2022 U.S. Congressional (and Other) Elections

[N.E. Brigand]

Georgia's Supreme Court has turned away an appeal from Republicans who wanted to block early voting from happening this Saturday.

[N.E. Brigand]

We ought to be able to take for granted that Arizona's outgonig Republican governor would meet with Arizona's Democratic governor-elect and promise to work with her on a smooth transition, but I teared up a little upon seeing Doug Ducey share this message about Katie Hobbs:

[N.E. Brigand]

CNN reports that Herschel Walker "got a tax break [the homestead exception] for the last two years on his Texas home [which is] intended only for your primary residence — possibly running afoul of both Texas tax law and Georgia rules for establishing residency for both voting and running for office."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I doubt that would lead to his being disqualified if he prevails in the run-off, but it is an interesting thought!

[Eldy]

Based on the article, it doesn't sound like there's much grounds for this to be disqualifying. I'm not familiar enough with the Georgia Senate race, other than Walker's greatest hits of gaffes which have filtered through to me, to say whether his vulnerability to allegations of being a carpetbagger will be more like Mitt Romney's or more like Dr. Oz's. From my out-of-state perspective, though, it seems like Walker being the personification of the issues with celebrities running for office would be the bigger concern to anyone skeptical of ... unconventional candidates.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Not to mention the fact that he claims to oppose abortion in all circumstances (even when the life of the mother is in danger) yet is credibly accused of paying for two different women to have abortions. If that is not disqualifying to conservative voters, I don't know what would be.

[Eldy]

I don't know what would be.

An unwillingness to pay lip service to, and vote for, conservative policies, no matter how personally hypocritical that might be.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Ding ding ding!

[N.E. Brigand]

Meanwhile in the race for Alaska's sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, the incumbent for all of two months was Mary Peltola, a Democrat who defeated two Republicans, former governor Sarah Palin and conservative think tank member Nick Begich III, in a special election in September to succeed the late Don Young, who at the time of his death at age 88 in March was the longest-serving Republican ever in the House (he took office in 1973). Tonight Peltola defeated Palin again in the ranked choice instant run-off of the general election for a full term by 55%-45%; Begich was also in the race. The first choice votes already had Peltola at 49% vs. 26% for Palin and 23% for Begich. Although 67% of first round Begich voters' final choice votes went to Palin, that wasn't nearly enough for her to catch Peltola.

Here's an interesting fact: Don Young had succeeded Begich's grandfather, also named Nick Begich, after the elder Begich went missing in a 1972 plane crash. His body was never found.

Also tonight in Alaska, incumbent U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, a moderate Republican who voted to convict Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial, held off a challenge from fellow Republican Kelly Tshibaka, a former state administrator, by 54%-46%. Murkowski held a narrow 43.3%-42.7% lead over Tshibaka after the first round, in which the Democratic candidate, Pat Chesbro had just 10% of the votes, and Chesbro's voters went overwhelmingly for Murkowski in the final round.

[N.E. Brigand]

"A swing of 3,340 votes from Republican to Democrat in the five closest U.S. House of Representative races would have allowed Democrats to hold the House." (source)

Based on the sum of half of the margin in each of these five races, I get a slightly higher number:

Colorado #3: Boebert (R) 163,382 - Frisch (D) 163,278 = 104 / 2 = 52
California #13: Duarte (R) 66,808 - Gray (D) 66,215 = 593 / 2 = 297
Iowa #3: Nunn (R) 156,261 - Axne (D) 154,117 = 2,144 / 2 = 1,072
New York #17: Lawler (R) 142,206 - Maloney (D) 139,892 = 2,314 / 2 = 1,157
New York #22: Williams (R) 135,061 - Conole (D) 132,432 = 2,629 / 2 = 1,315

And 52 + 297+ 1,072 + 1,157 + 1,315 = 3,893. I don't think there's a closer race that I'm overlooking, so presumably there have been some small updates since that calculation finding a 3,340 swing difference was made.

In any case, that's a very small number of votes changing House control from Democratic to Republican! Every vote really does count.

(There also were several races that Democrats didn't contest at all, although those are elections they probably would have lost. But you never know.)

- - - - - - - - - -
Meanwhile, the Republicans who control the board of elections in Cochise County, Arizona, have voted to delay certification of votes until at least Friday, when they anticipate receiving "further presentation on the accreditation of the voting machines" from Arizona's Secretary of State, Katie Hobbs (who just won election to be that state's governor). This delay could put the county at risk of having its votes not counted at all, which would actually hurt Republican candidates, because they did well there.

[N.E. Brigand]

There were more than 6,000 legislative seats up for reelection this year: 435 in the U.S. House, 35 in the U.S. Senate, and the other 5,500+ in state legislatures. This being a mid-term election, you would expect the President's party to lose seats:

"Two years into President Barack Obama’s term, in 2010, the GOP gained more than 600 legislative seats ... In 2014, they gained roughly 250 seats, according to data compiled by Ballotpedia. Democrats returned the favor in 2018 by gaining more than 300 legislative seats ..."

And the Republicans did indeed win more contests this year than Democrats.

They picked up 22 seats.

- - - - - - - - - - -
Meanwhile:

A previously unreleased text reveals that in May, in support of his plan to buy Twitter, Elon Musk sought and received $100 million from Sam Bankman-Fried, the now infamous CEO of the crypto-currency exchange FTX, a firm which recently filed for bankruptcy as Bankman-Fried's net worth, once estimated to be $26 billion, plummeted 94% on November 8 -- "the largest one-day drop in the [Bloomberg Billionaires] index's history" -- and has him now being assessed as having "no material wealth."

That's from the the Elon Musk / Twitter thread, but on the subject of FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX, and cryptocurrency, here's a reporting about how in March, eight House members -- four Republicans* and four Democrats* -- questioned the Securities and Exchange Commission's decision to make inquiries into cryptocurrency management in a letter to the SEC that "intimated that the SEC's requests violated federal law." That was known in March. What's known now is that one of the firm's the SEC was looking into was FTX, which, as noted above, has collapsed, wiping out billions of dollars. The letter's lead author was Rep. Tom Emmer, who also tweeted at the time that the SEC's questions were "overburdensome ... and stifling innovation." In January, Emmer will hold the number three position in the House. I mentioned before that Bankman-Fried was a major donor to Democrats -- one of the Democrats who signed that letter, Rep. Jake Auchincloss is now complaining that the SEC didn't do enough to prevent the recent meltdown -- but Bankman-Fried's firm, FTX, donated $2.75 million to the Republican Congressional campaign fund that Emmer led.

*Republicans: Tom Emmer (Minnesota), Warren Davidson (Ohio), Byron Donalds (Florida), Ted Budd (North Carolina)
*Democrats: Josh Gottheimer (New Jersey), Jake Auchincloss (Massachusetts), Ritchie Torres (New York), and Darren Soto (Florida)

Last night on Tucker Carlson's Fox News program, Terry Duffy, the CEO of CME Group, a financial derivatives exchange that's worth nearly $200 billion, claimed that he saw through Sam Bankman-Fried from the start. But in the course of his commentary, Duffy appeared to admit that he'd bribed a financial regulator to obtain information on Bankman-Fried. If that's just a slip of the tongue, it's a very odd one!

As noted above, it has been much reported that FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried donated to Democratic 2022 campaigns, which is true, but in addition to his firm having explicitly donated to Republicans, see also a new interview with Bankman-Fried published today, in which he says that he actually donated equally to both parties, but his donations to Republicans were made in the form of dark money, i.e., donations to organizations ostensibly not working with any given candidate.

[N.E. Brigand]

CNN reports that: "In a campaign speech this year, Herschel Walker told a gathering of college Republicans he lives in Texas and decided to run from his Texas home. A review by us also found he repeatedly did campaign interviews from his Texas home. Walker did at least four interviews in 2021 and 2022 after declaring for Senate from his Texas home. We found at least 20 media appearances from his Texas home in 2020 as well."

[N.E. Brigand]

House Democrats, who will be in the minority as of January, have selected new and much younger leadership after the current leaders announced they'd be stepping down from the top three roles (while continuing to serve in the House): Nancy Pelosi of California (age 82), Steny Hoyer of Maryland (age 83), and Jim Clyburn of South Carolina (age 82), will be succeeded, respectively, by Hakeem Jeffries of New York (age 52), Katherine Clark of Massachusetts (age 59), and Peter Aguilar of California (age 43). Clyburn will be running for the no. 4 leadership position, where his top challenger will be David Cicilline of Rhode Island (age 61).

Jeffries is the first African American to lead a political party in the House.

On the Republican side, current House minority leader Kevin McCarthy of California (age 57), is apparently facing a difficult time securing enough votes to elect him Speaker when Republicans take control of Congress on January 3rd. We never got a good explanation of why McCarthy withdrew from the contest to be Speaker following John Boehner's retirement in 2015. McCarthy said then that "Republicans needed a fresh face," but they went on to elect Paul Ryan, who though younger than McCarthy had served in Congress for six years more than McCarthy at that point and who had been the Republican candidate for Vice President in 2012.

[N.E. Brigand]

In Georgia, a new one-day record for early voting was set on Monday, when more than 300,000 people voted. That was 70,000 more than the previous record for one day of early voting in Georgia, which was set in 2018.

The new record was then broken again on Tuesday, when over 309,000 people voted.

Does this bode well for incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in his bid to stave off a challenge from Republican Herschel Walker of Texas in this Georgia run-off election? I have no idea. I will note that the previous early voting record didn't help Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams win the governorship in 2018 (although she got closer than she did this year, I believe -- on the other hand, this year, her opponent had the advantage of incumbency). CNN says the reason for the high turnout is probably the "compressed timeline" for this year's early voting. Georgia's secretary of state, Gabriel Sterling, says that younger voters account for about 25% of the turnout thus far.

Republican officials are being explicit about why they want Walker to win: it "allows us to hold up all those appointments," i.e., it will undermine President Biden's efforts to properly staff the government and to fill judicial vacancies.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm sure that you recall that at the time that McCarthy withdrew in 2015, he had gotten himself in hot water for saying in a Fox News interview, ""Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee, what are her numbers today?" While he never specifically said that was why he withdrew, it was clear that that moment of honesty cost him too much support to be successful in his bid then. As you note, it remains to be seen if he has sufficient support now.

x-posted with N.E.B.'s second post.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

In Georgia, a new one-day record for early voting was set on Monday, when more than 300,000 people voted. That was 70,000 more than the previous record for one day of early voting in Georgia, which was set in 2018.

The new record was then broken again on Tuesday, when over 309,000 people voted.

Does this bode well for incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in his bid to stave off a challenge from Republican Herschel Walker of Texas in this Georgia run-off election? I have no idea. I will note that the previous early voting record didn't help Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams win the governorship in 2018 (although she got closer than she did this year, I believe -- on the other hand, this year, her opponent had the advantage of incumbency). CNN says the reason for the high turnout is probably the "compressed timeline" for this year's early voting. Georgia's secretary of state, Gabriel Sterling, says that younger voters account for about 25% of the turnout thus far.

Republican officials are being explicit about why they want Walker to win: it "allows us to hold up all those appointments," i.e., it will undermine President Biden's efforts to properly staff the government and to fill judicial vacancies.

It is hard to say whether the high early vote count will help Warnock. On the one hand, reportedly turnout is particularly high among African-Americans and young voters, which should help him. On the other hand, I understand that one of the counties that has particularly high turnout is in Marjorie Taylor Greene's district, which would suggest that high turnout is not just among Warnock supporters. We'll see next Tuesday, or some time shortly thereafter.

538 has a good article explaining the reasons why either candidate could win. I am reminded that before the 2021 runoff, GOP candidates usually increased their vote totals in runoffs. In 2021 there was speculation that it was an outlier because the vote among Trump supporters was suppressed by his claims of election stealing. That is not likely to be as true this time.

How Either Candidate Could Win Georgia’s Senate Runoff

[Sunsilver]

Article may be paywalled, but was able to access it as I haven't been to the NYT page in over a month. Posting for those who don't have access.

By Charles M. Blow
Opinion Columnist

Tuesday afternoon, I waited over an hour and a half to vote in Atlanta in the Georgia Senate runoff between Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker.

This is my second election cycle in Georgia, but I still can’t get used to the wait times to vote. It’s a voter suppression tactic in and of itself. It’s a poll tax paid in time.

I lived more than 25 years in New York, where I took for granted that voting was a casual affair. For years, I would take my children into the booth with me so that they could see how the electoral process worked. There was never a line. Maybe there was a person or two in front of us, but no real delay.

I wouldn’t do that here in Georgia. Forcing a child to wait in a long line in the cold could by itself be considered abusive.

But, as I waited, something else occurred to me: Voter suppression is one of the surest cures for apathy. Nothing makes you value a thing like someone trying to steal it from you.

The line, and all the people patiently waiting in it, is a symbol of resilience and perseverance. It is a reminder that people will work hard to overcome obstacles to accomplish things they deem essential.

Waiting in line is such a feature of Georgia voting that some counties even publish their waiting times online so that voters can plan their arrivals to have the shortest wait.

These waits can disproportionately affect nonwhite voters. According to a report by Georgia Public Broadcasting and ProPublica before Election Day in 2020, a shrinking number of polling places “has primarily caused long lines in nonwhite neighborhoods where voter registration has surged and more residents cast ballots in person on Election Day.”

According to the report, the nine metro Atlanta counties “have nearly half of the state’s active voters but only 38 percent of the polling places.”

During the general election, voters set a record for the number of early votes cast in a Georgia midterm election, and on Monday and again on Tuesday they set records for single-day early voting in a Georgia runoff. It is interesting to note that an estimated 35 percent of the early votes so far are from African Americans, a slightly greater figure than their percentage of the population of Georgia.

This is a testament to the fortitude of those voters, because they were the ones targeted by Georgia’s latest round of voter suppression with “uncanny accuracy,” as the Brennan Center for Justice’s president, Michael Waldman, put it last year. Waldman wrote that Gov. Brian Kemp “signed his voter suppression bill in front of a painting of a plantation where more than 100 Black people had been enslaved. The symbolism, unnerving and ghastly, is almost too fitting.”

People who defend voter suppression point to these numbers as proof that their critics are simply being hyperbolic and creating an issue where none exists. But that is the opposite of the truth as far as I can see it. From my perspective, voters are simply responding with defiance to the efforts to suppress.

And yet that defiance might still not be enough to overcome all of the obstacles placed in voters’ way. While those record daily numbers are heartening, they are in part a result of a new Republican election law that cut the number of early-voting days roughly in half. Even with the extraordinary turnout, it is unlikely this year’s early voting will match that of last year’s runoff between Warnock and the Republican incumbent, Kelly Loeffler.

In addition, Republicans have fielded a singularly offensive candidate in Walker, a man not fit for elective office, a walking caricature of Black competence and excellence, as if Black candidates are interchangeable irrespective of accomplishment and proficiency.

The whole time I was waiting in line, I kept thinking about how the wait would have been impossible for someone struggling with child care or elder care, or someone whose job — or jobs — wouldn’t allow for that long a break in the middle of the day.

Also, I voted on an unseasonably warm day. What about those whose only opportunity to vote might be a day when it was raining or cold? The line at my polling place was outside for 90 percent of the time I waited.

I have nothing but disdain for the efforts to suppress the vote in my new home state, but I have nothing but admiration for the voters’ determination not to be suppressed.

Democracy is being saved by sheer force of will, by people climbing a hill that should never have been put in front of them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/30/opin ... EV3-9Zi2g0

[N.E. Brigand]

"Ex-Girlfriend Comes Forward On The Record With New Violent Allegations Against Walker."

Cheryl Parsa, who said she started her relationship with the former Georgia Bulldog in the 2000s, shortly after his divorce, detailed a 2005 incident that allegedly turned violent after she caught him cheating. Parsa told the Daily Beast Walker grew enraged when she caught him with another woman, put his hands on her chest and neck, and swung his fist at her. “I thought he was going to beat me,” Parsa recalled.

“He’s a pathological liar. Absolutely. But it’s more than that,” Parsa told The Daily Beast. “He knows how to manipulate his disease, in order to manipulate people, while at times being simultaneously completely out of control.” Parsa added that when she was in a relationship with Walker, he used his diagnosis as an “alibi” to “justify lying, cheating, and ultimately destroying families.”

[RoseMorninStar]

What disease is she referring to ? Mental illness?

[Sunsilver]

Had to look it up, Rose. He's been diagnosed with dissociative personality disorder, AKA multiple personality disorder. He claims he's cured though. https://abcnews.go.com/Sports/story?id=4156516&page=1

Others have speculated he took one too many hits to the head during his football career, and that's what is causing his problems in forming a coherent sentence, and also his outbursts of anger.