2022 U.S. Congressional (and Other) Elections

[N.E. Brigand]

Serves me right! I was thinking of today's good news on jobs and Covid. But arguably that good news would have made Democrats likelier to get these bills done too. Curiously, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, the Democrat from New Jersey who previously had been leading the so-called centrist movement to water down Joe Biden's $3.5 trillion "Build Back Better" plan, today indicated he was ready to pass the much smaller version of that bill. It's five other "moderates" who are demanding a CBO score first. That's nonsense, because they know full well that (1) it will take at least two more weeks to get that; and (2) the Senate is just going to add a whole bunch of amendments to the bill, so it will have to be scored by the CBO again.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It is nonsense. It is also nonsense that the progressive caucus still won't vote for the infrastructure bill, despite supporting it, and despite the full Congressional Black Caucus requesting that the bill be passed immediately. I actually think it is more likely, not less, that the BBB bill will pass eventually if it gets separated from the infrastructure bill. And the Democratic Party risks reaching a point of no return if something doesn't get accomplished. After 1/6, I thought the Republican Party was on the verge of dissolving. Now I'm not so sure it won't be the Democratic Party that completely implodes.

[N.E. Brigand]

Per the Washington Post, the 17-year-old son of Gavin Youngkin, the Republican candidate who won the governor's race in Virginia, twice attempted to vote on Tuesday. The young kin of Governor-elect Youngkin was turned away both times. (You have to be 18 to vote in a general election, although in many (all?) states you can vote in a primary at age 17 if you will be older than 18 by the date of the general election. I did so in 1990.) Is it still voter fraud if you fail in your attempts to illegally vote?

Seriously, I'm all for extending the voting age downward and don't want this kid to get in any trouble. But it's fairly surprising that his dad never explained the basics of election rules to him.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It's at most attempted voter fraud.

But pretty outrageous. (Though fortunate in that it allowed you to get in the clever young kin pun)

[N.E. Brigand]

His attempts to vote also happened to be at the wrong precinct.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

N.E.B., did you ghost-write this article?

Why does the media keep saying this election was a loss for Democrats? It wasn’t

In all seriousness, I think she makes a decent point.

Pretty much anything that happens to the Democrats is a sign that they’re weak and losing and should be worried, according to the storylines into which mainstream media tends to stuff news.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Another example of how the mainstream media's narrative of the election last week being an unmitigated disaster for Democrats was wrong.

From Georgia, one of the most critical swing states: Democrats Net 30+ Seats Statewide in Municipal Elections

[Frelga]

Yup. There were even attempts to cast the abject failure of the attempted recall of the Californian governor as, somehow, a warning to Democrats.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu has announced that he is not going to challenge Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan next November. Sununu was widely expected to run for the seat and to pose a strong challenge to Hassan. This news makes it much less likely that the GOP will be able to take that seat.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Patrick Leahy, the Vermont senator who is the longest serving current senator, has announced that he is not running for reelection in 2022. Normally that would not be likely to affect the balance of power in the Senate. After all, Biden won the state by 35 points in 2020, his largest margin in any state. But there is one wild card. Despite otherwise having all Democratic representation (or in the case of Bernie Sanders, an Independent to the left of the Democrats) Vermont has an extraordinarily popular Republican governor, Phil Scott. Scott actually won his race in 2020 by more than Biden: more than 41 points. Scott has previously indicated little desire to run for the Senate, but with Leahy retiring, he will be under tremendous pressure to do so. If so, he would be a formidable candidate to flip a heretofore solidly blue seat.

My guess is that like Sununu in neighboring New Hampshire he won't run, but we'll see.

[N.E. Brigand]

Dr. Mehmet Oz, in April 2020, asked for his opinion on what steps the government should take regarding the burgeoning pandemic:

Well, first we need our mojo back. Let's start with things that are really critical to the nation, where we think we might be able to open without getting into a lot of trouble. I tell ya, schools are a very appetizing opportunity. I just saw a nice piece in The Lancet arguing that the opening of schools may only cost us 2-3%, in terms of total mortality. And you know, that's--any life is a life lost, but to get every child back into a school where they're safely being educated, being fed, and making the most out of their lives with a theoretical risk on the backside, might be a tradeoff some folks would consider.

To be fair, Oz later said that he "misspoke." And reopening schools earlier, if done properly, may indeed have been a relatively safe thing to do. Also he wasn't saying that opening schools would increase deaths by an amount equal to 2-3% of the U.S. population, but that it would increase deaths by an additional 2-3% above the baseline of people who would die from Covid-19 regardless.

But that still works out to between 15,000 and 23,000 deaths. How "appetizing"!

Anyway, Dr. Oz today announced that he's running for the 2022 Republican nomination to be the next U.S. senator from Pennsylvania. (Sean Parnell, the candidate endorsed by Donald Trump, withdrew from the race last week, after a court granted Parnell's "estranged wife sole legal custody and primary physical custody of the pair's three children". Parnell's wife "has accused him of a litany of abuses ranging from choking her and striking one of their children, to trying to convince her to have an abortion when she was six months pregnant".)

There is something odd about Oz's decision, as noted on a New Jersey media outlet's website:

Oz may have to explain why he isn’t running for office in New Jersey, where he has lived for the past two decades before he began voting in Pennsylvania’s elections this year by absentee ballot, registered to his in-laws’ address in suburban Philadelphia. His longtime home is above the Hudson River in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, overlooking Manhattan, where he films his TV show and practices medicine.

[Frelga]

Oh, is that why Twitter is mad at Oprah?

[RoseMorninStar]

Oz is a quack and had been for some time.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

As expected, Stacey Abrams has confirmed that she is running for Governor of Georgia in 2022.

Stacey Abrams announces she's running for governor in Georgia

[N.E. Brigand]

Congressman Devin Nunes has announced he'll be retiring at the end of this year. Nunes, a Republican from California, formerly chaired the House Intelligence Committee and in that role engaged in some shenanigans (e.g., pretending to have secret information that he ostentatiously delivered to the White House, only for it to emerge that the White House had provided him with that information in the first place) that some observers felt were efforts to help President Donald Trump when Trump was being investigated for his Russian connections. Nunes is also notoriously litigious, suing a number of parties, including two anonymous Twitter parody accounts ("Devin Nunes's Mom" and "Devin Nunes's Cow") for supposedly defaming him. Some are speculating that Nunes will be joining Donald Trump's new media group. It was reported today that the new company is under investigation by the SEC.

[N.E. Brigand]

A new Quinnipiac poll shows Beto O'Rourke losing to Greg Abbott, 52-37%, in the 2022 race for Texas governor. Looks bad!

But a Jan. 2018 poll had O'Rourke losing to Ted Cruz by 18%. In the Senate election ten months later, O'Rourke lost by 2.6%.

So if the governor's race were to change by as much as the previous race did, O'Rourke would win next year by almost 3%.

However, O'Rourke has much more name recognition now than he did then, which I think bodes ill for his chances of closing that much ground.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson is running for reelection

Republicans and Democrats were both hoping this would happen. The GOP thinks that he will be a strong incumbent. The Democrats think that is extreme views make him vulnerable in a very purple state. Which of them turns out to be correct will go a long way towards determining who controls the senate in the second half of Biden's first term.

[RoseMorninStar]

Ugh. He's a scourge. He said he wasn't going to run again.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Rose, who would you say is the best potential Democratic candidate. Looking from the outside, I would say Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes, who is a declared candidate, but I don't know how popular he is or whether he has any potential baggage.

[RoseMorninStar]

I honestly don't know but I'd better start paying attention. I'll ask a friend of mine who is better at keeping up with local politics. I was greatly disappointed when Russ Feingold didn't win the last time around. I live in a very (very) right-wing area, so I don't get the best feel for the state as a whole. Glen Grothman (ugh) can also go. Tammy Baldwin can stay.