**Official 2022 Mid-Term Elections Thread"

[Nickdfresh]

My take on the mid-terms... contrary to Democratic party proclamations, democracy didn't die in the election.

Who said that and when?

Actually proved it's quite alive and well within the republic. It was a stupid claim that democracy was ever in threat... dumbasses.

It very much is under threat. You have armed shitheads performing active voter intimidation, election deniers (always losing in courts) and there were attempts to infiltrate biased partisans into the voter counting. Already on top of transparent and obviously biased voter ID laws and gerrymandering cutting out huge swaths of rural centers around urban ones. I do think that a sitting president calling a state governor and asking him to "find votes" is a threat...

I hear it often with older white people saying that "we" are becoming the minority and inferring that maybe we don't really need a vote to decide things...

Despite a lot of misplaced optimism... both major parties failed to get the right messaging to move the needle significantly in either direction. What is crystal clear is, the nation remains fairly evenly divided with a lot of complexity within the division that neither party seems to have a handle on.

The contrast between major population centers and the rest of the nation is most interesting. I'm watching Florida though, as one area the made a major shift and it broke it's swing-state status which had been present for decades. The contrast in Florida between large population areas and rural pretty much evaporated. Plus the shift with Hispanics is noteworthy and something I see the Republicans continuing to make gains in...

Okay, and the emergence of the urban educated white vote turning Blue, states that were perma-Red becoming swing ones like GA and AZ.

A lot of the divide is sheer ignorance. The substantive issues like Roe vs. Wade the messaging was pretty clear. But it's hard to trust the GOP to fix anything like the economy or inflation. I never heard a single substantive plan other than, wait for it! LOWER TAXES!!! Durka durr!

[ZahZoo]

Who said that and when?

President Biden a week ago...

It very much is under threat. You have armed shitheads performing active voter intimidation, election deniers (always losing in courts) and there were attempts to infiltrate biased partisans into the voter counting. Already on top of transparent and obviously biased voter ID laws and gerrymandering cutting out huge swaths of rural centers around urban ones. I do think that a sitting president calling a state governor and asking him to "find votes" is a threat...

I hear it often with older white people saying that "we" are becoming the minority and inferring that maybe we don't really need a vote to decide things...

It's not 2020 anymore... try to catch up!

Okay, and the emergence of the urban educated white vote turning Blue, states that were perma-Red becoming swing ones like GA and AZ.

A lot of the divide is sheer ignorance. The substantive issues like Roe vs. Wade the messaging was pretty clear. But it's hard to trust the GOP to fix anything like the economy or inflation. I never heard a single substantive plan other than, wait for it! LOWER TAXES!!! Durka durr!

Abortion appears to be primarily a hot issue among women... but if you pay attention several states enacted legislation supporting abortion rights. So it appears shifting that to the states to legislate is getting the desired effect.

As I stated, the complexity of the issues dividing the nation is presenting a problem for both parties... taxes were not a major issue for most demographics, along with abortions and threats to democracy. Inflation, crime and immigration were the top issues. Neither party offered any compelling vision, solutions or answers to what most Americans are concerned about.

[FORD]

The abortion issue is really about more than abortion, of course. Overturning Roe v Wade was just the latest example of an extremist right wing Supreme Court which has been out of control since December 12, 2000 (if not before) And while abortion could technically be decided on a state by state basis, a runaway federal judicial system certainly cannot be.

[FORD]

[FORD]

[Nitro Express]

My take on the mid-terms... contrary to Democratic party proclamations, democracy didn't die in the election. Actually proved it's quite alive and well within the republic. It was a stupid claim that democracy was ever in threat... dumbasses.

Despite a lot of misplaced optimism... both major parties failed to get the right messaging to move the needle significantly in either direction. What is crystal clear is, the nation remains fairly evenly divided with a lot of complexity within the division that neither party seems to have a handle on.

The contrast between major population centers and the rest of the nation is most interesting. I'm watching Florida though, as one area the made a major shift and it broke it's swing-state status which had been present for decades. The contrast in Florida between large population areas and rural pretty much evaporated. Plus the shift with Hispanics is noteworthy and something I see the Republicans continuing to make gains in...

Both sides had their wins. Florida probably will become the economic powerhouse of the US. It’s very business friendly. California has dropped the ball. Who decides who’s in power is the middle because a partisan Republican and a Partisan Democrat will never vote for the other side and all the political noise you hear comes from the partisan echo chambers. As far as civil war and all that bullshit goes it’s partisan banter. We had the election, it went pretty well. One side will continue to blame the other side but what’s new.

[Nitro Express]

The system still works. Nobody has absolute power. We are not a dictatorship. Life goes on.

[FORD]

Mark Kelly wins re-election in Arizona Senate race, pulling far ahead of Blake Masters
TucsonSentinel.com


U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly has won re-election, with the Democratic incumbent widening his lead over Republican challenger Blake Masters as votes continue to be counted in the Arizona Senate race, the Tucson Sentinel projects.

While there are still more than 500,000 ballots yet to be tabulated across the state, Kelly's vote total is far enough ahead that the GOP candidate will not be able to take the lead, a Sentinel analysis indicates. An update of 79,000 votes from Maricopa County on Thursday evening had a 56-43 split for Kelly, putting the election well out of reach for Masters.

The win means the Democrats are one step closer to retaining control of the Senate, after one of the most expensive campaigns in the country. Nearly $200 million poured into campaign coffers or was spent by outside interest groups on the race.

As new ballot totals were updated Thursday, incumbent Democrat Kelly slowly widened his lead by about 20,000 votes, picking up about 56 percent of the newly counted ballots throughout the day.

Masters has trailed other top Republican candidates in statewide races. Thursday evening, while Democrats were leading in nearly all of the competitive top contests for state office, their Republican opponents were virtually tied.

While a third candidate in the race, Libertarian Marc Victor, dropped out shortly before the election and endorsed Blake Masters, he still garnered about 2 percent of the vote — some 42,000 ballots, mostly in early voting.

But that total means he's far from a spoiler in the race, with Kelly holding a 52-46 percent margin over Masters.

Masters worked to reassure his supporters Thursday evening, before the latest Maricopa numbers were released.

"We are seeing the last few big, pro-Dem drops," he tweeted. "Soon they’ll run out, & then there are hundreds of thousands of pro-R ballots to count. We will overtake them and win."
Kelly 'confident' on election night

Kelly had an 18-point lead as first large batches of early votes were reported Tuesday evening, after the polls closed across Arizona, later falling back by a point or two during the night.

But races were still too close to call at that point, with Republicans banking on ballots cast in-person on Tuesday to make up the difference, and Kelly didn't claim victory Tuesday night.

Speaking around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, after hours of incremental updates in the count, Kelly stopped short of claiming a win.

Thanking supporters at the Rialto Theatre in Downtown Tucson for their hard work, Kelly quoted the late U.S. Sen. John McCain in saying "we have so much more in common than we disagree about."

"Now there is there is no country in the world better at solving big problems in the United States of America. We put people on the moon in the 1960s. And we’re about to do it again, by the way. And then we’ll go on to Mars. We are capable of extraordinary things when we come together and just put our minds to it. Yeah, that’s who we are. We create, we innovate. We build. That’s what we’re capable of when our leaders focus on unity rather than division," Kelly said.

"I’ll tell you what, I’m feeling confident tonight. At the same time, it doesn’t look like we’re gonna have the final results for a little while," Kelly said.

As more ballots were tallied Wednesday, Masters and other GOP candidates indeed chipped away at the Democrats' leads in statewide offices — with some of the other Republicans even taking narrow leads.

But Thursday, after elections officials across the state had completed counting nearly all the in-person votes from Election Day — except for a batch of 17,000 from Maricopa County that officials had problems running through voting machines — they again tackled verifying and tallying the "late early" ballots dropped off Tuesday and the several days preceding.

There were still more than 500,000 ballots to be counted — including 114,000 in Pima County and more than 300,000 in Maricopa County — but officials insisted they are still on schedule to complete the count.

Pima officials said they expect to have 95% of ballots verified and sent to be counted by Monday.

Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly said Thursday that there were about 53,000 ballots yet to be verified, or otherwise "awaiting some portion of the process," and that the county had about 1,000 "problem ballots" were officials were trying to contact voters.

"They have until the 16th at 5 p.m. to return our phone call," she said, telling reporters that the Recorder's Office attempts to contact voters who need to "cure" their ballots by phone, email and a mailed letter.

"This is the standard amount of time that it takes; this is what it always takes," the recorder said. "We're following the law, we're following the Elections Procedures Manual," calling the pace of the ballot review "kind of phenomenal."

Wednesday afternoon, there had been about 160,000 Pima ballots remaining to be counted.

Constance Hargrove, Pima County's election director, said that county officials and representatives of local political parties are prepared to conduct the legally mandated hand-count audit of 2% of the votes on Saturday.
Big money

The race between Kelly and Masters racked up large bills, for the candidates and the outside groups carrying out "independent expenditure" campaigns for or against them.

Kelly raised more than $81 million as of last month, with $75 million spent before Oct. 19, data from the Federal Election Commission showed.

Masters raised just more than $12 million, spending $9.6 million as of last month.

But outside groups spent big on the Republican.

In support of Masters, independent expenditures totaled $10 million, but another $59 million was spent on ads and mailers opposing Kelly.

In support of the Democrat, outside groups spent $15 million, with nearly $15 million more spent in opposition to the Republican candidate.

[ZahZoo]

The abortion issue is really about more than abortion, of course. Overturning Roe v Wade was just the latest example of an extremist right wing Supreme Court which has been out of control since December 12, 2000 (if not before) And while abortion could technically be decided on a state by state basis, a runaway federal judicial system certainly cannot be.

You do have to look at the issues the court created when it handed down Roe v Wade originally. That ruling imposed a burden that overrode states rights in this matter and has much deeper roots into the balance of legislative power the states held and has been returned to them with this being overturned.

Roe v Wade created a federal overreach to begin with. This is what drove the steady stream of litigation over the decades that followed.

This is not a technicality that the recent ruling handed to the states. It's actually a reinstatement of power. Nothing extremist about it... we are a republic of independently governed states. Keep that in mind...

[FORD]

[FORD]

Fuck Maloney. As far as I'm concerned he got a Karmic kick in the ass for fucking up the NY 10 primary.

[Nickdfresh]

President Biden a week ago...

He never said it was "dead", he said "extreme threat". Extreme or not (and I think the majority actually threatening it aren't smart nor effective enough to be an extreme threat) most people agree there is a threat (74%). Perhaps Repubs like DeSantis are a bit smarter and couth than The Donald, and have embraced mail-in voting and taking vaccines so larger numbers of your voter base do not die off than your opponents. But there are lunatics like My Pillow Douche that are election dead-enders. And most of the mini-Trumps were either defeated or are having close run contests in heavily Red areas...

It's not 2020 anymore... try to catch up!

Great! Tell the fucking asshole you voted for that!

Abortion appears to be primarily a hot issue among women... but if you pay attention several states enacted legislation supporting abortion rights. So it appears shifting that to the states to legislate is getting the desired effect.

Not just women, but "younger voters" including men. Some states enacted some protections. Others women can still possibly go to jail if they have a miscarriage!

As I stated, the complexity of the issues dividing the nation is presenting a problem for both parties... taxes were not a major issue for most demographics, along with abortions and threats to democracy. Inflation, crime and immigration were the top issues. Neither party offered any compelling vision, solutions or answers to what most Americans are concerned about.

I do sort of agree with that but you are a fool if you think abortion rights didn't play a major role, and will from here on out. The crime thing in NY was more or less a joke as Lee Zeldin made that his central argument, but Govenor Hochul (from my home town and I am not impressed with her either) pointed out that crime is down around 14% overall. So the scary Willie Horton shit isn't going to always work. The GOP can do nothing about inflation that isn't already being done and the immigration thing is a bizarre obsession that's been fumbled by both parties. It gets old hearing people bitch about "nobody wants to work anymore" and then in the same breath "those fucking illegal aliens!" Part of the problem is "walls". "They've" been coming here since at least WWII, the difference is they could easy go back and forth, they stay now because it's a lot harder....

[ZahZoo]

There are things that can be done that will shift the current trajectory into a more positive place. It's not an immediate thing but won't take long to enact and can significantly improve our economic situation. It isn't a necessarily a partisan issue. It just takes both sides to agree.

Open the regulatory road-blocks for energy production. I'm not suggesting we be reckless, but quit trying to stifle drilling, transportation and production of oil and natural gas. Put us back on the footing we were at in 2019/early 2020 with energy independence. Open it all up a bit more and go for energy dominance. This will shift inflation and our economic trouble significantly and relatively quickly.

Immigration... finish the wall completely and turn off the massive flow of humans, drugs and crime. This issue is significantly feeding both the economic and crime issues plaguing the nation. We can still have "legal" immigration but we can't support millions of illegals any further. Plus we have to shut down the drugs and cartels on the southern border.

Crime... put the consequences back into the system and crime will reduce. It's that fucking simple.

[FORD]

Ann The Man no longer a fan of Cheeto?

[Nickdfresh]

The gas prices are more about production capacity and collusion than about access to oil fields. The oil companies did retrack and orphan refineries during the pandemic but have been very slow to expand production capacity and a lot of this comes from Wall St speculators pushing them to keep prices higher...