This week, the DFL crew dug into the data on what actually happened in the 2020 elections and what those results tell us about the DFL path to victory in 2022 with TargetSmart CEO Tom Bonier.
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Based on history, House Republicans should have an edge in midterm elections. But Democrats have some cause for optimism.
Republicans are enthusiastic about their chances of taking over the U.S. House of Representatives in the midterm elections of 2022.
Currently, the Democrats hold just a 219-211 lead in the House, a margin that would be 222-213 if the five currently vacant seats remain with the same party after they’ve been filled in special elections this year. (In a June 1 special election, the Democrats held on to one more House seat, in New Mexico. Once the newly elected Melanie Stansbury is sworn in, the tally will be 220-211.)
By historical standards, the Democratic edge is small. Only twice since World War II has the majority party held fewer than 222 seats when it was at full strength – the Republicans with 221 seats from 1953 to 1955 and the same number from 2001 to 2003. Continue reading.
For the time being, congresswomen Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert have effectively cornered the market of QAnon conspiracy loons in this year’s congressional class. But their monopoly on the “we believe there’s a secret cabal of satanist, child eating elites running this country” strain of Republicanism may be nearing an end, as a new and expanded crop of QAnon adherents ready themselves for a congressional run in next year’s midterm elections.
According to a new analysis from Media Matters for America, there are a whopping 17 new QAnon supporters running for Congress next year — the vast majority of them Republicans from Florida, Arizona, Ohio, and Nevada — alongside Greene and Boebert, who will both be up for re-election
Like QAnon itself, with its sprawling mythology and amorphic ability to incorporate any number of contradictory iterations and sub-genres, the roster of would-be QAnon representatives is as varied as you might expect from a group of people inclined to believe in a worldview predicated on baby cannibalization and devil worship. Some, like Arizona GOP candidate Josh Barnett, have attempted to explain away past social media posts that featured QAnon slogans and narratives by claiming he was just “retweeting the article.” Continue reading.
NRSC Chairman Rick Scott says midterms will focus on job creation
Former President Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment has dominated recent headlines, but neither party expects the votes cast Saturday by senators from battleground states to be a major factor in the fight for Senate control next year.
Seven Republican senators crossed party lines and joined all 50 Democrats in voting to convict Trump for inciting the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 to stop Congress from confirming Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential race. But that was 10 short of the two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, required by the Constitution. Forty-three Republicans voted to acquit Trump.
Two GOP senators in competitive races voted to acquit Trump. Just one Senate Republican up for reelection in 2022, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, voted to convict the former president. Two other Republicans in states with competitive Senate races who opted not to run for reelection, Pennsylvania’s Patrick J. Toomey and North Carolina’s Richard M. Burr, both also voted to convict. Continue reading.
The last election is barely over, but Minnesota Republicans have already started to angle for the state’s next big political matchup.
Too soon? For a party desperate to regain statewide relevance, and hopeful that pandemic-driven decisions and last spring’s stretch of civil unrest left Democratic Gov. Tim Walz vulnerable, 2022 offers a chance for a major reset.
“It’s time we get our act together because we have a very beatable governor here who will have a lot of serious issues to account for,” said Annette Meeks, a longtime GOP insider and the party’s 2010 nominee for lieutenant governor. Continue reading.
