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ELECTIONS

Fox News Liz Peek: Gen Z stopped Republicans’ expected red wave — here’s how GOP can win over young voters

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/gen-z-stopped-republicans-expected-red-wave-how-gop-win-over-young-voters

One week after the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans want to know: what happened? Why were expectations about the midterms so completely wrong? How could a deeply dishonest and unpopular president score one of the best midterm outcomes in recent history?  

Like a great many Republicans, I am deeply disappointed, having hoped to see Americans deliver a well-deserved rebuke to a party in charge of all three branches of government – a party that set inflation soaring and sowed the seeds of recession.

There is much finger-pointing underway; many blame former President Trump for endorsing flawed candidates, prioritizing personal fealty over GOP victories. Some have dumped on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for failing to support Trump-endorsed candidates. There is lots of chatter on social media about the need to get out ahead of the ballot harvesting and mail-in voting which helps Democrats.

All those complaints are valid, but another reason that the polling was so inaccurate and that so many critical races swung to Democrats is the growing importance of Gen Z voters, which appears to have been completely ignored by the GOP.

An estimated 27% of eligible voters aged 18-29 turned out to vote, compared to roughly 20% of young voters who typically participated in elections in the 1990s.

Not only did Gen Z show up in force, they overwhelmingly picked Democrats, by a 28-point margin. That preference was close to their vote in 2020, which went 62% Democrat and only 32% GOP.

This is important, especially because this group, which now accounts for about 10% of eligible voters, will continue to grow. In 2020, their votes totaled almost three times the number cast just four years earlier, when they reached voting age.

The midterm results are good for Republicans, if not great If Democrats have deluded themselves into thinking they won last week, that’s a huge opportunity for the GOP Erin Norman

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/midterm-results-good-republicans-not-great/

The dust is still settling around the congressional midterms, but it looks like Republicans will retake the House by a very slim margin and Democrats will have an ever-so-slight lead in the Senate.

But with stubbornly moderate Democrats such as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, Republicans can be fairly confident the upper chamber will not try to advance the most extreme parts of President Biden’s agenda, even if they do increase their majority by one seat in the December runoff in Georgia. And of course, because of the flip in the House, those uber-progressive proposals will never make it up to the Senate. The governor’s houses in Maryland and Massachusetts may have flipped blue, but Republicans knew they were lucky to be holding them in the first place.

Even so, at the topline level it is understandable Republicans are disappointed. With a struggling economy and a sitting Democratic president with approval ratings stuck in the forties, conventional wisdom says they should have picked up thirty to forty seats in the House and easily taken the upper chamber. There was also a hope, realistic at the time even if fantastical now, of taking control of some blue-state governor’s mansions like Oregon that didn’t materialize. Yes, the GOP flipped Nevada, but that was canceled out by Katie Hobbs’s victory over Kari Lake in neighboring Arizona.

But if conservatives can look past the disappointment they feel from overblown expectations, they will see there is plenty of good news. They have control in the House of Representatives and hold the majority of gubernatorial seats. In North Carolina and Ohio, Republicans won all of the Supreme Court races on the ballot, winning and preserving Republican majorities, respectively. Democratic Kansas governor Laura Kelly hung on to her job, but Republicans gained a super-majority in the House to match their existing advantage in the Senate. While Republicans lost chambers in Minnesota, Michigan and Pennsylvania, they gained a super-majority in Iowa and West Virginia and took away one held by the Democrats in Oregon. Overall a good result, if falling short of great.

A look at 2018 and 2022’s exit polls also quantify the narratives about Democrats losing ground with minority voters. Compared to the 2018 midterms, Republicans grew support among all minority groups: +4 among Black voters, +10 among Hispanics and an impressive +17 among Asians. If Republicans can continue to improve on these trends, even at the marginal level, it puts a significant number House districts previously out of reach on the table and solidifies their positing in current swing districts. For example, Florida’s 25th and 26th congressional districts flipped in 2020 as Republicans increased their margins among Hispanics and Democrats were unable to regain power during the midterms.

Maricopa County’s Top Election Official Runs ‘Pro-Democracy’ PAC That Opposes ‘Election Deniers’ By Debra Heine

https://amgreatness.com/2022/11/14/maricopa-countys-top-election-official-runs-pro-democracy-pac-that-opposes-election-deniers/

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer started a “pro Democracy” political action committee (PAC) in 2021 to stop GOP candidates who believe the 2020 election was stolen, it has been revealed.

Richer, like Maricopa County Supervisor Chairman Bill Gates, is a Republican, and has been vocal in defending the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

The PAC, Pro Democracy Republicans of Arizona, declares on its website that Republican candidates should “accept and acknowledge” that former president Donald Trump lost the election.

The Arizona election wasn’t stolen. We Republicans simply had a presidential candidate who lost, while we had many other candidates who won. It’s time we Republicans accept and acknowledge that fact.

Candidates come and go. But our democratic institutions are long-lasting, and peaceful transitions of power are a hallmark of the United States. We should not abandon this history in favor of conspiracy theorists and demagoguery.

To that end, we are launching this PAC to support pro-democracy Arizona Republicans.

We hope you will join us. We will win some races. We will lose some races. But either way, we will be strengthening the processes that have long undergirded Arizona and the United States.

In November of 2021, Richer told the Arizona Mirror that the PAC’s “primarily focus” would be “on legislative and county races,” but that assertion does not track with the PAC’s financial activity.

According to Transparency USA, Pro Democracy Republicans of Arizona raised $88,443 in total contributions, and spent $69,761—most of it in the third quarter of 2022.

When Election Day Lasts For A Month

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/11/14/when-election-day-lasts-for-a-month/

On Sunday, five days after “Election Day,” Americans still didn’t know which party will have a majority in the House while two states were waiting to find out who their next governors will be. Even the BBC has been wondering “when will we know who won.” Have the delays been caused by incompetence or malign forces? Surely both, but it’s the latter that has had the biggest impact.

Forty-two years ago, on the evening of Nov. 4, 1980, the day of the election, President Jimmy Carter conceded to his Republican challenger Ronald Reagan at 9:50 pm Eastern Standard Time. Eight years later – on Election Day – Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis called George H.W. Bush, the GOP’s candidate, and congratulated him on his win.

Hard to believe that many of us grew up going to bed on election night knowing not only who won the presidential election, but who came out on top of many other races, as well. But that’s changed. We no longer have an Election Day. We have Election Week, Election Month – and worse.

Blame Al Gore. The vice president for the man who ran a “permanent campaign” during eight years in the White House kicked off the “permanent election” in 2000 by retracting his concession to George W. Bush on the evening of Election Day. He then put the country through more than a month of turmoil, dragging out a challenge that went well beyond his right for a recount in Florida. His effort to count the votes until he had enough to win had to be ended by the U.S. Supreme Court.

We don’t know how many races, if any, the Democrats have stolen or are stealing in this year’s midterm elections. But they have a reputation for fixing elections. Think of 1960 and Mayor Richard Daley’s Chicago machine and John Kennedy’s tight win over Richard Nixon. Historian and Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson biographer Robert Dallek, believed that Daley “probably stole Illinois from Nixon.”

Start with that history, then add to it the fact that Democrats are thoroughly convinced of the righteousness of their policy positions, blend in their taste for exercising raw political power, and the dish that’s produced is poisonous to fair elections.

Florida Counts Its Ballots in Hours, So Why Does Arizona Take Days? By Todd Carney

https://www.realclearflorida.com/articles/2022/11/14/florida_counts_its_ballots_in_hours_so_why_does_arizona_take_days_864565.html

As the saying goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. If that’s true, then it is insane to expect Arizona to produce election results in a timely manner and free of controversy. Three months ago, Arizona’s administration of voting in the state primary election created chaos. Arizona let America down then, but many hoped that the state’s leaders would learn from that mistake and produce better results in November. No such luck: Arizona’s administration of the general election shows that its failed leadership has not learned anything.

Maricopa County, Arizona’s largest county, finds itself at the center of the voting controversy. Its voting administration is divided up between the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, the county recorder, and the secretary of state. The board handles the actual voting and counting of ballots, while the recorder’s office manages the registration and verification of voters. The secretary of state oversees voting in all Arizona counties.

On election day, 60 of Maricopa’s 223 voting locations faced problems with their voting machines. The machines would not accept votes, which may have caused some people to miss their chance to cast a ballot. Many felt that these problems disproportionately harmed Republicans because Republicans vote heavily in person on Election Day, while Democrats predominate in the use of mail-in voting.

In early returns on Election Night, the whole GOP statewide ticket started from a massive deficit, creating the illusion that these races were over. Days later, the vote counting continues, while Florida, a state with roughly three times as many people as Arizona, counted nearly all its ballots on Election Night. No matter who wins in Arizona, the losing side will likely feel cheated.

Everyone with a role in managing voting in Maricopa County contributed to this failure. Arizona’s secretary of state is Democrat Katie Hobbs, who is running for governor. Her office is overseeing the election that will determine whether she becomes the next governor. In 2018, Democrats wanted then Georgia secretary of state Brian Kemp to resign during his run for governor, and he ultimately did so as counting continued after the election. Hobbs refused to resign, yet she showed up to work for only 19 days in the six months leading up to the election. Hobbs should have been more dedicated to the office she held or else resigned it, especially considering the state’s disastrous primary.

Who Lost the Senate? Everyone. The Democrats were united and they had a plan. Republicans were divided and didn’t. by Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/who-lost-the-senate-everyone/

The circular firing squad is in session and a red wave, which had a thousand aspiring proud papas, is instead an orphan.Everyone is blaming everyone else. As they should.

The midterms showed that we learned little from 2020. Few Republicans, outside Florida and Georgia, were ready for the systematic corruption of elections by the tide of Democrat ballots backed by massive voter registration machines and the new pandemic rules.

Republicans were played even worse this time around.

Then there was everything else. Republicans went into this as a divided party torn apart by infighting, internal politics, ego, personal agendas, greed and dysfunction and emerged the same way. Maybe even worse.

Consultants, celebrities and private agendas, as well as post-2020 infighting, kept good candidates from being nominated.

And while there were good candidates who lost, but there were also horrendously bad ones beginning with Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania whom no functional party in touch with its principles or even basic sanity would have ever put its best for on the Senate.

Who’s to blame for that? Everyone.

There is no single scapegoat for this. Everyone who shaped the election gets a share of this disaster. And arguing otherwise is dishonest.

NeverTrump Fraternity Parties On The results of the midterms and Donald Trump’s rhetorical incontinence have emboldened the anti-Trump faction. By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2022/11/12/nevertrump-fraternity-parties-on/

Is Peggy Noonan back in the driver’s seat? The title and argument of her Wall Street Journal column Thursday made me wonder. “Maybe Republicans Will Finally Learn,” she intoned, explaining in a subhead, “If they aren’t serious about policy, they’ll nominate Trump in 2024 and lose a fourth straight election.” 

By “Peggy Noonan,” I do not just mean that particular columnist. I mean the generators of The Narrative tout court. As a paid-up member of the establishment, Noonan has long been a Trump opponent. If you have your finger in the air, you know that that’s the way the wind is blowing. It happened in a nonce. 

Of course, the NeverTrump speakers have been blaring that message since 2016. But someone flipped a switch, and the other bank of stereo speakers suddenly came to life, spouting the same message: The horrible ogre Donald Trump lost the midterm elections for the GOP. Not only that, he said disobliging things about two of his possible GOP rivals, Ron DeSantis and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia. Be done with him!

I happen to be a fan of DeSantis and Youngkin. Both are talented politicians and credible future GOP presidential candidates. But having witnessed Donald Trump’s inventory of epithets for his Republican rivals in 2016 (“Little Marco,” “Low Energy Jeb,” “Lyin’ Ted”), I am not really surprised that he is honing that rhetorical sword. Some people think it happened all of a sudden a week or two back. In fact, it has been developing for some time. Do I like it? Not really. But no one who has watched Trump over the last six years should be surprised. We don’t yet know whether he is running in 2024. Probably, we will on Tuesday when he makes his advertised big reveal. My bet? He will run. 

The establishment thinks so, too, which is why you cannot turn on the news or open a newspaper without encountering warnings that there is serious “GOP pushback” to the idea. 

The “Dump Trump” meme, active since he won the 2016 election, has acquired new energy following the midterms. We were promised a red wave. It didn’t materialize. It must be Trump’s fault. 

Was it? Ninety-three percent of the hundreds of candidates Trump endorsed won their primary contest in the 2022 election. Eighty percent won in the general. That is a far higher percentage of wins for Trump-endorsed candidates than ever before. In 2018, for example, only 59 percent of the candidates he endorsed won in the general. 

GOP must insist on a return to pre-2020 election system in competitive states or die By Jared Peterson

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/11/gop_must_insist_on_a_return_to_pre2020_election_system_in_competitive_states_or_die.html

It’s entirely possible that the Republicans will not win the House. If they do, it will be by a razor thin margin under circumstances that should have produced a blowout.

The main reason for this second in a row reversal of all historic electoral precedent is plain to anyone who wants to look and be honest:

Florida has an electoral law that most closely recreates the US election DAY mechanics of all time prior to 2020: No mass mailing of unrequested absentee ballots to all registered voters – only those registered voters requesting an absent ballot no later than 10 days before the election get one; and their ballot is counted only if received by a specific date.  In Florida there was strict enforcement of date deadlines, and larger percentages of voters than elsewhere voted at the polls.

Ergo: in Florida there was fast counting and quick results; and much less time for shenanigans.

And a Republican blowout.

In Florida there was no collecting/harvesting of ballots. And – even more important – no voting by that substantial segment of the Democrat party base that’s too disorganized and generally out of it to either remember to go to the polls or to request an absentee ballot.

The mass mailing of millions of absentee ballots, coupled with lengthy return periods and allowed methods of return (e.g., unsupervised drop boxes) has, in a multitude of ways, expanded the Dem vote.

It may save them both the House and Senate this time.

Saving America: Why Blaming President Trump Has Little to Do With the Path to Victory in 2024 By Gwendolyn Sims

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/gwendolynsims/2022/11/13/saving-america-why-blaming-president-trump-has-little-to-do-with-the-path-to-victory-in-2024-n1645360

Like many voters on Tuesday evening, I watched with a fluctuating mixture of guarded optimism, anticipated resignation, and angry ambivalence as the voting data rolled crawled in. Nearly five days later, we still don’t know the final outcomes of key races. After the disaster that was the 2020 election, how on earth did we end up here in 2022?

Some political pundits were quick to enthusiastically point at President Trump and his meddling in races as the reason for such lackluster GOP results on Nov. 8. While it’s hard to know for certain, Trump’s insertion of himself into races that were fairly in hand did tend to complicate matters by shifting the focus from the race to Trump himself. Truthfully, a lot of us Republican voters are tired of always having to spend our time and money defending Trump instead of showcasing the candidates and GOP policies. Let’s just say that Trump’s tact doesn’t seem to help our candidates in the long run.

And of course, Trump’s already still up to his old tricks, attacking fellow Republicans like Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis. Trump’s also teasing a yuge announcement at Mar-a-Lago on Nov. 15 despite the GOP’s current need to focus on the runoff race in Georgia. Will the former president delay his announcement and stop sucking the air out of every race? That remains to be unclear at this time.

How Election Integrity Has Been Destroyed In Arizona (And Elsewhere) Patrick Wood

https://www.technocracy.news/how-election-integrity-has-been-destroyed-in-arizona-and-elsewhere/

Because I live in Arizona, I have wondered and scratched my head as to why a fundamentally “red” state ends up with “blue” politicians. Such was the case during the 2020 election when Donald Trump was overwhelmingly popular and yet lost the state. Such is the case right now with the Governor’s race between Kari Lake and Katie Hobbs. Now I know the answer.

Republicans seek voters, Democrats seek ballots.

This is so simple and obvious that it has escaped everyone’s attention, including mine. According to the article below, “when ballots are more important than votes – the election will always favor the former.”

Republican candidate Kari Lake has stumped throughout Arizona and won the hearts of our citizens. Her Democrat opponent, Katie Hobbs, has hidden herself from public exposure, refusing to even be seen with Lake on a stage or anywhere else. As a candidate, in fact, Hobbs could rightly be described as reclusive.

Here is the heart of matter: Lake is seeking voters while Hobbs is seeking ballots. The same could be said for the Senate race between Republican Blake Masters and Democrat Mark Kelly. Further, this is true across all major races in Arizona. Republicans seek voters while Democrats seek ballots.

What happened in Arizona? On election day, ballots were collected as many people voted in person. Mailed in and dropped off ballots were also collected. Next, the whole collection of ballots were brought to a central location (in each county). In Maricopa County, Sheriff’s deputies barricaded the counting facility and posted armed sentinels on the roof. The counting process was going to take a long time, they said. Days later, they are still not finished.