Good morning, Early Birds. It's almost Election Day, and we can't hardly wait. And since 2024 is already on some people's minds, we suppose we'll have Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) in the Senate a bit longer to keep not answering our questions. Tips: earlytips@washpost.com. Thanks for waking up with us. In today's edition … Trump once reconsidered sticking with Truth Social. Now he's stuck, Drew Harwell and Josh Dawsey report … Election officials fear counting delays will help fuel claims of fraud, Tom Hamburger, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Patrick Marley write … What we're watching: The COP27 climate conference begins this week in Egypt and the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case concerning the forced removal of thousands of Native American children from their families … but first … | | | The campaign | | Tomorrow is Election Day and the battle for the House and Senate is nearly over — except for the voting. Over the weekend our colleagues Colby Itkowitz, Hannah Knowles, Sabrina Rodriguez and Annie Linskey provided a comprehensive look at the state of the races nationwide that you can read here. Meanwhile, Amy Gardner and Rosalind S. Helderman assessed the test of American democracy posed by the 2022 midterm elections. Both are must-reads ahead of Tuesday. Leigh Ann and Theo hit the road this weekend to zero in on two states and the role they could play in Tuesday's results: | Democrats hope abortion can help save a Kansas swing seat | Sharice Davids, a Democrat running for Congress in Kansas, talks to supporters at a July 4 event in Prairie Village. (David Weigel/The Washington Post) | | PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan. — When Kansans decisively defeated a constitutional amendment in August that would have weakened abortion rights, the results gave Democrats hope that voters' fury over the demise of Roe v. Wade might help them avoid a wipeout in the midterm elections. Now, as polls show Republicans poised to recapture the House, Democrats are relying on voters still angry about the issue in Kansas and other Republican-leaning states to help limit their losses. Republicans, meanwhile, point to evidence that voters are increasingly more concerned about the economy than about abortion rights. | Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.), who represents a district in the Kansas City suburbs that President Biden won narrowly in 2020, is emphasizing her support for abortion rights as she battles to retain her seat — an unthinkable strategy for a Kansas Democrat a few years ago. | - Deann Mitchell, the Johnson County Democratic Party chairwoman, recalled that she was advised not to bring up three issues when she ran for a state legislative seat in 2018: God, guns and abortion. But Democrats' calculus has changed since the Supreme Court overturned Roe.
- "This year, you've gotta lean into the abortion discussion," Mitchell said.
| Davids is one of more than two dozen Democrats who flipped Republican-held seats in the suburbs in 2018, giving Democrats control of the House. While some of those seats are now safely Democratic due to redistricting and a shifting electorate, Republicans are battling to reclaim many others as they seek to retake the House, including Davids's seat. "The swing voter in this district is a classic, moderate Republican," said former Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder, whom Davids defeated in 2018. "Their muscle memory is Republican. But, of course, they have concerns with some of the Donald Trump branding on the party." | More than two-thirds of voters in Johnson County — where more than 80 percent of the district's residents live — voted against the amendment that would've weakened abortion protections. So did narrower majorities in two of the three rural, heavily Republican counties that Kansas Republicans added to the district during redistricting to tilt it more conservative. Davids and her allies have hammered her Republican opponent, Amanda Adkins, in TV ads for backing the amendment. Voters recognize, "even though we beat back that amendment in August, that it's still on the ballot in November," Davids said in an interview on Thursday. The race could turn on whether voters agree. "To me, that's not related to the congressional race," said John Cowden, 77, a lawyer who voted against the amendment but is backing Adkins. "At all. At all," Tom Sterchi, Cowden's law partner, said while standing in the crescent-shaped driveway of his home in Prairie Village, an upscale suburb, on Thursday evening at a meet-and-greet that he and his wife hosted for Adkins. "It's irrelevant." | Sterchi, like some others gathered in his driveway, supports some restrictions on abortion but said he didn't want to give the state legislature unlimited power to demolish abortion rights. "I voted against the amendment," said John Whall, 52, who lives next door to Sterchi and works in insurance. "I felt things were fine the way they were and didn't need to be changed. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to vote Republican. I think there's a lot of people in the same boat." | 'People here don't talk to me about Lindsey Graham' | Not all Republicans feel the same way. "Sad to say, I am a registered Republican and I'm voting Democrat," Kandy Meehan, said on Saturday morning as she was leaving the farmers market in nearby Overland Park. Meehan typically votes Republican, and she backed Adkins in 2020. But she was appalled by the effort to roll back abortion rights — "I am 71 years old, and I'm not going back to the way it was when my mother was growing up," she said — and feels she can no longer trust Republicans, despite her concerns about the inflation and the economy. She's also been impressed by Davids' outreach. "She makes the time," Meehan said. "She listens. She communicates. She doesn't vote the way I like on everything, but she's got my vote." Adkins, a former congressional aide and lobbyist, describes herself as "a pro-life candidate" but she has pledged to vote against federal restrictions on abortion such as the bill introduced by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) in September. Voters are much more likely to talk to her about inflation and the economy than abortion, she said in an interview. "People here don't talk to me about Lindsey Graham, to be clear," Adkins said. | Appeals in East Las Vegas in a crucial Senate race | People sit on horseback before the start of a horse parade for Nevada Democrats including Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak and U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) on Saturday. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) | | LAS VEGAS — In the final weekend ahead of Election Day, I spent much of my time in East Las Vegas, a heavily Hispanic part of town. It's where Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto needs high voter turnout if she is to hold onto her seat. Cortez Masto and a slate of Democratic candidates participated in a cabalgata — a horse parade — in which horses danced down the long residential streets to a regional Mexican band as onlookers emerged from their homes to watch and snap photos. Campaign aides took the opportunity to pass out campaign literature. Ahead of the parade, Cortez Masto reminded the crowd that she is the first Latina elected to the Senate. | - This event is about "making sure we continue to support our rich culture, our heritage, our background," Cortez Masto said. "And making sure at the end of the day, come Tuesday, everybody turns out to vote."
| She was joined by Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford and Cisco Aguilar, the Democratic nominee for Nevada secretary of state, all of whom are in tight races in this battleground state. Democrats here are trying to ensure they maintain strong Latino support, which is crucial to their winning coalition. Latinos make up just over 17 percent of the vote in Nevada, according to the National Association of Latino Elected Officials; 63 percent voted for Biden in 2020. But Republicans have been making inroads: In 2016, Clinton won 71 percent of Nevada's Latino vote. | Adam Laxalt, the Republican seeking to unseat Cortez Masto, made his final southern Nevada campaign stop at his East Las Vegas campaign office on Saturday before heading north — where his base of support is — for the final days of the campaign. | - Organizers of Vamos, a Hispanic voter outreach effort started by the National Republican senatorial Campaign in nine battleground states this cycle, were there. The group is confident its reaching new voters either frustrated with the state of the economy or disaffected by Democrats.
| Several Latinos I spoke with at the Laxalt event are very religious and have connected with the Republican Party through church. | East Las Vegas is also where the Culinary Workers Union headquarters is and where they hold their daily organizing meeting at 11 a.m. before hundreds of workers hit the town to knock on thousands of doors to encourage people to vote. | - The union's 60,000 members include housekeepers, servers, cooks and baristas at the hotels. The vast majority of them are Hispanic and other people of color, and they're long been a key organizing block for Democrats in the state.
| "When we vote, we win," they chanted after hearing from Roman Aleja, 31, who is involved in his first campaign. Aleja can't vote. He was brought to the United States without legal papers by his parents when he was a kid. He told his story to the packed multipurpose room and ended with this plea: "All of you U.S. citizens, you have our future in your hands." | Election officials fear counting delays will help fuel claims of fraud | People at a rally in Latrobe, Pa., on Saturday featuring former president Donald Trump. (Shuran Huang/The Washington Post) | | New election year, same concerns: "Officials in a handful of closely contested states are warning that the winners of tight races may not be known on election night, raising the possibility of a delay that former president Donald Trump and his allies could exploit to cast doubt on the integrity of Tuesday's midterm vote," our colleagues Tom Hamburger, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Patrick Marley report. | - "In Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin, officials have in recent days preemptively called for patience, acknowledging that some of the factors that bogged down the process in 2020 remain unresolved two years later. In some cases, partisan disagreements blocked fixes, and Trump's own advice to voters on how to cast ballots may contribute to a longer wait."
- "Although the reasons for the delays vary from state to state, officials have been united in urging the public not to draw conclusions just because the count appears to be proceeding slowly … The slow-count warning is being issued with special vigor in Pennsylvania, where a delay in counting 2020 presidential votes became central to the fraud narrative adopted by Trump and his allies."
| Also of note: This is the first year Nevada has universal vote by mail. Nevada Democratic Victory sent out a notice over the weekend warning that election results might not be known for days. Mail-in ballots must be postmarked by Election Day and received by Nov. 12. It took four days for Biden to be declared the winner in Nevada in 2020, the group reminded. | | | At Mar-a-Lago | | Trump once reconsidered sticking with Truth Social. Now he's stuck. | Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm election in Latrobe, Pa., on Nov. 5, 2022. (Shuran Huang/The Washington Post) | | Truth Social or Twitter? "The billionaire industrialist Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter could put Trump's commitment to [Truth Social] a new test, and some in his orbit wonder whether he'll be able to stay loyal to a small site that is struggling to gain an audience and faces looming financial threats," our colleagues Drew Harwell and Josh Dawsey write. | - "Trump has told his allies that he can't leave Truth Social, because he's propping it up, and he doesn't want a site so closely associated with his brand to collapse," people familiar with his thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters told our colleagues.
- "The allure of Twitter — a nerve center and obsession for many of those interested in American news and politics — could become even harder to ignore when Trump launches his widely expected campaign for the 2024 presidential race. Trump's aides still print out tweets with positive feedback about him, as well as the messages of influential reporters and lawmakers, and hand-deliver them at his request."
| | | What we're watching | | World leaders will meet in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, this week for the U.N. Climate Change Conference, also known as COP27. Biden is expected to deliver remarks on Friday, touting the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act — the largest investment ever made to tackle climate change. | - One issue will be on the minds of many at the summit: An unfulfilled promise — made under the 2015 Paris climate accord — that rich, developed nations send money to poorer, developing countries facing a disproportionate share of the damage from climate change.
| Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case concerning the Indian Child Welfare Act (1978). The law, designed to redress the forced removal of thousands of Native American children from their families to boarding schools, prioritizes placing children with relatives, fellow tribal members or in other Native homes. | - The case is Haaland v. Brackeen and the plaintiffs are asking the court the strike down the law on the basis of racial discrimination.
| | | The Media | | | | Viral | | | AM/PM | Looking for more analysis in the afternoon? | | Weekday newsletter, PM | | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment