According to research by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), more than 10.8 million mail-in ballots “disappeared” in California’s midterm elections last year. California election officials mailed more than 22.1 million ballots to registered voters, but 10.8 million “disappeared.”
Read MoreTag: 2022 election
Day One of Kari Lake Election Contest Trial Sees Testimony from Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer and Election Integrity Expert Heather Honey
The first of two days of oral arguments from Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake’s challenge of the 2022 general election outcome began Wednesday morning, overseen by Judge Peter Thompson in the Maricopa County Superior Court. Testimonies were heard from several officials and experts.
Read MoreRepublicans Made Midterm Gains with Young Voters
Republicans made gains in the midterm elections among voters under 30, a demographic that tends to lean heavily Democratic, according to the Associated Press.
Young voters swung 53 percent for Democratic House candidates and 41 percent for Republican candidates, according to the AP. The result marks a decline from recent elections: voters under 30 chose President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump 61 percent to 36 percent in 2020, swung for Democrats 64 to 34 percent in 2018 House races.
Read MoreKari Lake Lawsuit Exposes Election Process Complexities in Maricopa County, Reliance on Third-Party Vendor
A lawsuit filed Friday by Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake contesting the results in the November 8, 2022, election in Maricopa County exposes, among other things, the complexities of the process for mail-in and drop-box ballots and the county’s reliance on a third-party vendor for essential election functions.
The 70-page complaint filed by Lake named Democratic gubernatorial opponent Katie Hobbs who is the Secretary of State of Arizona who certified the election in her favor on December 5, as well as Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer as an officer in charge of elections, Maricopa County Director of Elections for Election Day and Emergency Voting Scott Jarrett and the five members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
Read MoreCommentary: The House GOP Majority Will Be at Least 221 Seats When All of the Counting is Done
There are just a few more results coming in from the 2022 Congressional midterms, and with just one more race to call — Republican John Duarte is narrowly leading Democrat Adam Gray by just 593 votes in California’s 13th Congressional District — House Republicans will take the gavel in the U.S. House of Representatives in January with either a 222 to 213 seat majority (nine seats) or a 221 to 214 seat majority (seven seats).
Read MoreCommentary: The Real Trump Card in 2024
After a disappointing outcome for the U.S. Congressional midterm elections – Democrats will retain the U.S. Senate without any net loss of seats, and Republicans poised to retake the U.S. House by a slim majority – political attention is already shifting to the race for 2024 and the White House against President Joe Biden, and to whether former President Donald Trump might run again for the nation’s highest office.
Midterms usually favor the opposition party, with a 90 percent likelihood of picking up seats in the U.S. House from 1906 to 2018, which did happen. The question now is how many seats and if it was definitively enough to win the race. As of this writing, Republicans have 212 seats to Democrats’ 205 seats in races that have been called, and Republicans have leads in nine races not yet called, just barely enough to get a majority.
Read MoreMcCarthy May Not Have the Votes to Become Speaker
In the aftermath of the disappointing 2022 midterm election results, conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives have signaled that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) may not have the support he needs to become the next Speaker of the House.
As reported by The Hill, some Republicans have asked that the party’s closed-door leadership election be delayed while the results of the outstanding races come in.
Read MoreCommentary: America’s Fourth-World Election System Is a Global Embarrassment
The whole world is laughing.
“US election results: When will we know who won?” the BBC wondered.
Read MoreJason Lewis Commentary: ‘Candidate Quality’ Doesn’t Explain the Failed Red Wave
Well, that didn’t take long.
Long before the votes were tallied on Tuesday night, the establishment went to work on the disappearing red wave. Mitch McConnell’s self-serving warning that “candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome” had long been forgotten in a wave of pollyannish polling. Once the Republican sweep failed to materialize, it was resurrected in a New York minute.
Read MoreCommentary: The Partisan Rigging of the 2022 Election
In a society that retains trust in its institutions, the most authoritative source for news and information would probably be the publicly funded media property that is supposed to adhere to the highest standards of journalistic objectivity. Here in America, that would have been PBS. Except it isn’t. The American media, by and large, along with Silicon Valley’s social media communications oligopolies, are doing everything they can to deny American voters the opportunity to politically realign their nation.
Read MoreCommentary: The Top 10 U.S. Senate Races to Watch
Americans will soon get to cast their first votes since the science–denying COVID mask and vaccine mandates, the second wave of COVID-related blowout spending and subsequent inflation, and the COVID-related school closures that allowed parents to see what the public schools are really teaching their boys and girls – including that they can choose whether they are boys or girls. With all of these matters implicitly on the ballot, how are things shaping up going into Election Day?
Starting with the House of Representatives, six months ago Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report projected “a GOP gain in the 15-25 seat range.” At the time, I responded, “While things could change over the next six months (although the cake is probably largely baked), a GOP gain of 30 to 40 House seats appears more likely at this stage of the contest than Walter’s projected GOP gain of 15 to 25 seats.”
Read MoreElon Musk Urges ‘Independent-Minded Voters’ to Vote Republican
Billionaire business magnate Elon Musk on Monday urged “independent-minded” Twitter followers to vote for Republicans in the midterm elections Tuesday, arguing that shared power between the two parties is better for the country.
“To independent-minded voters: Shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties, therefore I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democratic,” Twitter’s new CEO wrote.
Read MorePolls Find Key Races Too Close to Call
Election day comes Tuesday, putting a range of major issues up for grabs as both parties battle for control of the House, Senate and gubernatorial races around the country.
The latest polling shows a tight but favorable electoral landscape for Republicans. FiveThirtyEight’s analysis and compilation of generic polls found voters overall prefer that Republicans control Congress by 1.2 percent.
Read MoreDocuments Show AG Ellison Spoke at Conference Partially Funded by Companies He’s Investigating
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison claims to be the “People’s Lawyer.” But documents say he spoke at a lavish Hawaii retreat in June 2021 partially funded by companies he’s investigating, including Meta and Google.
A 2021 retreat agenda of the Attorney General Alliance says Ellison participated in a lunch conversation at the Grand Wailea hotel with New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas about managing high-profile criminal matters.
Read MoreCommentary: Even Corporate Media Is Calling Out Biden’s Absurd Economic Fairytales
With only days left until the midterm elections, the advertising blitz from the political spin doctors has reached a fever pitch and the sound bites we’re hearing aren’t very sound, especially the ones from the White House on the economy. But heated rhetoric is hardly a replacement for facts and figures so, to borrow a phrase from the show Dragnet, let’s discuss “just the facts, ma’am.”
Read MoreBiden Voter Registration Effort Targets Vulnerable Americans Likely to Vote Democrat, Memos Show
Congressional investigators have obtained evidence that the Biden administration has launched a sprawling effort to use federally funded job training and food stamp programs to register new voters in Democrat-skewing demographic groups such as young adults and Native Americans, fueling concerns the federal government is placing a partisan thumb on the scales in the midterm elections.
Part of the plan, spurred by a 2021 executive order by President Joe Biden, is captured in an eight-page memo that the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration sent out in March to state and local officials responsible for providing training to workers in need of jobs.
Read MorePoll: Republican Lee Zeldin Gains Lead In New York Governor’s Race
Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, who is running for governor against Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul, has taken the lead in the race for the first time, per a new poll.
Zeldin currently has the support of 48.4% of respondents, compared to Hochul’s 47.6%, a lead of 0.8 points, according to the poll by The Trafalgar Group released Monday. Per RealClearPolitics, this is the first major poll that has shown a lead for Zeldin, a Long Islander representing New York’s 1st Congressional District.
Read MoreCongressional Republicans Deploy Election Observers to Watch Tight Races, Investigate Irregularities
Determined to use their oversight authority to ensure election integrity, House Republicans are deploying dozens of trained observers to key races around the country while dispatching letters putting federal and state officials on notice to look for any shenanigans in the midterms.
The effort led by Rep. Rodney Davis, the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, includes investigating how federal agencies are implementing President Joe Biden’s executive order instructing the U.S. government to expand voter registration, along with the training and deployment of House staff as observers under the authority of Congress.
Read MoreCommentary: As Ex-Democrat Tulsi Gabbard Stumps for Republicans, Many Ask If She Has Coattails
On polls taken up to Oct. 17, Arizona Republican nominee for Governor Kari Lake was leading her opponent Katie Hobbs by 3 and 4 points respectively in Daily Wire/Trafalgar and Data for Progress polls. And then she got the endorsement of former Democratic U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, fresh off leaving the Democratic Party, on Oct. 18 in a Twitter post.
“For too long, establishment leaders from both parties have sought to enrich themselves, play games, and build up their power while ignoring and even enabling the suffering of millions of hard-working Americans,” Gabbard said in a press release, adding, “Kari Lake is a leader who puts people first, fighting for border security, energy independence, public safety, and other policies that actually make life better and more affordable for the American people.”
Read MoreDemocrats Dish Out Millions to Defend House District Strongholds
House Democrats are spending millions more on ads and sending top surrogates to areas of the country where they have traditionally won elections, as Republicans expect to benefit from a “red wave” in November’s midterms, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
House Majority PAC, a Super PAC allied with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, purchased ads in three districts surrounding New York City – New York’s 3rd and 18th Congressional Districts and New Jersey’s 5th Congressional District – which have Cook Partisan Voting Index scores of D+3, D+1 and D+5, respectively. In total, spending on these districts was $6.3 million, per the Washington Post’s examination of Federal Election Commission filings.
Read MoreCommentary: The Tentacles of the Social Media Octopus
by Victor Davis Hanson A shared theme in all dystopian explorations of future and current totalitarian regimes – whether China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, or Cuba – is government control of all media information, fueled by electronic surveillance. A skeptical public learns to say one thing publicly but quite…
Read MoreCommentary: Voter Rolls Are Essential to Victory in the Election Integrity Fight
Voter rolls are the most important election integrity documents. They tell election officials who is eligible to vote. The voter rolls also tell election officials where to send mail ballots, so it is even more important that they are accurate in states that automatically send registered voters mail ballots.
It is essential that states have accurate and up to date voter rolls. This includes removing individuals who moved, have died, and duplicate registrants. Many states across the country are failing to do this essential voter list maintenance that is required by federal law.
Read MoreCommentary: Democrats Are Afraid to Debate GOP Opponents
Americans have long since come to expect debates between candidates for major public office. For many voters, these encounters provide the only opportunity to see how competing candidates comport themselves in a venue that is nominally beyond their control. In close contests, these debates can sometimes be crucial to the final outcome. Yet, as the November midterms rapidly approach, many Democrats have been extremely reluctant to meet their Republican opponents face-to-face on a debate stage. Indeed, in several high-profile contests, they have flatly refused to do so.
Read MoreTelemundo Poll Shows Drastic 50 Percent Drop in Hispanic Support for Dems Since 2012
A new NBC/Telemundo poll shows that Latino support for the Democratic Party has dropped by 50 percent in the last 10 years.
Mark Murray from NBC News tweeted out the poll’s results which show that in 2012 Latinos preferred a Democrat-led Congress over Republicans by 42 points. By 2022, that difference dropped to 21 points.
Read MoreMinnesota Secretary of State Simon Calls Voter ID Laws ‘Draconian’ in First Debate
The top candidates for Minnesota secretary of state squared off in their first debate Sunday night on WCCO Radio and the gloves came off almost immediately.
“My mission as secretary of state has been to protect the freedom to vote for every eligible Minnesotan. I’ve been proud to do that work with fairness, impartiality, and integrity, leading to results that we can all be really proud of,” said Secretary Steve Simon, a Democrat seeking a third term as Minnesota’s chief elections official.
Read MoreCommentary: Democrats’ 8-Point Lead in Generic Congressional Ballot Evaporated
Don’t look now, but Democrats’ 8-point lead in the generic Congressional ballot question from a month ago has evaporated in the latest Economist-YouGov poll of registered voters, which now shows the race for Congress tied, 44 percent to 44 percent on Sept. 24-27.
On Aug. 28-30, Democrats were leading Economist-YouGov’s generic ballot 46 percent to 38 percent. Leading the change in the state of the race is largely an apparent collapse of support for Democrats among younger adults, and a strengthening of support for Republicans among older adults.
Read MoreBill Clinton Warns Democrats Not to Let ‘Defund the Police and Socialism’ Hurt Them This Election
Former President Bill Clinton warned the Democratic Party that it shouldn’t let “defund the police and socialism” damage their chances of winning the Nov. 8 election.
Clinton was asked how the U.S. should handle existing threats to its democracy.
Read MoreCommentary: Democrats’ November Nightmare Could Finally Be Coming True
Despite what you may have read or heard, the Republicans running in this cycle have an advantage that may, at this point, be dispositive.
A recent batch of polling has made it clear that the issues voters consider most important are the same issues on which they most trust Republicans.
Read MoreCommentary: (Not) Sorry Democrats, Abortion Won’t Save You
The desperate attempts by the White House, congressional Democrats, and the corporate media to refocus voter attention on abortion rather than inflation are failing. Most reputable polls show that the electorate is far more concerned about mismanagement of the economy by President Biden and his collaborators in Congress than about threats to reproductive rights posed by “MAGA Republicans.” Contrary to Democratic hopes, November won’t be about abortion vs. inflation. The midterms will be a referendum on Biden’s performance, particularly as it affects inflation.
Read MoreMinnesota’s GOP Primary Races to Watch on Tuesday
Minnesotans will head to the polls Tuesday to pick their preferred candidates for the general election. Every seat (201) in the Minnesota Legislature is up for grabs this November because of redistricting.
The Minnesota GOP maintains control of the Minnesota Senate and could take back the House from Democrats.
Read MoreCommentary: The Establishment’s Effort to ‘Destroy Trump’ Belies a Terrible Truth
For some time now, Michael Anton has been saying that the Establishment – Democrats tout court, of course, but also large swaths of the testosterone-challenged GOP – are dead set against allowing Donald Trump to run for president again. It’s been obvious from its beginnings that the January 6 committee – an illegally constituted kangaroo court – was interested in one thing and one thing only: eliminating Trump and his followers from the metabolism of American political life. The fact that its public face is Liz Cheney, a soon-to-be cashiered anti-Trump RINO, underscores Anton’s point, or part of it.
It’s not just the Democrats who cannot countenance Trump. It is the entire certified political class, what Anton calls the bureaucratic “uniparty” that runs the government and maintains the Overton Window that determines what is and what is not acceptable in the political life of the country. Donald Trump is not in the picture frame.
Read MoreVictor Davis Hanson Commentary: The Exasperated American
A large majority of Americans now have no confidence in Joe Biden and his administration, which often polls below 40 percent, with negatives nearing 60 percent.
Despite the 15-month catastrophe of his regime, the level of his own unpopularity remains understandable but still remarkable. After all, in 2020 voters already knew well of his cognitive deficits and the radicalism of his agenda. They saw both clearly starting in 2019 and during the 2020 Democratic primaries, the primary debates, and the general election.
So what did Biden’s voters imagine would happen when a cognitively challenged president, controlled by hard-Left subordinates, entered office — other than what he has done?
Read MoreMitch McConnell Moves to Protect Republican Moderates, Unseat Dems in 2022 Through Senate Leadership Fund SuperPAC
A super PAC attached to Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is reserving $141 million worth of advertisements to bolster conservative candidates in the midterms, Politico reported Monday.
“This is such a strong year that we need to invest as broadly and deeply as we can,” Steven Law, president of the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), told Politico. “In the Senate, majority control is everything. It determines what happens on the floor and what doesn’t happen. It will have an impact on future Supreme Court nominations. I mean, there’s so much at stake.”
Read MorePresident Biden’s Sinking Support in Key Voting Bloc a Threat to Dems
Democrats are scrambling to recapture the youth vote as President Joe Biden’s approval rating plummets among the group, Politico reported Sunday.
Biden’s approval rating among people aged 18-30 dropped significantly over the course of 2021, with a CBS News poll released in January recording a 70% drop compared to February 2021. Gallup released a poll the following month that showed only 31% approved of Biden, compared to former President Barack Obama, whose rating from Gallup with the demographic never fell below 42% throughout his entire presidency.
Read MoreLeVell: Trump ‘The Number One Kingmaker in the GOP, Period’
The Star News Network’s National Political Editor, Neil W. McCabe, visited Dunwoody, Georgia, on Wednesday and spoke to former Diversity Advisor Bruce LeVell under President Trump about why the president appealed to black voters.
Read MoreCommentary: States Have the Power to Restore Faith in Our Electoral System
The faith, trust, and confidence in our election process has been in steep decline for decades. Concerns over hanging chads and dimpled ballots from 2000’s presidential election may now have been replaced with questions about photo ID and drop boxes – but the overall result is the same: The American people simply don’t trust the outcome of elections.
In fact, recent polls show only 57% of voters believe Joe Biden was legitimately elected in 2020. Similarly, just 61% of Americans believe Trump legitimately won in 2016.
Read MoreNew Poll Shows South Dakota Sen. Thune in Deep Trouble with Republican Voters
A new survey of Republican primary voters in South Dakota suggests that Sen. John Thune’s (R-S.D.) reelection chances were severely damaged by his public spat with former President Trump after the 2020 election.
The poll, conducted by pollster Fabrizio, Lee & Associates for the political action committee American Potential Fund, found that Thune, who just announced his reelection campaign on Saturday, would probably lose a primary challenge by Gov. Kristi Noem, or Dusty Johnson, a popular South Dakota U.S. representative. The survey also found that former president Donald Trump remains very popular with GOP primary voters (RPV).
Read MoreNationwide, Americans Brace for a Busy Election 2022 Year
This past week was the last one before the US officially entered a midterm election year. Below are the latest updates.
States
In Alaska, the Lieutenant Governor is not running for reelection. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump has said he will endorse the incumbent Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy, so long as Dunleavy does not back incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski.
In Colorado, Mesa County dropped a lawsuit against their County Recorder over an ongoing dispute about attesting to documents. The County Recorder is still facing other investigations.
In Georgia, a review of elections found that only four deceased people voted in the 2020 election.
Read MoreAllen West to Challenge Abbott in Texas Governor’s GOP Primary Next Year
Allen West, a retired Army officer, former congressman and Texas GOP chairman, used Independence Day to launch a Republican primary challenge to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
West released a YouTube video and made an appearance at Sojourn Church in Carrollton, Texas, to announce his 2022 bid, saying he was focused on illegal immigration, the Democrat assault on energy resources and human trafficking.
Read MoreTrump’s Post-D.C. Plan Takes Shape with Rollout of America First Funding, Policy, Messaging Arms
Nearly three months after Donald Trump’s departure from the White House, his plans for a politically active post-presidential role are coming into public focus
After a comparatively quiet first five weeks in Palm Beach, Fla., following a final five in Washington plagued by all sorts of chaos, Trump stirred up excitement in late February at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where he addressed an enthusiastic crowd for 90 minutes about moving forward with the America First agenda. That plan is now moving into its operational stages, with the launch of a network of political funding vehicles and public messaging platforms.
Read MoreTrump Vows to Help Elect ‘Strong, Tough, and Smart Republican Leaders’ at CPAC Appearance
Former President Donald Trump returned Sunday to the public arena for the first time since leaving office, promising an enthusiastic audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that he will help Republicans win “a historic struggle for America’s future.”
“As we gather this week we’re in the middle of a historic struggle for America’s future, America’s culture and America’s institutions, borders and most cherished principles,” he said.
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