BLUE WAVE A'COMIN

The House and Senate could make history this election

Analysis by Harry Enten, CNN
Tue 22 October 2024 

Recent polling, including new surveys out Tuesday, shows that 2024 may produce something never seen before in American history: The House could flip from Republican to Democratic control, while the Senate may flip from Democratic to Republican control.

If that happened, it would be the first time in over 230 years of congressional elections that the two chambers of Congress changed partisan control in the opposite direction.

The possibility for this historic oddity arises in large part because the battleground maps for the narrowly divided House and Senate are totally different.

All 435 seats are up in the House. Democrats need a net pickup of just four seats to win a majority.

They could grab those four from New York alone. There were four House races in the Empire State that the GOP won by less than 5 points in 2022, all in districts that Joe Biden would have carried two years earlier under the current district lines. They include New York’s 4th District on Long Island, the 17th and 19th districts in the Hudson Valley, and the 22nd District in Central New York, which was decided by a point two years ago and where the lines have since been heavily redrawn to Democrats’ advantage.

The battle for the Senate is something else entirely.

Remember that only about a third of the chamber’s 100 seats are up every cycle. This year, a bunch of seats held by Democrats or those who caucus with them are on the ballot in red-leaning states.

The math for Republicans is simple: To win the Senate, they need a net pickup of either one seat (if the incoming vice president is a Republican) or two seats (if the incoming vice president is a Democrat).

Republicans seem fairly likely to flip at least two seats, thanks to red Montana (where Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is struggling) and very red West Virginia (where independent Sen. Joe Manchin is retiring). Republicans also have a clear opportunity to unseat Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio, which Donald Trump won twice and will likely do so again.

The GOP has further pickup opportunities in four states that Trump carried in 2016: Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

You’ll notice that I’ve referenced past presidential election results to determine how competitive the races for the House and Senate are. That’s important because straight-ticket voting is much higher these days than it used to be.

Looking at the two previous presidential election years, just once did a state vote for one party for president and another for the Senate (Maine in 2020). For reference, six states did so in 2012.

The same patterns between presidential and down-ballot voting holds true in the House as well. Only 4% of House districts voted one way for president and a different way for the House in 2020.

This is critical when thinking about this year’s House elections. A Newsday/Siena College poll of New York’s 4th District released Tuesday found Democratic challenger Laura Gillen ahead of the Republican incumbent, Anthony D’Esposito, by 12 points. The same poll showed Kamala Harris up by double digits among district voters.

Now, we don’t have district polling for the other three New York seats I mentioned earlier, but forecasts indicate Democrats have a real chance to win them all. The 22nd District clearly leans Democratic, while the 17th and 19th are toss-up races.

This makes sense given that Siena’s New York state poll, also released Tuesday, found Democrats doing about 5 points better statewide in the House vote than they did in 2022. A swing like that applied to these four districts would see Democrats flip all of them.

Perhaps most importantly: Biden would have won all four seats in 2020 under the current lines.

One competitive House seat in the Empire State that Biden wouldn’t have won is the 1st District on Long Island. Under the new map approved earlier this year, district voters would have backed Trump by 2 points. Another Tuesday Newsday/Siena poll had Harris and Trump essentially even in the district. It made sense, therefore, that the same poll showed Republican Rep. Nick LaLota leading Democratic challenger John Avlon by a mere 3 points. That’s well within the margin of error, even though most forecasters have that race leaning or likely Republican.

The bottom line is that New York provides House Democrats with a lot of opportunities, and it’s not the only blue state that does.

California has another five Republican-held House seats that most handicappers say are toss-ups, at worst for Democrats. Biden would have carried four of them in 2020 under the current lines.

So it’s no wonder a Democratic takeover in the House is a real possibility: They have a lot of potential pickup opportunities in districts Biden won in states that he won.

Of course, Republicans could certainly hold the House, and something wacky could happen in the race for the Senate.

But at this hour, it’s not difficult to imagine congressional history being made next month – history that would both please and upset both sides of the aisle.

Historian Allan Lichtman still predicts a Kamala Harris win

Damita Menezes
Tue, October 22, 2024 

(NewsNation) — Vice President Kamala Harris is in good shape to take the White House in 2024, according to the historian who devised the “Keys to the White House” formula.

Allan Lichtman, a historian and American University professor, has correctly predicted nearly every presidential race since 1984 using a formula of 13 true-or-false questions.

What states could delay how quickly the 2024 election is called?

Lichtman has correctly predicted nine of the last 10 presidential elections, including former President Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016.
How does ‘Keys to the White House’ formula work

Developed in 1981 with mathematician Vladimir Keilis-Borok, Lichtman’s formula of 13 keys to the White House has helped him make overwhelmingly accurate predictions ever since.

He says that if the party holding the White House loses six of those keys, that party will probably lose the election.
Allan Lichtman’s keys to the White House:

Party mandate


Party contest


Incumbency


Third party


Short-term economy


Long-term economy


Policy change


Social unrest


Scandal


Foreign/military policy failure


Foreign/military policy success


Incumbent charisma


Challenger charisma

Social Security funds under Trump could run out in 6 years: Analysis
Lichtman explains why he predicts Kamala Harris will win

Lichtman confirmed several keys favoring Harris, including the short-term economy key (no recession in election year) and long-term economy key (per capita growth exceeding previous terms’ average).

While Democrats lost the party mandate key due to their 2022 House losses, Lichtman says they salvaged the crucial party contest key by uniting behind Harris. “Maybe the Democrats listened to me… they united overwhelmingly behind Harris, avoiding the loss of the contest key,” he said.

As of Tuesday, according to Decision Desk HQ’s polling averages, Trump has a 52% chance of winning the Presidency.
Lichtman: Never experienced so much hate in an election before

Lichtman told NewsNation he’s facing unprecedented threats and harassment over his latest forecast.

Need a ride to the polls? Here’s how to cast your ballot

He revealed that his family’s safety had been compromised, forcing them to contact police and implement security measures. The professor attributed the hostile response to “the toxic influence of Donald Trump.”

“I’ve been getting feedback that is scurrilous, vulgar, violent, threatening,” said Lichtman, 77, who has previously predicted victories for both conservative and liberal candidates, including Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.

NewsNation’s Katie Smith contributed to this report.

First Thing: Harris says US is ‘absolutely’ ready for a female president
Clea Skopeliti
Wed 23 October 2024 
THE GUARDIAN

Kamala Harris campaigning in Royal Oak, Michigan, on Monday.Photograph: Rebecca Cook/Reuters

Kamala Harris said that the US was “absolutely” ready for a female president, insisting that voters cared about candidates’ policies, not their gender.

The vice-president’s statement came during an interview with NBC News’s Hallie Jackson, who asked if she thought voters were ready for a woman, and a woman of color, to lead the country. Harris responded: “Absolutely. Absolutely.”

“In terms of every walk of life of our country,” Harris said, “part of what is important in this election is really, not really turning the page – closing a chapter, on an era that suggests that Americans are divided.” She added that the overwhelming majority have more in common “than what separates us”.

Obama says White nationalists ‘explicitly rally around Trump’

Edward-Isaac Dovere, CNN
Wed 23 October 2024 

Former President Barack Obama attends a rally in Madison, Wisconsin, on October 22, 2024.

Former President Barack Obama said at a private fundraiser Monday evening that Donald Trump is “somebody who White nationalists explicitly rally around,” going further than how he has ripped into the former president in a series of intense recent campaign rallies.

The comments, relayed to CNN by two people who heard the remarks, came in response to a question Obama took from the small audience at the Chicago home of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. The fundraiser brought in $4 million for Kamala Harris’ campaign

Speaking about Harris and referencing both Trump hosting Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago in 2022 and his reaction to the 2017 White nationalist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, Obama said: “She’s running against a guy who had lunch with a Holocaust denier. When there was a march with lanterns, the only thing missing was the pitchforks, saying, ‘We shall not be replaced.’ He said, ‘There are good people on both sides.’”

The comments come as Trump has dug in deeper with his anti-immigrant rhetoric and warned of “an enemy from within,” with his former White House chief of staff John Kelly going public with remarks that Trump made multiple approving comments about Adolf Hitler. The former president’s campaign has denied the allegations.

While Trump is appealing to Americans’ worst impulses, Obama said Monday, Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are appealing to their best impulses.

Obama said Trump is “tapping into what may already be some underlying biases that people have, and he’s stoking them.” What starts as people thinking it’s funny to have Trump put down immigrants, the disabled or other groups, Obama said, then leads to people who “start feeling, ‘Oh, this is fair game.’”

The effect of Trump’s comments, Obama said, isn’t just felt by the people targeted by the “punching down” or by US politics. But it also affects Americans’ interactions with each other and children who hear this.

“When those guardrails start breaking down, then that changes the tenor of not just our public discourse, but our private discourse,” Obama said. “Our kids soak it in, in ways that are destructive.”

As CNN previously reported, Obama is in the middle of his busiest end-of-election push since his own last campaign, appearing so far in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan. He has another stop planned Thursday evening in what will be his first joint appearance on the trail with Harris – and with Bruce Springsteen set to perform. He’s also been appearing in a flush of ads for Senate candidates and joining online influencers and podcasters for interviews. More are expected to be announced soon.

Obama’s speeches at these rallies have been a combination of him mocking Trump – for example, alleging that he doesn’t know how to work a truck or that he never changed a diaper – and also attempting to dismantle the former president’s claims about his record, with a major emphasis on arguing that the strong economic record Trump often points to was from “my economy.”

For Obama, this is both personal and political. He has appealed to voters, with an emphasis on Black men, not to give up on government because they feel it’s fallen short, or because they feel an affinity for Trump.

Order of nuns living in monastery hit back after GOP canvasser falsely accuses them of voter fraud

Katie Hawkinson
Wed 23 October 2024 

A sign that reads, ‘Mount Saint Benedict Monastery.’ A Pennsylvania GOP canvasser claims that there are 53 voter registration addresses attached to the monastery, but that ‘no one’ lives there — however, the Benedictine Sisters who do call the monastery home are hitting back (Google Maps)

A Pennsylvania canvasser claimed an address in Erie, Pennsylvania – a key swing county in a key swing state for the upcoming presidential election – is linked to 53 voter registrations and could be the source of voter fraud.

However, that address is home to the Benedictine Sisters of Erie – and they’re firing back at what they’ve called a “defamatory” claim from the canvassing group’s founder.

Cliff Maloney said on Monday that one of his members discovered an address in Erie with several dozen voter registrations – and claimed that “no one” lives there. Maloney is the founder of The Pennsylvania Chase, a self-described “ground-game campaign to knock 500,000 doors to chase GOP ballots & increase GOP mail-in results.”


“We knocked on the door because a Republican mail-in ballot is unreturned,” Maloney wrote on X. “Our attorney’s are reviewing this right now. We will not let the Dems count on illegal votes.”

The Benedictine Sisters of Erie were quick to hit back — and make it clear that they very much exist and reside there.

A voter casts a ballot in Pennsylvania on October 15. Pennsylvania is a key swing state this election, and current polling shows Kamala Harris two points ahead of her competitor Donald Trump (Getty Images)

“We want to call Cliff Maloney to account for his blatantly false post that accuses our sisters of fraud,” Sister Stephanie Schmidt said in a statement. “We do live at Mount Saint Benedict Monastery and a simple web search would alert him to our active presence in a number of ministries in Erie.”

That same statement made it clear the sisters have no issue with canvassing and door-knocking — but they do care when “false information” is leveraged to “discredit differing views of affiliations.”

The organization is already pursuing legal counsel over what they’ve called “public defamation.”

“We recognize that many persons and organizations are victims of similar untruths that appear daily in social and other media,” their statement reads. “We are sharing our experience in an effort to increase scrutiny and to encourage others to ask questions and seek information.”

“We want to be on public record as having called out this fraud so that if the outcome of next month’s election is contested in Pennsylvania our integrity will not be called into question,” the statement continues. “We are also pursuing legal counsel regarding this public defamation.”

Linda Romey, a member of the Benedictine Sisters and their communications manager, told The Independent they responded to Maloney’s post because they want to dispel misinformation and promote citizens’ right to vote.

“We believe that to have a free and fair election, every citizen needs to know what’s going on and not believe everything they read on social media,” Romey said. “So we want to call out something like this that’s just a blatant untruth.”

On Tuesday, Maloney went on to claim the “commies” are now claiming people live there despite what his “team leader” saw.

“Now the commies are coming in claiming that ‘nuns live there’ or ‘you idiot just google it,’” he wrote. “WRONG. Our team leader spoke to the one person there and they claimed ‘NO ONE LIVES HERE.’”

When contacted for comment, Maloney sent The Independent a post on X from Wednesday evening.

“My goal is to only count legal votes,” Maloney wrote. “If the 53 people registered at this address are legal voters… then I encourage them to participate in their right to vote.”

Erie County will be one of the most closely watched locations come Election Day. Not only is Pennsylvania a key swing state, but Erie County is itself a swing county. Barack Obama won the county during in 2008 and 2012.

However, Donald Trump won it in 2016 before President Joe Biden secured it in 2020. Kamala Harris is currently leading the state by two points, according to the latest Washington Post/Schar School swing state poll.

Editor’s note: This article was updated on October 23 to include comment from Maloney.