2022 midterm election thread

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Is Arizona’s 2022 GOP Primary Just All About 2020?
by
July 30, 2022

Introduction:

(Vox) There seem to be an endless number of Republican primary races in Arizona that all hinge on two things: The legitimacy of the 2020 election, which was challenged more dramatically in Arizona than any other state, and fealty to Donald Trump.

State House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who testified to the January 6 committee about pressure he faced from Trump associates to unwind the 2020 election, has a serious primary challenge. The race to challenge Sen. Mark Kelly (D) features five Republicans — including state Attorney General Mark Brnovich, whom Trump supporters are still hounding to challenge election matters, and the Trump-backed election denier Blake Masters.

And Kari Lake and Mark Finchem have made Trump’s election lies a centerpiece of their campaigns for governor and secretary of state, respectively, the two offices that have the most direct influence on elections. They’ve formed something like an unofficial ticket, which has gotten a hearty boost from Trump himself.

Lake’s chief GOP primary opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson, has used an influx of her own money and endorsements from more establishment GOP figures like Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and former Vice President Mike Pence to make the race competitive in the home stretch. Finchem has three challengers, including some who aren’t election deniers, but he remains the frontrunner for the GOP nomination. The winners will face Democratic nominees for open seats in the competitive purple state.

To understand how those races are shaping up — and what’s at stake in them — I spoke to two Arizona Republic reporters: Mary Jo Pitzl is a senior reporter covering the secretary of state’s race, and Stacey Barchenger is a state politics reporter focused on the gubernatorial election. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Read more here: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politic ... ion-fraud

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PollTracker
@PollTrackerUSA
·
23h
2022 #AZGov Republican Primary Poll:

Kari Lake 49%
Karrin Taylor Robson 38%
Matt Salmon 3%
Paola Tulliani-Zen 2%
Scott Neely 2%
Undecided 6%

@trafalgar_group
~ 1,064 LV ~ 7/30-8/1
https://thetrafalgargroup.org/wp-content/upl

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Blake Masters Wins Arizona Republican Senate Primary
by Makena Kelly
August 3, 2022

Entire article:

(The Verge) Blake Masters, protege to billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel, has won the Arizona’s Republican nomination for US Senate late Tuesday night, the Associated Press and New York Times are reporting.

Masters’ triumph over solar power executive Jim Lamon installs the Trump-endorsed candidate as the GOP’s choice to take on former NASA astronaut Sen. Mark Kelly (D) this fall. Arizona is one of a handful of toss-up races that could decide which party controls the Senate come November.

Prior to Masters’ campaign announcement last summer, Politico reported that controversial tech investor Thiel funneled millions into the new Saving Arizona PAC in anticipation of his pupil’s Senate race. Thiel has donated at least $15 million to the PAC as of election day, according to campaign finance records.

Much of the PAC’s funding has gone towards a wave of negative ads attacking Lamon and opponent Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who drew criticism from Trump for not doing enough to investigate false allegations of voter fraud in Arizona. On Monday, Brnovich released a report identifying that his office found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in 2020.

With Masters’ Tuesday win, both of Thiel’s favored Republican Senate candidates successfully beat out their primary competitors this cycle. J.D. Vance, a longtime friend to Thiel and Hillbilly Elegy author, won the Republican Ohio Senate primary this past May. Thiel put $15 million into a pro-Vance super PAC, over the last year. If Masters and Vance go on to win their November general elections, they would bring newly tech-inspired ideologies to the Senate, both strongly inspired by Thiel and endorsed by Trump.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/3/2328 ... e-yarvin

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PollTracker
@PollTrackerUSA
·
23h
2022 #AZGov Republican Primary Poll:

Kari Lake 49%
Karrin Taylor Robson 38%
Matt Salmon 3%
Paola Tulliani-Zen 2%
Scott Neely 2%
Undecided 6%

@trafalgar_group
~ 1,064 LV ~ 7/30-8/1
https://thetrafalgargroup.org/wp-content/upl

Although Lake is leading, with 79.6% of the votes cast as of this writing, she has 46.2% of the vote versus 44.5% for Karrin Taylor Robson. Much closer than the Trafalgar poll projected. Of course, with slightly over 20% of the vote still outstanding, Lake could pad her lead. Last night, Robson was in the lead because votes that were reported upon first tended to favor her. Voters that cast their ballots before election day had their votes counted first, and they were more inclined to be Robson supporters.

On the Democrat side, Katie Hobbs is coasting to an easy victory with 72.8% of the votes cast in the Democrat primary.

Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/2022%20pri ... n-results

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How 2020 Election Denialist Candidates are Faring in Arizona Primary Races
by Jeremy Duda and Jessica Boehm
August 3, 2022

Introduction:

(Axios) What else is happening: Mark Finchem won the secretary of state race. Abraham Hamadeh is up in the six-way Republican primary for attorney general.

• Finchem will face either Adrian Fontes or Reginald Bolding.
• Kris Mayes ran unopposed in the Democratic primary for attorney general.

The intrigue: All four of the Trump-backed statewide Republicans campaigned on the falsehood that the 2020 election was rigged. Both Lake and Finchem claimed without evidence in recent weeks that there had been fraud in the primary.

• The governor, secretary of state and attorney general must certify the results of all statewide elections.
• Finchem is a leading proponent of the falsehood that the 2020 election was rigged. He organized a November hearing where Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies aired conspiracy theories about the election and was part of the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Read more here: https://www.axios.com/local/phoenix/20 ... ary-races

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CNN Projection: John Gibbs Will Win GOP Nomination for Michigan’s 3rd District, Defeating Representative Peter Meijer
August 2, 2022

Introduction:

(CNN) Rep. Peter Meijer became the second of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump to be ousted in a primary Tuesday, losing to Trump-endorsed conservative challenger John Gibbs in the GOP primary for his seat in Michigan's 3rd Congressional District, CNN projects.

Meijer, a freshman, voted to impeach the then-President just days after taking office, after the insurrection at the US Capitol of Jan. 6, 2021. Gibbs, meanwhile, backed Trump’s lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

Meijer’s loss means the Grand Rapids-based 3rd District seat will be one of the most competitive House contests in November’s midterm elections.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, eyeing the seat as a possible pick-up opportunity, spent more than $300,000 on television ads seeking to bolster Gibbs with pro-Trump GOP primary voters by portraying him as a Trump-aligned conservative.

Meijer, at his election night event at a bar in Grand Rapids, said he’d heard from House Democratic colleagues who were angry about the “hypocrisy that that represented.”

Read more here: https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news ... ndex.html

Edit:
American Israel Public Affairs Committee is Cleaning Up in Democratic Primaries
by Tim Murphy
August 2, 2022

Introduction:

(Mother Jones ) Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens defeated fellow Democratic Rep. Andy Levin on Tuesday, in a matchup between two incumbents competing in the same district after Michigan lost a seat in redistricting. Levin, the son of former Rep. Sander Levin and nephew of the late Sen. Carl Levin, is a progressive who boasted the support of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, while Stevens has a more moderate platform. But the most notable thing about this race wasn’t what either of them said or did—it was the incredible amount of money that poured in from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the biggest American lobbying group for, in its words, “a strong, enduring and mutually beneficial relationship with our ally Israel.”

The group pumped $4.3 million into the race in support of Stevens, using a super-PAC called the United Democracy Project, with ads that left no indication of the group’s actual purpose. What’s the backstory there? NBC News offers some helpful context: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022- ... rcna40662

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... rimaries/

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Washington State Results

August 2, 2022

Washington's top-two primary system puts all candidates on one ballot and advances the top two vote-getters to the general election, regardless of party.

Senate incumbent Democrat Patty Murray leads with 54% of the of the vote with Republican Tiffany Smiley garnering only 32%.

Patty Murray (i)
D 557,978 votes 54.0%
Tiffany Smiley
R 330,176 votes 32.0%

For Secretary of State, with 46.9% of the vote counted, Democrat Steve Hobbs leads with 415,619 votes to second place Independent Julie Anderson with 129, 616 votes

Source and results of select House of Representative races in Washington: https://www.npr.org/sections/2022%20pr ... n-results

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Kansas Had a Choice: Vote to Help Women or Hurt Them. It Chose Well.
by Hayes Brown, MSNBC Opinion Columnist
August 2, 2022

Introduction:

(MSNBC) Kansans went to the ballot box on Tuesday with an especially weighty task before them: whether to amend the state’s constitution to explicitly allow for a ban on abortion. Proponents and opponents of the amendment had spent the last few weeks in a pitched battle to either upend or maintain the status quo in one of the few states in the region where abortion remains legal.

We’ve spent considerable time over the last few years discussing the threat to democracy that minority rule creates. We’ve seen it in gerrymanders that create one-party state legislatures, the Senate’s filibuster rule and in a small band of conspirators trying to keep a losing candidate in the White House. All represent hostility to the majority.

The push to end abortion in Kansas, though, is the flip side of that coin, in that Tuesday’s referendum sought to use majority rule to create an oppressive law. It was from the start a campaign to strip rights from others, an example of democracy at its worst. And on Tuesday, that campaign failed. Others like it will follow, but for now at least one state has opted to use the power of the majority to look out for everyone's rights.

The first section of the Kansas Bill of Rights, included in its state constitution from 1859, was cribbed almost verbatim from the Declaration of Independence. It holds that “all men are possessed of equal and inalienable natural rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” In 2019, the state Supreme Court cited those words in finding that the state constitution “affords protection of the right of personal autonomy, which includes the ability to control one's own body, to assert bodily integrity, and to exercise self-determination. This right allows a woman to make her own decisions regarding her body, health, family formation, and family life—decisions that can include whether to continue a pregnancy.”

It's that ruling that the amendment put before Kansas voters sought to overturn. The so-called “Value Them Both” amendment sought to add a new section 22 to the state bill of rights, declaring that as “Kansans value both women and children, the constitution of the state of Kansas does not require government funding of abortion and does not create or secure a right to abortion.” It also grants “the people, through their elected state representatives and state senators” the power to “pass laws regarding abortion.”

Read more here: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opi ... 297665

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Eric Defeats Eric in a Battle of GOP Election Deniers
by Tim Murphy
August 2, 2022

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt easily won the Republican primary for US Senate in Missouri, one day after former President Donald Trump jointly (and very strangely) endorsed both Schmitt and a top rival, former Gov. Eric Greitens.

The defeat of Greitens—who resigned in 2018 after allegations that he sexually assaulted and blackmailed a hairdresser (he has denied any wrongdoing)—will calm the nerves of Republicans who feared that he would jeopardize a seat the party is likely to hold in November. It will also come as a relief, more broadly, to people of various persuasions who don’t think someone who has also been accused by his ex-wife of abuse (Greitens has also denied those allegations) should hold high office. So that’s over with now.

But as I wrote on Tuesday, Schmitt may lack Greitens’ personal baggage, but he’s a fairly radical nominee in other contexts:

• When Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has been under indictment for securities fraud for seven years, filed a lawsuit in December 2020 attempting to coax the Supreme Court to throw out the electoral slates from three Biden-won states—a lawsuit so sloppily argued that it has since triggered a lawsuit against Paxton by the State Bar of Texas—Schmitt filed an amicus brief in support of his effort. His office then led the effort to get more Republican AGs to sign on; ultimately 16 of them did. Paxton’s false claim that those states carried by Biden had conducted illegitimate elections—and that therefore those results should be overturned—was the intellectual basis, such as it was, for January 6.
  Schmitt was the vice-chair of the Republican Attorneys General Association when the group’s 501(c)(4) arm, the Rule of Law Defense Fund, sent out robocalls urging Trump supporters to show up to the National Mall on January 6, 2021, although he has denied any involvement in that expenditure.

After the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in March, Schmitt boasted of making Missouri the first state to “effectively end abortion.” He has since sued St. Louis in an effort to block the city from using federal funds to help women access reproductive care in other states.

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... te-trump/

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The Economist/YouGov weekly tracker, July 30-Aug. 2, 1500 adults including 1325 RV

Adults:

Approve 38 (nc)
Disapprove 54 (nc)

Strongly approve 13 (-1)
Strongly disapprove 40 (nc)

RV:

Approve 40 (nc)
Disapprove 55 (+1)

Strongly approve 14 (-2)
Strongly disapprove 41 (nc)

GCB (RV only): D 44 (nc), R 39 (+1)

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Eric Schmitt and Trudy Busch Valentine win Missouri's Senate primary contests
Source: St Louis Post Dispatch

On the Democratic side, Zachary Stickann, 43, of Jefferson City, cast his vote for Lucas Kunce, about a mile away from where Kunce grew up in a “forgotten” house that has featured in his campaign. His wife, Laura Stickann, 43, voted for Spencer Toder.

“I’m not going to vote for an heiress if that’s one of their main claims to fame,” he said, referring to Valentine.

“She also didn’t do hardly any campaigning,” said Laura Stickann, also 43.

“I think he’s a breath of fresh air,” Stickann said of Toder. “It would be wonderful if he would win the primary; I don’t know if he will. I don’t know that enough people know about him.”

Read more: https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/gov ... -top-story

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Blake Masters wins Arizona's Republican Senate primary and faces Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly
Source: The Arizona Republic

Blake Masters, a protégé of billionaire Peter Thiel and former President Donald Trump’s pick for Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat, defeated his challengers and gives the state its first Trump-style Senate candidate on the November ballot.

Unofficial results were in line with recent public polling that showed the Tucson resident took command of a previously tight race after receiving Trump’s backing in June.

In Masters, Arizona Republicans picked a conservative more rhetorically combative than former Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., who lost consecutive races in 2018 and 2020 to give the state its first pair of Democratic senators since 1953.

Jim Lamon, the founder of Depcom Power, an Arizona-based solar company, finished in second place. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich narrowly edged out Michael “Mick” McGuire, the retired adjutant general of the Arizona National Guard. Arizona Corporation Commission member Justin Olson finished last.

Read more: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/po ... 108169002/

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Tudor Dixon wins Republican gubernatorial primary, will face Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
Source: Michigan Public Radio

Republican candidate Tudor Dixon will be facing incumbent Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer in November's gubernatorial election. With 19.4% of precincts counted, the Associated Press projected her as the winner of the race at 9:43 p.m. Tuesday.

Dixon bested a field of candidates that included Kevin Rinke, Ralph Rebandt, Ryan Kelley, and Garrett Soldano. Former President Donald Trump endorsed Dixon earlier this week.

The win sets up a tough general election race against Whitmer, who has millions in her campaign fund. Dixon defeated four male candidates in a race between little-known Republicans.

Dixon is the first woman to win the Republican nomination for governor, according to Gongwer.

Read more: https://www.michiganradio.org/politics- ... en-whitmer

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Kari Lake wins Arizona's Republican primary for governor, will face Katie Hobbs in November
Source: Arizona Republic

7:10 p.m.: Kari Lake wins primary

Kari Lake has won the Republican primary for Arizona governor, the Associated Press declared Thursday evening.


Read more: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/po ... 231884002/

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Ron Johnson Targets Medicare and Social Security
by Meaghan Ellis
August 3, 2022

Introduction:

( Alternet) Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) has suggested that he believes federal programs like Medicare and Social Security should be included in annual budget discussions; an initiative that could ultimately threaten to impact the lives of millions of benefit recipients.

On Tuesday, August 2, the Republican lawmaker made his remarks during an appearance on "The Regular Joe Show." During the discussion, show host Joe Giganti asked Johnson about the PACT Act — which was passed to provide aid for veterans who suffered from exposure to toxic burn pits — as well as the debates surrounding discretionary and mandatory spending.

The Wisconsin lawmaker, who is currently campaigning for a third Senate term, admitted that he seeks to shift the full federal budget toward discretionary spending. The proposed change would include Social Security and Medicare, programs he believes need to be re-evaluated and restructured.

"Defense spending has always been discretionary," Johnson said. "VA spending is discretionary. What's mandatory are things like Social Security and Medicare. If you qualify for the entitlement you just get it no matter what the cost. And our problem in this country is that more than 70 percent of our federal budget, of our federal spending, is all mandatory spending. It's on automatic pilot. It never ... you just don't do proper oversight. You don't get in there and fix the programs going bankrupt. It's just on automatic pilot.

"What we ought to be doing is we ought to turn everything into discretionary spending so that it's all evaluated so that we can fix problems or fix programs that are broken that are going to be going bankrupt," he said.

Read more here: https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/ron-j ... cussions/

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Dick Cheney Blasts 'Coward' Donald Trump in Campaign Ad for Daughter Liz
by Brandon Gage
August 4, 2022

Introduction:

(Alternet) Former Vice President Dick Cheney appeared in a new campaign ad for his daughter – Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) – who is facing a tough reelection fight ahead of her state's August 16th Republican primary.

Cheney serves as the co-chair of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, which has placed her at odds with the GOP.

The 60-second spot, which was released on Thursday, features the elder Cheney tearing into ex-President Donald Trump for his efforts to steal the 2020 election, as well as his pathological dishonesty.

"In our nation's 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward. A real man wouldn't lie to his supporters. He lost his election and he lost big. I know it, he knows it, and deep down, I think most Republicans know it," Cheney said.

Cheney also praised the Congresswoman's willingness to put the country ahead of her party and her political career.

Read more here: https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/dick- ... ld-trump/

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In Tennessee, Jason Martin has apparently won the Democratic nomination for governor by a razor thin margin over opponent JB Smiley. Incumbent Republican Bill Lee won the nomination for governor on the Republican side and "is expected to cruise to reelection."

Sources:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/2 ... on-results

https://www.politico.com/2022-election/ ... tennessee/

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Anti-abortion Extremism is Scaring Voters – It Should
by Mitchell Zimmerman
August 3, 2022

Introduction:

(Otherwords) Our country may be divided on the issue of abortion. But when it comes down to it, most Americans believe that it’s a pregnant person’s right to decide for themselves whether to continue a pregnancy.

That’s not only a blue-state attitude — it’s just as true in conservative states like Kansas.

By a margin of nearly 20 percentage points in an election with record turnout, Kansas voters just overwhelmingly rejected Republican efforts to cancel the state’s constitutional right to personal bodily autonomy, even after the U.S. Supreme Court deleted that right at the federal level.

Abortion rights loom front and center as a major political issue this fall. But anti-abortion forces are trying to deflect responsibility for the reversal of Roe v. Wade by claiming that Democrats are using “scare tactics” about abortion bans.
…
Yes, voters are scared — and they should be. Voters are scared about the horrific, real-world human consequences we’ve seen with our own eyes since states started banning abortion.

Read more here: https://otherwords.org/anti-abortion-e ... t-should/

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2022 Midterm Primaries: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Vermont and Connecticut
by Caroline Linton, Aaron Navarro, and Fin Gomez
August 9, 2022

Introduction:

(CBS) Four states go to the polls Tuesday night in matchups that include a race to take on a swing-state governor, a member of the progressive "Squad" with several primary challengers and an opportunity to elect a woman for the first time in Vermont's at-large congressional district.

Tuesday's primaries take place a day after the FBI searched former President Donald Trump's primary residence in Florida, at Mar-a-Lago, as part of a probe into documents that may not have been preserved as required by the Presidential Records Act.

Since the search, Trump has launched fundraising efforts off "Biden's FBI RAIDS." Republicans blasted the search, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy vowed to retaliate if the GOP takes back the House in November.

Wisconsin, the site of the Republican National Convention in 2024, is one of the four states holding primaries on Tuesday. The state was one of the battleground states that Trump won in 2016 but swung to President Joe Biden in 2020. Trump has repeatedly called for state legislators to "decertify" Wisconsin's 2020 election results, which is not legally possible.

Trump has backed Tim Michels in the gubernatorial primary and rallied for him on Friday in Waukesha. At that rally, Michels vowed to dissolve the state's elections commission, a move that his main primary challenger, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, also supports. Former Vice President Mike Pence and former Republican Gov. Scott Walker have backed Kleefisch.

Read more here: https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/2 ... 22-08-08/