Jackie Calmes
Fri, August 19, 2022
Cheri Beasley, North Carolina's former Supreme Court chief justice, is now the state's Democratic nominee for Senate. (Ben McKeown / Associated Press)
If Democrats can keep control of just one chamber of Congress in November’s midterm elections, as many analysts have long predicted, it’s best that the house they’re favored to hold is the Senate.
The Senate has the power over a president’s judicial nominees. God forbid that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell gets another turn at blocking a Democratic president’s picks for the federal bench, and thus ends President Biden’s effort to offset the right-wing tilt to that third branch of government.
All year Democrats have despaired of keeping their House majority, though a few politicos in and out of the party are starting to sound optimistic, given a spate of positive breaks and the backlash against the Supreme Court’s overturning of abortion rights. The Senate, however, has been another story all along: Democrats have been cautiously confident — and Republicans fretful — that they could hold their 50 seats and perhaps even add to them.
To that end, it’s fitting that one of the candidates who could help keep Democrats in power to confirm judges is herself the former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, Cheri Beasley.
Beasley is running against North Carolina Rep. Ted Budd, a gun store owner who won former President Trump’s endorsement last year. “A lot of you don’t know him well,” Trump said of Budd when he conferred his blessing. “He will fight like hell.”
Fight like hell — just what Trump told the crowd on Jan. 6, 2021. Indeed, after that day’s Capitol rampage, Budd voted against certifying Biden’s election. He said the insurrectionists were “just patriots standing up.”
Trump was right about Budd’s low profile. Beasley, too, isn’t well known. She’s, well, judicious rather than provocative, and he’s been merely a backbench belligerent for Trump in Congress, overshadowed by blowhards like his fellow North Carolinian Madison Cawthorn. That’s one reason this contest hasn’t gotten more national attention.
That should change. If Beasley wins, it would be a Democratic pickup: She and Budd are vying to replace retiring GOP Sen. Richard M. Burr.
Beasley, who would be the only Black woman in the Senate if elected, is a proven vote-getter. She was first appointed to the state judiciary in 1999 by a Democratic governor and then twice elected to the district court seat. In 2008 she won election to the state Court of Appeals, defeating an incumbent judge.
Another Democratic governor named Beasley to a vacancy on the state’s Supreme Court in 2012, and two years later she won statewide election to the seat. In 2019, the current Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, appointed her as chief justice. While she lost reelection by just 401 votes in 2020, Beasley still got about 11,000 more votes than Biden received in North Carolina.
The bigger Senate attention-getters have been races in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and, to a lesser extent, New Hampshire, where incumbent Democrats — Mark Kelly, Catherine Cortez Masto, Raphael Warnock and Maggie Hassan, respectively — are fighting to keep their seats. Kelly, Cortez Masto and Warnock all lead in the polls over their weak Trumpist rivals.
Then there’s Wisconsin, where MAGAt conspiracist Sen. Ron Johnson is one of the few Republican incumbents who’s endangered.
Also higher-profile than North Carolina’s Senate contest are the open-seat races in Ohio and Pennsylvania, which feature Democrats with records as populist champions of the working class — Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan and Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman — against celebrity converts to Trumpism, bestselling author J.D. Vance in Ohio and TV personality and crudite fancier Mehmet Oz.
As Politico reported Thursday, “Republicans’ hopes of retaking the Senate rest on a slate of Donald Trump's hand-picked nominees. And, across the board, they appear to be struggling.”
Budd has struggled less than the other Trumpian Republicans, yet he still has just a slight lead in the few public polls on the race; Beasley led in a June poll. Analysts call the contest a toss-up. North Carolina is no red state; the governor has been a Democrat for 26 of the last 30 years.
As usual, however, Democrats in North Carolina and elsewhere have a bigger challenge than Republicans in getting their voters out for non-presidential elections, especially those who are young and Black. The party's recent gains may help send more Democrats to the polls — enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act, with its healthcare benefits for lower drug costs, insulin price caps for Medicare recipients and Obamacare subsidies; as well as new laws providing care to veterans exposed to toxins and making unprecedented, job-creating investments in the computer chip industry.
As crucial as what Democrats have done is what Republicans are doing to themselves: opposing those popular measures, taking extreme antiabortion positions and keeping the unpopular Trump front and center.
The bombshells from the Jan. 6 House select committee’s hearings have contributed to the party’s stench of antidemocratic extremism. The year’s shooting massacres have turned many voters against pro-gun politicians; Budd voted against the bipartisan gun control law, even as both sitting Republican senators from North Carolina backed it.
Still, inflation remains high and Democrats know an onslaught of well-financed Republican attacks are coming. Beasley, for example, already has weathered false, racially tinged assaults much like those Senate Republicans leveled against Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her confirmation hearing; in each case, Republicans distorted the Black jurists’ records and prior careers as public defenders to paint them as soft on criminals.
But here’s the thing: Jackson won confirmation. And Beasley can win election. It’s indicative of the improved climate for Democrats that they can, in fact, look to a place like North Carolina for a possible Senate win. The state deserves better in the Senate, and so do we.
@jackiekcalmes
Mandela Barnes has a seven-point lead over Sen. Ron Johnson in the Wisconsin Senate race, while Tony Evers and Tim Michels are in a tight contest for governor: poll
John L. Dorman
Sat, August 20, 2022
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, left, appears at a rally outside the state Capitol in Madison, Wis., with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on July 23, 2022.AP Photo/Scott Bauer
Barnes has a 51%-44% lead over Johnson in the Wisconsin Senate race, per a new Marquette Law poll.
Johnson is running for reelection to a third term, while Barnes hopes to topple the GOP incumbent.
The Wisconsin Senate race remains one of the best Democratic pickup opportunities this year.
Wisconsin Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has a seven-point lead over two-term Republican Sen. Ron Johnson in one of this year's marquee Senate races, according to a new poll conducted by Marquette University Law School.
The survey showed Barnes with 51% support among registered voters in the Badger State, while Johnson received 44% support; three percent of respondents were unsure of which candidate they would support in November.
Among likely voters, Barnes led Johnson 52%-45%.
(A Fox News poll released on Thursday showed Barnes leading Johnson 50%-46% among registered voters.)
In Wisconsin, both Barnes and Johnson are performing well among their respective bases. But the swing state, which has backed Democratic nominees in seven of the last eight presidential contests, has become sharply polarized in other statewide races.
Among the pool of registered voters, Barnes received the support of 95% of Democrats, with 4% of party voters crossing over to back Johnson.
Johnson earned the support of 92% of Republicans, with 7% of GOP voters indicating they would vote for Barnes.
Independents gave a clear edge to Barnes in the latest survey, with the Democratic challenger ahead of Johnson 52%-38%, a significant shift from June, when both men were tied at 41% support among this pivotal voting group.
Voter enthusiasm is quite high among members of both parties. Eighty-three percent of Republicans indicated they will vote with absolute certainty this fall, compared to 82% of Democrats, per the poll. Sixty-six percent of Independents said they are certain to cast a ballot in the upcoming election.
Last week, both Barnes and Johnson performed strongly in their respective Senate primaries.
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson.Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Johnson has long enjoyed strong support among grassroots conservatives and remains a political ally of former President Donald Trump — making his renomination as the Republican Senate nominee a no-brainer. But Barnes has spent most of the year locked in a competitive primary.
Until last month, Barnes' top challengers were state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson, and Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry, but all three left the race within the span of two weeks and threw their support behind the lieutenant governor — who since 2019 has been the governing partner of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in a state with a GOP-controlled legislature.
Evers, who is running for reelection to a second term, leads GOP gubernatorial nominee Tim Michels 45%-43% among registered voters and 46%-44% among likely voters.
Barnes, a former state lawmaker, has gained a high level of visibility crisscrossing the state to visit localities from his native Milwaukee to rural Bayfield County in his capacity as lieutenant governor.
But despite the polling lead, it won't be easy to topple Johnson, who despite having a 38% favorability rating in the survey, was able to defeat former three-term Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold in both 2010 and 2016 and is running for reelection is what could be a strong Republican midterm cycle.
While Barnes has emphasized his plan to expand the Child Tax Credit and touted his support of federal voting rights legislation, Johnson has continually criticized President Joe Biden over the economy and immigration, among other issues.
The race presents a major opportunity for both parties. Trump won the state in 2016, but Biden flipped it back to the Democrats in 2020 — highlighting its political competitiveness.
And in the evenly-divided Senate, where Democrats control the upper chamber by virtue of Vice President Kamala Harris' tiebreaking vote, a net gain in seats for the party would give them the breathing room to pass bills without having to receive mandatory buy-in from moderate Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
While Manchin played a key role in crafting the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes record funding for climate initiatives, the lawmaker also single-handedly dismantled the more expansive Build Back Better Act, the now-defunct social-spending package that was backed by most Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Marquette Law School polled 811 registered voters from August 10 through August 15; the survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.
John L. Dorman
Sat, August 20, 2022
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, left, appears at a rally outside the state Capitol in Madison, Wis., with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on July 23, 2022.AP Photo/Scott Bauer
Barnes has a 51%-44% lead over Johnson in the Wisconsin Senate race, per a new Marquette Law poll.
Johnson is running for reelection to a third term, while Barnes hopes to topple the GOP incumbent.
The Wisconsin Senate race remains one of the best Democratic pickup opportunities this year.
Wisconsin Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has a seven-point lead over two-term Republican Sen. Ron Johnson in one of this year's marquee Senate races, according to a new poll conducted by Marquette University Law School.
The survey showed Barnes with 51% support among registered voters in the Badger State, while Johnson received 44% support; three percent of respondents were unsure of which candidate they would support in November.
Among likely voters, Barnes led Johnson 52%-45%.
(A Fox News poll released on Thursday showed Barnes leading Johnson 50%-46% among registered voters.)
In Wisconsin, both Barnes and Johnson are performing well among their respective bases. But the swing state, which has backed Democratic nominees in seven of the last eight presidential contests, has become sharply polarized in other statewide races.
Among the pool of registered voters, Barnes received the support of 95% of Democrats, with 4% of party voters crossing over to back Johnson.
Johnson earned the support of 92% of Republicans, with 7% of GOP voters indicating they would vote for Barnes.
Independents gave a clear edge to Barnes in the latest survey, with the Democratic challenger ahead of Johnson 52%-38%, a significant shift from June, when both men were tied at 41% support among this pivotal voting group.
Voter enthusiasm is quite high among members of both parties. Eighty-three percent of Republicans indicated they will vote with absolute certainty this fall, compared to 82% of Democrats, per the poll. Sixty-six percent of Independents said they are certain to cast a ballot in the upcoming election.
Last week, both Barnes and Johnson performed strongly in their respective Senate primaries.
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson.Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Johnson has long enjoyed strong support among grassroots conservatives and remains a political ally of former President Donald Trump — making his renomination as the Republican Senate nominee a no-brainer. But Barnes has spent most of the year locked in a competitive primary.
Until last month, Barnes' top challengers were state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson, and Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry, but all three left the race within the span of two weeks and threw their support behind the lieutenant governor — who since 2019 has been the governing partner of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in a state with a GOP-controlled legislature.
Evers, who is running for reelection to a second term, leads GOP gubernatorial nominee Tim Michels 45%-43% among registered voters and 46%-44% among likely voters.
Barnes, a former state lawmaker, has gained a high level of visibility crisscrossing the state to visit localities from his native Milwaukee to rural Bayfield County in his capacity as lieutenant governor.
But despite the polling lead, it won't be easy to topple Johnson, who despite having a 38% favorability rating in the survey, was able to defeat former three-term Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold in both 2010 and 2016 and is running for reelection is what could be a strong Republican midterm cycle.
While Barnes has emphasized his plan to expand the Child Tax Credit and touted his support of federal voting rights legislation, Johnson has continually criticized President Joe Biden over the economy and immigration, among other issues.
The race presents a major opportunity for both parties. Trump won the state in 2016, but Biden flipped it back to the Democrats in 2020 — highlighting its political competitiveness.
And in the evenly-divided Senate, where Democrats control the upper chamber by virtue of Vice President Kamala Harris' tiebreaking vote, a net gain in seats for the party would give them the breathing room to pass bills without having to receive mandatory buy-in from moderate Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
While Manchin played a key role in crafting the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes record funding for climate initiatives, the lawmaker also single-handedly dismantled the more expansive Build Back Better Act, the now-defunct social-spending package that was backed by most Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Marquette Law School polled 811 registered voters from August 10 through August 15; the survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.
Biden’s chief of staff says president is comparable to historic predecessors
Martin Pengelly
Fri, August 19, 2022
Photograph: Caroline Brehman/EPA
In a bullish interview, the White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, compared Joe Biden’s achievements in his first two years in office to historic successes under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson.
Related: ‘Biggest step forward on climate ever’: Biden signs Democrats’ landmark bill
Speaking to Politico, Klain said: “The president has delivered the largest economic recovery plan since Roosevelt, the largest infrastructure plan since [Dwight D] Eisenhower, the most judges confirmed since Kennedy, the second-largest healthcare bill since Johnson, and the largest climate change bill in history.”
Klain’s comments, aimed at voters contemplating the midterm elections, are an indication that Democrats plan to campaign heavily on their accomplishments in the less than two years they have been in power. He also pointed to “the first time we’ve done gun control since President Clinton was here, the first time ever an African American woman [Ketanji Brown Jackson] has been put on the US supreme court.
“I think it’s a record to take to the American people.”
Klain’s references to historical figures chimes with Biden’s own interests. The president has regularly consulted historians, among them Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss and Eddie Glaude Jr, while Jon Meacham, a biographer of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and George HW Bush, has been a close adviser in shaping Biden’s effort to restore “the soul of the nation” after the presidency of Donald Trump.
Democrats control Congress by narrow margins. Opposition parties commonly do well in the first elections of a presidential term, and Republicans remain favoured to take control of one or both chambers. But legislative successes, most recently the passage of a major domestic and climate crisis spending plan, the Inflation Reduction Act, have given Democrats hope.
One senator, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, pointed to the need to communicate better, writing: “I feel like the media is having a hard time metabolising the fact that this Congress has been historically productive. And acknowledging the size of these accomplishments, and the degree of difficultly – it’s just hard to do accurately without sounding a bit left-leaning.”
There is some indication that Democrats are becoming more popular. They have established polling leads in key Senate races including Arizona, Pennsylvania and Ohio, against Trump-endorsed Republicans who are struggling to attract moderates and independents.
In Kentucky on Thursday, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, seemed to downplay expectations. McConnell said: “I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different – they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.
“Right now, we have a 50-50 Senate and a 50-50 country, but I think when all is said and done this fall, we’re likely to have an extremely close Senate, either our side up slightly or their side up slightly.”
In his Politico interview, Klain said: “Elections are choices, and the choice just couldn’t be any clearer right now.
“Democrats have stood up to the big special interests. They stood up to the big corporations and insisted that all corporations pay minimum taxes, stood up to the big oil companies and passed climate change legislation. They stood up to Big Pharma and passed prescription drug legislation. They stood up to the gun industry and passed gun control legislation.
“Things that [Washington DC was] unable to deliver on for decades because the special interests had things locked down, Joe Biden and his allies in Congress have been able to deliver on.”
Asked about the Republican counter-offer, he cited issues Democrats hope can galvanise voters, prominently including attacks on abortion access after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, the ruling which protected the right.
“We have an extreme Maga group in the Republican party that has no real plan to bring down inflation,” Klain said, referring to Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, Make America Great Again. “They obviously want to pass a nationwide ban on abortion. They sided with big pharma. They sided with the climate deniers … most of them sided with the gun lobby.
“And so I think that choice [is] between a party that’s standing up to the special interests and delivering change and … an extreme party, a party that’s talking about … abolishing social security and Medicare every five years.
“The extreme nature of our opponents, whether it’s with regard to democracy or social security, are all part of a movement that is just very different than we’ve seen in recent years in this country.”
Klain said the worst day of the presidency was 26 August 2021, when 13 US service members were killed by a suicide bomb during the evacuation of Kabul.
That, he said, was “just a terrible tragedy and certainly the darkest day”.
Questions have been raised, including by Democrats, about whether Biden is too old to run for a second term. Klain said Biden’s experience – he will turn 80 in November – helped make him an effective leader.
Related: Judge orders DoJ to prepare redacted Trump search affidavit for possible release
Biden, he said, has “a personal history of tremendous, joyous successes and devastating tragedies. And I think that helps moderate his spirit at all times.
“There is nothing I can ever walk into the Oval Office and tell him that’s any bigger than the bigger things he’s already experienced in life. And nothing I could ever tell him is any sadder than the saddest things he’s already experienced in life. And I think that gives him a very level temperament as president.”
Klain was also asked about complaints, particularly from Republicans, that Biden does not maintain a high public profile.
“I don’t think it’s true he’s out there less than his predecessors,” Klain said. “I just think Donald Trump created an expectation of a president creating a shitstorm every single day.”
Martin Pengelly
Fri, August 19, 2022
Photograph: Caroline Brehman/EPA
In a bullish interview, the White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, compared Joe Biden’s achievements in his first two years in office to historic successes under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson.
Related: ‘Biggest step forward on climate ever’: Biden signs Democrats’ landmark bill
Speaking to Politico, Klain said: “The president has delivered the largest economic recovery plan since Roosevelt, the largest infrastructure plan since [Dwight D] Eisenhower, the most judges confirmed since Kennedy, the second-largest healthcare bill since Johnson, and the largest climate change bill in history.”
Klain’s comments, aimed at voters contemplating the midterm elections, are an indication that Democrats plan to campaign heavily on their accomplishments in the less than two years they have been in power. He also pointed to “the first time we’ve done gun control since President Clinton was here, the first time ever an African American woman [Ketanji Brown Jackson] has been put on the US supreme court.
“I think it’s a record to take to the American people.”
Klain’s references to historical figures chimes with Biden’s own interests. The president has regularly consulted historians, among them Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss and Eddie Glaude Jr, while Jon Meacham, a biographer of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and George HW Bush, has been a close adviser in shaping Biden’s effort to restore “the soul of the nation” after the presidency of Donald Trump.
Democrats control Congress by narrow margins. Opposition parties commonly do well in the first elections of a presidential term, and Republicans remain favoured to take control of one or both chambers. But legislative successes, most recently the passage of a major domestic and climate crisis spending plan, the Inflation Reduction Act, have given Democrats hope.
One senator, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, pointed to the need to communicate better, writing: “I feel like the media is having a hard time metabolising the fact that this Congress has been historically productive. And acknowledging the size of these accomplishments, and the degree of difficultly – it’s just hard to do accurately without sounding a bit left-leaning.”
There is some indication that Democrats are becoming more popular. They have established polling leads in key Senate races including Arizona, Pennsylvania and Ohio, against Trump-endorsed Republicans who are struggling to attract moderates and independents.
In Kentucky on Thursday, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, seemed to downplay expectations. McConnell said: “I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different – they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.
“Right now, we have a 50-50 Senate and a 50-50 country, but I think when all is said and done this fall, we’re likely to have an extremely close Senate, either our side up slightly or their side up slightly.”
In his Politico interview, Klain said: “Elections are choices, and the choice just couldn’t be any clearer right now.
“Democrats have stood up to the big special interests. They stood up to the big corporations and insisted that all corporations pay minimum taxes, stood up to the big oil companies and passed climate change legislation. They stood up to Big Pharma and passed prescription drug legislation. They stood up to the gun industry and passed gun control legislation.
“Things that [Washington DC was] unable to deliver on for decades because the special interests had things locked down, Joe Biden and his allies in Congress have been able to deliver on.”
Asked about the Republican counter-offer, he cited issues Democrats hope can galvanise voters, prominently including attacks on abortion access after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, the ruling which protected the right.
“We have an extreme Maga group in the Republican party that has no real plan to bring down inflation,” Klain said, referring to Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, Make America Great Again. “They obviously want to pass a nationwide ban on abortion. They sided with big pharma. They sided with the climate deniers … most of them sided with the gun lobby.
“And so I think that choice [is] between a party that’s standing up to the special interests and delivering change and … an extreme party, a party that’s talking about … abolishing social security and Medicare every five years.
“The extreme nature of our opponents, whether it’s with regard to democracy or social security, are all part of a movement that is just very different than we’ve seen in recent years in this country.”
Klain said the worst day of the presidency was 26 August 2021, when 13 US service members were killed by a suicide bomb during the evacuation of Kabul.
That, he said, was “just a terrible tragedy and certainly the darkest day”.
Questions have been raised, including by Democrats, about whether Biden is too old to run for a second term. Klain said Biden’s experience – he will turn 80 in November – helped make him an effective leader.
Related: Judge orders DoJ to prepare redacted Trump search affidavit for possible release
Biden, he said, has “a personal history of tremendous, joyous successes and devastating tragedies. And I think that helps moderate his spirit at all times.
“There is nothing I can ever walk into the Oval Office and tell him that’s any bigger than the bigger things he’s already experienced in life. And nothing I could ever tell him is any sadder than the saddest things he’s already experienced in life. And I think that gives him a very level temperament as president.”
Klain was also asked about complaints, particularly from Republicans, that Biden does not maintain a high public profile.
“I don’t think it’s true he’s out there less than his predecessors,” Klain said. “I just think Donald Trump created an expectation of a president creating a shitstorm every single day.”
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