children; Parnell was granted physical custody three weekends a month, The Associated Press reported.

Parnell forcefully denied Snell's allegations of abuse under oath, but the judge, James Arner, wrote that she was "the more credible witness," The AP reported. She testified that Parnell once choked her to the point that she had to bite him to break free and that he had once slapped one of their three children hard enough on the back to leave marks.
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The Populist, Millennial Veteran Who Wants to Turn Missouri Blue
by Kathy Gilsinan
November 24, 2021

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... rat-521862

Extract:
(Politico) (Lucas) Kunce is a Democrat, yes, but he prefers to call himself a populist, and he’s hoping a campaign against “big corporations and corrupt politicians,” on behalf of American workers hurt by globalization and monopoly power, will have enough appeal across partisan and racial divides to put him over the top. Nine months ahead of the 2022 primary, he has attracted national attention and cable-news spots for his blistering critiques of the war in Afghanistan, where he deployed twice — Kabul’s collapse, he says, was inevitable; U.S. elites lied about the war for 20 years; and defense contractors got rich while communities like his hometown decayed. Last quarter, Kunce outraised all his opponents in the race, Republicans included. And no matter if the issue is war in the Middle East, agriculture in the Midwest or pretty much anything else, his appeal to unity is this: Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, you’re all getting screwed.

Even though Republican pollsters recently found Kunce losing, 40 percent to 47 percent, against the current GOP frontrunner, former Gov. Eric Greitens, Kunce finds that margin encouraging enough this early in the race, when many Missourians don’t even know who he is; his chief rival in the Democratic primary, the experienced former state Sen. Scott Sifton, loses to Greitens in the poll by a similar amount and faces similar name-recognition challenges, but he trails far behind Kunce in fundraising. Lots of people know Greitens, who resigned to avoid impeachment in a 2018 scandal involving an allegedly coerced sexual encounter with his hairdresser plus alleged campaign-finance shenanigans; he denies any wrongdoing, and struck a deal with the prosecutor to drop criminal charges at the time. Still, the prospect of a Greitens primary nomination has national Republicans anxious and national Democrats enthused. Incredibly for a Trump country seat currently held by a Republican, retiring Sen. Roy Blunt, and in a midterm year in which Democrats are expected to do badly, CNN has put the Missouri race on its list of the top 10 seats most likely to flip in 2022, though the Cook Political Report considers the seat solidly Republican, as do Missouri pollsters
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Re: 2022 midterm election thread

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Dr. Oz announces bid for US Senate seat in Pennsylvania
Source: CNN
(CNN)Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon and television personality, is running for the US Senate in Pennsylvania as a Republican, according to an op-ed published Tuesday in the conservative Washington Examiner. "During the pandemic, I learned that when you mix politics and medicine, you get politics instead of solutions. That's why I am running for the U.S. Senate: to help fix the problems and to help us heal," Oz wrote.

The 61-year-old Oz will join a Republican primary field that already includes Philadelphia-area businessman (and 2018 lieutenant governor nominee) Jeff Bartos and Carla Sands, who served as US ambassador to Denmark in the Trump administration. Another potential Republican candidate is David McCormick, a former official in the Treasury Department under President George W. Bush.

The race in Pennsylvania to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey has been shaken up in recent weeks, primarily by the departure of GOP candidate Sean Parnell, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. "Pennsylvania needs a conservative who will put America first," Oz said in a 60-second video on his campaign website.

Oz is an Ohio native who attended medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. He rose to fame as a frequent guest of Oprah Winfrey, eventually launching his own syndicated daytime TV talk show in 2009. Representatives for Oz did not return CNN's request for comment.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/30/politics ... index.html
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