Archive for the ‘Democrats’ Category
Ranking the Democrats who could run for president in 2024
CORRECTION: President Biden will turn 80 later this month. An earlier version of this story included incorrect information.
Democrats bracing for a brutal midterm election instead got a big surprise: Democratic candidates performed much more strongly than many had expected.
The result will likely be one of the strongest performances for a presidents party in a midterm election in history.
All of that is very good news for President Biden, who emerges in a stronger position to run for reelection.
Heres a list of the most likely Democrats to run and win the nomination our first ranking of potential candidates since the midterms.
Biden listens to a speech from Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen during the ASEAN U.S. summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia Nov. 12, 2022.
The Democrat with the strongest chance of winning his partys nomination is clearly Biden.
This likely would have been true even with an average or subpar performance by his party.
He is the sitting president, and sitting presidents are generally nominated by their parties for reelection.
But there have been doubts about Biden running again given his age and his popularity.
Biden will turn 80 next month, and his approval ratings have been consistently underwater for much of the year.
Heading into the midterms, he was seen as a drag on many Democrats, and he did not spent a lot of time in some battleground states and districts.
But Biden and Democratsavoided the red wave that many pundits and strategists predicted, resulting in the president having one of the strongest weeks of his presidency yet.
The midterm results so far have given him some much-needed pep in his step.
His prospects for 2024 are probably the best theyve been throughout his presidency, one Democratic strategist said. He can make the argument that voters largely agree with him and his brand of politics, and hes not wrong.
Asked this week whether the midterm results boosted his case for reelection,Biden said his intention is to run again.
But Im a great respecter of fate, and this is ultimately a family decision, he said at a news conference at the White House on Wednesday.
Some Democrats still arent convinced hes the right guy for 2024.
Exit polls showed that two-thirds of voters dont want him to run for reelection.
Biden has made the case that if former President Trump is the GOP nominee, he can beat him again.
Watch me, he said on Wednesday after a reporter asked what his message is to those who dont want him to run again.
There are also Democrats who think Biden could be vulnerable to another potential GOP challenger: Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who walloped Democratic candidate Charlie Crist by nearly 20 points this week and almost instantly captured the zeitgeist as the GOPs hottest star.
They have to be worried about going up against someone like DeSantis, said a former White House aide to President Obama. How could they not be?
Biden said this week that hell make a decision on a reelection bid by early next year.
Harris speaks at Howard Theatre in Washington on Nov. 10, 2022.
Without fail, the vice presidents name comes up first when Bidens name is taken out of the running.
While Harris had a rocky start as vice president and continues to garner low approval ratings, Democrats say she would still be the go-to if Biden decided not to run again.
Like Biden, Harris benefits from the results of the midterms, strategists say. But at the same time, others continue to worry she hasnt had a strong enough portfolio and platform as vice president.
I think if she ran, she would be challenged by other Democrats, one strategist said. There are lots of people who still think she wouldnt beat a Trump or DeSantis.
Still, Harris is clearly the favorite to be the Democratic standard-bearer after Biden, and the midterm results only strengthened her.
Buttigieg waves as he leaves a canvass kickoff event for Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., on Nov. 6, 2022, in Manchester, N.H.
The Transportation Secretary got a lot of face time with voters as he crisscrossed the country to stump for candidates during the midterms.
In fact, he was one of the most requested surrogates on the trail, according to CNN.
One Democratic strategist explained that while Biden and Harris have suffered publicly with low approval ratings, Buttigieg has been able to stay above the fray.
He got to appear in front of voters and take some credit for all the movement on infrastructure happening in communities all over the country, one strategist said. Win-win for him.
Buttigieg is a rising Democratic star and has had a solid two years in the administration.
But if Biden were to pass on a second term, it may be difficult for him to usurp Harris as the administration favorite.
Whitmer speaks during Election Night on Nov. 8, 2022 in Detroit.
The Michigan governor had one of the best election nights of anyone in the midterms.
Not only did she win by double-digits against a rival endorsed by Trump, but her state turned completely blue, with Democrats now controlling all three branches of state government.
Whitmer has been a little lower on The Hills previous lists, but she emerges from the midterms in a stronger position.
Whitmer was a finalist to be Bidens running mate in 2020 and Democrats say her star is rising more than most in her party.
She was a rising star in 2020 but even more so now, one Democratic consultant said.
Newsom urges voters to turn out and vote YES on Proposition 1 at a rally at Long Beach City College in Long Beach, Calif., on Nov. 6, 2022.
The California governor seems to have something in common with DeSantis: He campaigned on freedom in his state during the election, and it seemed to pay off big, leading him to another gubernatorial victory on Tuesday.
Newsom has caught the attention of Democrats this year mostly for proactively taking DeSantis and other Republicans to task.
In September, he paid for billboards in conservative states including Texas, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Indiana to highlight the point that abortion is still legal in his state.
Hes perceived as strong and hes done well keeping his name in the press, the first strategist said. Keeping your name out there is half the battle.
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Ranking the Democrats who could run for president in 2024
Why Democrats Are Worried About 2024 Senate Elections
Transcript
The next election is still two years away, but if you asked me today who will win the Senate in 2024, I would say Republicans. Why? It doesnt have anything to do with the polls, or the candidates, or the economy. Its because the 2024 Senate map is just really bad for Democrats. Bad map! Bad map!
But what does it even mean for a map to be good or bad, anyway? Whats the deal with the 2024 Senate map?
As you mightve learned in middle school civics, the Senate has 100 members two from each state. So unlike the House, whose districts can get redrawn and gerrymandered to within an inch of their lives, the Senate map should always be the same, right?
Wrong! Because everything has to be complicated in American politics, senators serve six-year terms, and theyre staggered which means only about one-third of Senate seats are on the ballot every two years. And the seats that just happen to be up in a given year can give a big advantage to one party.
In 2024, that party is Republicans. And thats simply because Democrats are defending a lot more seats. Of the 34 Senate seats up for election in 2024, Democrats (including independents who caucus with Democrats) currently hold 23, while Republicans hold only 11. Thats much worse for Democrats than some recent election cycles. Take 2022, when Republicans were defending 21 Senate seats and Democrats were defending just 14. Or look at 2020, when Republicans were defending 23 seats and Democrats were defending just 12.
But its not enough to just look at how many seats each party is defending; it wouldnt be such a big deal if those Democratic seats were all in safely blue states. Thats why I invented a metric called FRITZ seats, named after former Democratic Sen. Fritz Hollings of South Carolina. FRITZ stands for fighting races in terrible zones, and a FRITZ seat is when a party is defending a seat in enemy territory like a Democratic senator in a red state.
By this metric, the 2024 Senate map is even worse for Democrats. They have a whopping eight FRITZ seats up for election next year. That includes some of the usual swing states like Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But it also includes some redder states like Arizona and Ohio. Democrats even have two senators up for reelection in very red states: Joe Manchin in West Virginia and Jon Tester in Montana.
On the flip side, the GOP has zero FRITZ seats on the ballot in 2024. The bluest states Republicans are defending are Florida and Texas, and theyre pretty red.
So its simple math here, really. There are eight Democratic seats that Republicans could plausibly flip in 2024, whereas Democrats would be lucky to flip even two. And remember, Democrats currently have only a 51-49 majority in the Senate, meaning Republicans need to flip just two more seats than Democrats to gain control (or, if they win the White House, just one seat, since the vice president is the tie-breaking vote).
Of course, cartography isnt destiny. Pretty much everything else about the 2024 election is still up in the air, like who runs, or which way the political winds will be blowing. Anything can happen. But on paper, Republicans start out with a big advantage.
Originally posted here:
Why Democrats Are Worried About 2024 Senate Elections
Democrats pounce on GOP woke-waste attacks | The Hill
The culture wars have entered the budget battle, as GOP leaders take aim at woke spending and Democrats push back with charges of bigotry.
Democrats are pouncing as Republicans sharpen their focus on what they call woke-waste in the federal budget, targeting programs ranging from funds for transgender immigrants in Los Angeles to a nature trail named for Michelle Obama in Georgia.
The items were included in a list unveiled earlier this month by Republicans on the House Budget Committee, which identified areas of wasteful spending GOP leaders are hoping to eliminate as part of their broader goal of balancing the budget within a decade.
Republicans are defending the focus on wokeness, saying theyre working to safeguard taxpayers from a federal government thats abused its authority with efforts to promote equity and inclusion, typically on issues of race, gender and sexuality.
Yet Democrats see something more sinister, accusing GOP leaders of targeting minority benefit programs, not because theyre expensive, but because the fight energizes their conservative base.
Its very exemplary of their approach, which is a blend of cutting support to working-class families while also lacing in bigotry and racism, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a member of the liberal Squad, said. The real goal, she added, is to distract from the actual economic impact, negative economic impact, that theyre having on working families.
The Republican attacks on so-called wokeism are hardly new. GOP leaders have, for years, accused Democrats in both the White House and Congress of pushing an agenda that both exaggerates the prevalence of racism in America and oversteps in employing governments at all levels to take it on.
The criticism has targeted agencies as varied as the Pentagon, the IRS and the Department of Education, touching on issues as diverse as military readiness, financial literacy and the teaching of American history. Some charge that deep-state liberals are hellbent on indoctrinating students, soldiers and the public at large with the teachings of critical race theory a legal theory that has become a shorthand of sorts for any education centered on race.
Since taking control of the House last month, Republicans have extended those arguments with a series of bills designed to combat a wokeness that has swept our country, in the words of Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.).
The coming budget debate will be the next battleground in that fight, and Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) previewed the Republicans anti-woke strategy with the recent release of his spending cuts wish list.
Among the targeted items are about $6.6 million in funds under a section labeled stop woke-waste, which singles out a handful of programs on the chopping block, like $750,000 for Transgender and Gender nonconforming and Intersex (TGI) immigrant women in Los Angeles, $1.2 million for LGBTQIA+ Pride Centers, and $3.6 million to expand a hiking trail named after Michelle Obama in Decatur, Ga. The spending was greenlit by Congress as part of a $1.7 trillion bipartisan omnibus last year, a bill opposed by all but nine House Republicans.
Republicans who support the cuts see the programs as a misuse of taxpayer dollars. Some Democrats, on the other hand, see those targets as a form of dog whistle as Republicans use their new majority to pass a series of messaging bills and galvanize conservatives ahead of the 2024 elections.
I think they cut the line pretty close to maybe cross the line when it comes to trying to disguise racism with something else, said Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), who serves on the House Budget Committee. I think thats what it is.
Arringtons office did not respond to requests for comment.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), as part of the marathon balloting that won him the gavel last month, had promised a group of far-right critics that House Republicans would seek to balance the budget within a decade. And the Budget Committee, charged with outlining the parameters of federal spending, will launch that process in the coming weeks with the release of its budget blueprint.
They have their work cut out.
The federal deficit for the current fiscal year is projected to be $1.4 trillion. And the woke projects Republicans are targeting are all relatively small-budget items. GOP leaders would have to cut roughly 389,000 Michelle Obama hiking trails, for instance, to bring the budget to balance a dynamic that hasnt been overlooked by Democrats critical of the Republicans budget strategy.
Its absolutely not meaningful at all, except to the people and the agencies that are going to get cut, and Im concerned about that, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), also a member of the House Budget Committee, said. Its not even budget dust, to take that kind of money away.
The GOPs focus on wokeness in the federal budget comes as Republicans face rising pressure to unify behind potential fiscal reforms amid larger funding talks around the debt limit.
Beyond calls for steep reductions to government spending, Republicans have been clashing over which items should be on the table for possible cuts in recent weeks amid a party-wide campaign to use the nations debt limit as leverage to extract concessions from Democrats.
The party has seen divisions in both chambers over where to cut, with different factions butting heads over proposals to scrutinize dollars for the Pentagon, as well as whether efforts to reform entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, which account for a massive chunk of federal spending, should also be factored into talks.
But as Republican leaders work to get members on the same page, there has been some agreement to go after woke spending, even amid a larger conversation in the GOP around areas to potentially trim in the Pentagon budget.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) signaled support for the push, while taking aim at what he called a pretty aggressive approach by the Pentagon in recent years to conduct trainings that are more in line with diversity, equity and inclusion, which is the buzzword today.
I think that, obviously, a lot of that training is both not good for the military and also a waste of money, he said. So, I certainly think there are line items in the budget. I dont know how much they add up to, but I think theres certainly something to cut there.
Democrats, though, have different ideas, accusing Republicans of throwing red meat to their base, for political reasons, while ignoring much more consequential issues. With Democrats controlling both the White House and the Senate, theyre warning that the GOPs focus on wokeness is a dead-end.
Its a distraction from the issues that the majority of Americans actually care about, Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said. This is a waste of time [that] will go absolutely nowhere in this Congress.
Original post:
Democrats pounce on GOP woke-waste attacks | The Hill
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