2022 U.S. Congressional (and Other) Elections

[N.E. Brigand]

So he admits the allegations are true.

Even if his wife forgives him for trying to kill her, I don't think voters should do so:



And inasmuch as I've never held a knife to anyone's throat or pointed a gun at anyone, I think I can cast this particular stone!

[RoseMorninStar]

There is a great deal of difference between forgiveness and 'forget-ness'.

[N.E. Brigand]

At 538.com's 2022 predictions page, Republicans continue to slip in the House races but Democrats have also slipped in the Senate races: the site now gives both parties a 68% chance of prevailing in those respective houses of Congress.

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A new poll finds newly-elected Democratic Congresswoman Mary Peltola of Alaska is likely to prevail in the regular election in November, again defeating Sarah Palin. The same poll also has Alaska's Republican governor, Mike Dunleavy, and moderate Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, winning reelection.

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This piece at Media Matters finds that Fox News has settled on John Fetterman, the Senate candidate from Pennsylvania, as this year's Democratic villain, casting him in the role previously held by Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. Over the past four weeks, Fetterman has been more often on Fox's prime time shows than all other swing state Democratic senate candidates combined, and Fetterman's opponent, Mehmet Oz, though mentioned on Fox less than half as often as Fetterman, has been mentioned nearly as much as all other swing state Republican senate candidates combined.

And yet, Fetterman is in the best polling shape of all Democratic candidates. Nothing is impossible -- and who knows what October surprises loom? -- but Fox is unlikely to be able to push Oz over the finish line. They'd be better off attacking incumbents Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Catherine Cortez Mastro of Nevada.

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I started to note the following item in the 2020 Election thread, because the first thing I notice was the reference to Dinesh D'Souza. He's is a conservative commentator who pled guilty to a felony in 2014 for having engaged in elections fraud using a "straw donor" scheme by which he contributed more than was legally allowed to a Republican Senate campaign by reimbursing other people for what they contributed in their own names to that candidate. For this crime, he was pardoned in 2018 by President Trump. In 2021, D'Souza's produced a documentary film called 2,000 Mules which pushes bogus conspiracy theories about (non-existent) Democratic election fraud in 2020.

But then I saw that the D'Souza connection was just one of multiple items unearthed in an AP investigation of Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, who is running this year for a third term in office:

(A) "Recently, the Texas attorney general's staff quietly dropped a series of human trafficking and child sexual assault cases after losing track of a victim. Six of the people charged are now free. One is being held on other charges. One died in jail."

(B) "As the FBI investigates Texas' attorney general, seasoned lawyers are leaving his office over practices they say aim to slant legal work, reward loyalists and drum out dissent. One said he quit after supervisors pressured him to withhold evidence."

(C) "The Texas attorney general's office held a '2,000 Mules viewing party' for staff. Its election integrity team was also invited to a separate screening of the debunked film that falsely claims to prove the 2020 election was stolen."

(D) "The Texas attorney general's office also secretively fired one of Paxton's supporters who tried to make a point in a meeting by displaying child pornography."

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The Republican candidate for governor in Arizona, Kari Lake, is an election denier, and sadly, she leads her Democratic opponent by a narrow margin in the polls. Now the Daily Beast reports that one of Lake's staffers "once admitted to a murder-for-hire plot of an FBI informant."

[N.E. Brigand]

I think I have mentioned before that I am a big fan of marching bands and drum & bugle corps. In the summer, I attend five or more Drum Corps International competitions -- as many as are within a reasonable driving distance -- and I watch the livestreams of competitions elsewhere in the country. Every Labor Day weekend for the past ten years (except during the pandemic), I've driven to somewhere in the northeast U.S. to attend the Drum Corps Associates championships. And on each of the following nine Saturdays (and even a couple Sundays later in the season), I attend one or two high school marching band competitions before watching the livestream of the Bands of American championships on the second full weekend in November. (Something you probably didn't know: the state with the most top-notch high school bands is Texas, followed by Indiana.)

Most of the marching band shows are in relatively small high school stadiums and are conducted in part as fundraisers for the host band, who get at least some of the proceeds from a combination of the gate sales, concession sales, souvenir sales, and so forth. Also there's usually a 50-50 raffle (this is also pretty common at high school sports events, which I rarely attend): you can buy tickets -- typically one for a dollar, six for five dollars, or an "arm's length" for ten dollars -- and toward the end of the show, one ticket number will be called, and of the total pot, half goes to the person holding that ticket and the other half is a donation to the cause. Suffice it to say that I have thus donated to a lot of local marching bands over the years with nothing but good feelings to show for it.

But to my great surprise last week, I won! Sales had been relatively light as these things go, but still I walked away with $250.

And tonight, just as the 2022 third quarter deadlines hit, I donated all of my winnings, in various denominations, to Democratic candidates in the seven closest Senate and ten closest House campaigns listed at 538.com:

Senate
Catherine Cortez Mastro -- Nevada
Raphael Warnock -- Georgia
Mandela Barnes -- Wisconsin
Cheri Beasley -- North Carolina
Tim Ryan -- Ohio
John Fetterman -- Pennsylvania
Mark Kelly -- Arizona

House
Elaine Luria -- Virginia-2
Tom O'Halleran -- Arizona-2
Mary Peltola -- Alaska
Josh Riley -- New York-19
Francis Conole -- New York-22
Christy Smith -- California-27
Susan Wild -- Pennsylvania-7
Cindy Axne -- Iowa-3
Jamie McLeod-Skinner -- Oregon-5
Rudy Salas -- California-22

Don't let me down, candidates!

[N.E. Brigand]

Texas is almost certain to reelect its Republican governor, Greg Abbot, in five weeks, but his Democratic opponent, Beto O'Rourke, apparently was very strong in tonight's debate. Television station KXAN in Austin polled a focus group before and after the debate.

Before: Abbott 40% --- O'Rourke 27% --- Undecided 33%

After: O'Rourke 50% --- Abbott 43% --- Undecided 7%

Focus groups are nowhere near large enough to predict the population at large, but still, that's a huge swing.

[RoseMorninStar]

I have a cousin who is really into marching bands/drum & bugle corp. competitions and travels to watch them.

Congratulations on your win!

[N.E. Brigand]

I think every poll over the past month has Senator Catherine Cortez Mastro, Democrat of Nevada, losing her reelection bid to the Republican challenger, Adam Laxalt, who was formerly Nevada's Attorney General. So even if Democrats pick up Pennsylvania, and if nothing else flips, they'd still only have a 50/50 split in the Senate. And it's not guaranteed that Republicans won't pick up Georgia, Arizona, or other states.

Laxalt's messaging appears to be focused on immigration, inflation, and crime.

Edit: However, Catherine Cortez Mastro's campaign just announced having raised $15 million (a record) from 170,000 donors (averaging $44 per donor) in the quarter just completed. Through the prior quarter, she'd raised more than three times what Adam Laxalt did, but he's been helped by having spending from Republican PACs.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

538 still ranks that race as a straight-up toss-up, 50% chances of winning for both candidates.

Small movement towards the GOP in both the Senate and the House. 67-33 and 31-69.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

As Marcy Wheeler points out, this story was inevitable.

[N.E. Brigand]

Herschel Walker's son, who had earlier been very supportive of his father's Senate campaign:



That would be the only son of Herschel Walker publicly known to exist just a couple months ago.

Christian Walker also tweeted this tonight:

"I know my mom and I would really appreciate if my father Herschel Walker stopped lying and making a mockery of us. You’re not a 'family man' when you left us to bang a bunch of women, threatened to kill us, and had us move over 6 times in 6 months running from your violence."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And more.

[N.E. Brigand]

And more still. There were a few conservatives suggesting last night that Christian Walker's account might have been hacked, but now he's posted a video too:



First sentence: "I stayed silent as the atrocities committed against my mom were downplayed."

That would be his dad physically attacking his mom.

Also, remember how when the news of Herschel Walker's secret kids broke, I noted that Christian Walker had (1) posted in support of his father's campaign and (2) criticized the entertainer Nick Cannon for having multiple children by multiple mothers? Well...

"I stayed silent when it came out my father, Herschel Walker, had all these random kids across the country, none of whom he raised. And you know my favorite issue to talk about is father absence. Surprise! Because it affected me. That's why I talk about it all the time. Family values people: he has four kids, four different women, wasn't in the house raising one of them. He was out having sex with other women."

[N.E. Brigand]

And now some conservatives are trying to blame Christian Walker for his father's problems.

Edit: And I see Herschel Walker himself tweeted this last night:



One obvious question would be: which son?

Another, if one agreed with Herschel Walker's position on abortion (but I do not), might be: are you referring to the unborn child you paid to have murdered?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The "if you loved your kids" tweet from Christian Walker that I posted above was actually tweeted in response to that "I love my son no matter what" tweet from Walker.

[RoseMorninStar]

According to Forbes there are at least 6 conservative billionaires supporting him, one of which is Bernie Marcus, cofounder of Atlanta-based Home Depot.

[N.E. Brigand]

Josh Marshall shared a few darkly amusing thoughts last night about possible Republican defenses of Herschel Walker:

• "People say that Walker paying for girlfriend's abortion when he claims abortion is murder makes him a hypocrite. But he actually threatened to murder other members of his family who had already been born. So the claims of hypocrisy don’t add up."

• "Paying for abortion shows fiscal responsibility."

• "Sure, his son isn’t a fan. But he's one out of probably countless sons, barely a drop in the bucket."

• "So he threatened his wife and kid, but did he actually succeed in killing them?"

I think those are only slightly more ridiculous than the actual defenses offered thus far. Politically, I think the best move would be for Walker to ask for forgiveness. But he's already closed that door by denying the report.

And the real truth beyond continued Republican support for Walker is that there is no alternative: it's too late to replace him on the ballot. (Republican activist Dana Loesch: "Walker paid for one broad's abortion ... I want to control the Senate".) And while it seems obvious to me that anyone who works for the Walker campaign should quit, the people who hadn't quit already probably were already beyond salvation. Walker's campaign manager, Scott Paradise, has reminded staff that Donald Trump still won the presidency after the world heard the tape in which he boasted about committing sexual assault. So we do at least get to enjoy the irony that Paradise is going to Hell.

Also, Walker's team has known for months that Walker paid for (at least one) abortion and hoped that the story wouldn't be published until after the election. They also knew that he had multiple undisclosed children. One Republican strategist added: "It’s not that we knew about this specific case, but he’s a wealthy, famous football player who is obviously spreading his seed."



And again, this point can't be made too strongly:



Republicans believe that abortion is murder unless a Republican does it.

See also the reporting that Walker has had his best single fundraising day since the news broke last night. And note how Matt Schlapp, a very powerful Republican activist, says in the article about what the Walker campaign knew that it's nobody else's business if Walker paid for an abortion.

*(Edited to add: to be fair, $182,000, the "record" daily amount that Walker's campaign reported raising over the past 24 hours, is just 63% of the $288,000 daily average amount raised over the past three months by Walker's opponent, Senator Raphael Warnock.)

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I also appreciated Marshall's thoughts on the latest story about Mehmet Oz, the Republican running to be the next U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania (sort of):

"Someone needs to tell Dr. Oz that they might torture dogs in Jersey but that doesn’t fly in PA."

Earlier reports about Oz's work having resulted in needless animal deaths seemed more reflective of the dark side of medical research generally and not necessarily specific to his activities, but the mistreatment described in this article seems to go beyond that, and apparently resulted in Columbia University paying a fine to the USDA.

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Republicans are running ads attacking Democrats as soft on crime because two Covid relief bills didn't exclude prisoners from stimulus. But one of those bills was signed into law by President Donald Trump, and both of them got Republican votes (including, e.g., Marco Rubio's).

[N.E. Brigand]

Also, Walker's team has known for months that Walker paid for (at least one) abortion and hoped that the story wouldn't be published until after the election. They also knew that he had multiple undisclosed children. One Republican strategist added: "It’s not that we knew about this specific case, but he’s a wealthy, famous football player who is obviously spreading his seed."

The Daily Beast reporter who reported Monday about Herschel Walker having paid one of his girlfriends for an abortion in 2009 says:

"The Politico story that an abortion allegation was circulating among Republicans for months doesn't quite track with what I know about the story I reported. It's highly, highly possible these are two different allegations."

[N.E. Brigand]

This absentee ballot request data from Michigan would appear to portend well for Democrats in that state (and I don't know why Michigan would be radically different from other states), and yet I am skeptical, because I think Democrats may simply be likelier to vote absentee now than they were before the pandemic.

At 538.com, the "Lite" (=polls only) forecast model shows Democrats nearly twice as likely to hold the House (39%) as Republicans are to take the Senate (22%). On the other hand, yesterday the Cook Political Report moved Pennsylvania from "Lean Democrat" back to "Toss Up," because polls there show Mehmet Oz narrowing the gap to John Fetterman.

[N.E. Brigand]

Herschel Walker has a new ad out in which he notes that he's been open in the past about overcoming his personal demons, even having written a book, Breaking Free about the subject. Walker complains that his opponent, Senator Raphael Warnock, "doesn't even believe in redemption."

You probably won't be surprised to learn that Walker is reported to have paid for his girlfriend's abortion a year after publishing that book.

And the timing and nature of the ad strongly implies that Walker did in fact pay for the abortion -- otherwise why would he now feel the need to claim he's a changed man?

(And apparently in 2011, three years after publishing his book about his "redemption," Walker lied about his accomplishment in an ESPN interview, claiming "I supervise six hospitals around the United States." He did not. He was a paid goodwill ambassador for a health insurance company, though.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Walker complains that his opponent, Senator Raphael Warnock, "doesn't even believe in redemption."

That would be Reverend Raphael Warnock

ETA: And yet