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Theres abipartisanconsensus that the Democrats' "stunning turnaround" in recent polls has a lot to do with abortion. Pewfoundthat from March to August the percentage who said abortion was "very important" for the 2022 elections went from 43% to 56%. And during that time 538recordedRepublicans going from the 2.1% lead in the genetic ballot over Democrats to a 0.9% deficit.

Abortion rights activists were ready to pounce as soon asDobbswas decided. Much aswhat happened in Ireland when abortion activists there defeated their pro-life constitution, U.S. abortion activists have cynically seized on very rare (though admittedly difficult) cases involving the life and health of pregnant women trying to paint a picture of massive numbers of women dying of laws protecting prenatal justice.

But Irish law defended prenatal children as legal persons for decades, and they still hadbetter health outcomes for women than their abortion-permissive neighbor, England.Polandhas the lowest rate of maternal mortality in all of Europe despite having some of the strictest laws against abortion.Chileactually saw their maternal health numbersimproveafter they banned most abortions.

RUBIO RESPONDS TO DEMINGS' COMMENTS, ACCUSES DEM OPPONENT OF SUPPORTING ABORTION 'AT ANY POINT'

If U.S. pro-lifers had been ready for the activist onslaught, we could have been creating a (true) counter-narrative about the fact that pro-life hospitals andOB/GYNs are 100% committed to saving the lives of women.

Graffiti and red paint found at Washington, DCs Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center. (Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center) (Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center)

But not all the blame lies with activists. It is difficult to create a national counter-narrative, frankly, when the supposedly pro-life national party is running scared.

Much attention was focused on the House special election for New Yorks 19thDistrict. Asreported by Axios, the Democrat centered his campaign on abortion while the Republican ran away from the issue, focusing on the economy and crime. The Democrat won by the same margin Biden carried the district (two points) in 2020 just the latest evidence that the expected red wave may be turning into a trickle.

But what if Republicans in New York focused on the fact that the Empire State, after the passage of the Reproductive Health Act, is a haven for some of the worst abortion extremism in the entire world? What if Republicans all over the United States had a coherent campaign focusing on the fact that the Democratic Party itself stands for this same kind of extremism?

Back in 2016 I wrote ajoint op-edin theLos Angeles Timesshowing that the partys position was unequivocal support for abortion, with a pledge to repeal all state and federal laws restricting it. They even insisted that abortion was "core to womens, mens, and young peoples health and wellbeing." They removed protections for religious freedom and insisted pro-lifers should have to pay for abortions with our tax dollars.

This position is about the most unpopular position one could take on almost any issue.

Gallupconsistently finds, for instance, that about 8-13% of Americans want no legal restrictions on abortion after 24 weeks. To put this into perspective, theworst approval rating for a presidentbelonged to Harry Truman: 22%.

The Democratic position on abortion isalmost twiceas unpopular as the most unpopular president in our history. If you cant run against the Democrats on abortion, then you cant run against them on anything.

Here are just a handful of suggestions for the GOP to make the easy case against their opponents:

The Democratic position on abortion isalmost twiceas unpopular as the most unpopular president in our history.

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The GOP has been feckless on abortion for decades. Who could forget, for instance,Republican Timothy Murphy trying to coerce his mistress into having an abortion despite his being a member of the congressional pro-life caucus! Pro-lifers, therefore, have good reason to be skeptical about selling out to a party for short-term political gain especially when we have clear incentives to play the long game in order to win the political culture.

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This fact comes a warning for a cowardly GOP: if you keep this up, pro-lifers will either stay home or turn elsewhere in November. You must prove that you will publicly and confidentially defend a pro-life positionnot just on social media or in fundraising mailers but in a post-Dobbs moment when your position actually matters in the real world.

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If Republicans can't run against Democrats on abortion, they can't run against them on anything - Fox News

Colorado Rep. Ed Perlmutter is one of 31 House Democrats retiring or seeking another office this year.

Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Democrats are feeling pretty buoyant these days. Last week, they won a highly competitive special election in New Yorks 19th Congressional District, which came on the heels of other stronger-than-expected special election performances since the Supreme Courts June 24 decision to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion. And earlier this month, pro-abortion rights forces turned back a state constitutional amendment in Kansas that would have allowed for an abortion ban there. Finally, the two parties are also running neck and neck in generic ballot polling, which asks voters whether they plan to vote for the Democratic candidate or the Republican candidate this fall, after Republicans led by about 2 percentage points prior to the Dobbs ruling.

Yet if we zero in on the House, the overall terrain is still quite favorable to the GOP. After all, FiveThirtyEights 2022 midterm election forecast still gives Republicans about a better than 3 in 4 shot of capturing the lower chamber.

The GOP has lost ground in the forecast since June, but its continued edge comes down to factors such as geography (Democrats are concentrated in metropolitan areas), redistricting (Republicans once again have more favorable seats) and history (the presidents party almost always loses House seats in midterms).

But theres one more factor that could really help Republicans this fall: More Democrats than Republicans are leaving the House, either via retirement or to run for another office. Overall, 31 Democrats are departing, compared with just 18 Republicans. To be sure, this is a common midterm trend House members from the presidents party tend to leave Congress in greater numbers because the midterms usually go poorly for their side. But Republicans need to flip just four seats to gain a majority in the House, and its possible GOP victories in seats left behind by outgoing Democrats will account for at least that many. The table below lays out the most competitive districts that these Democrats and Republicans wont be contesting.

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives who are retiring or seeking another office ahead of the 2022 midterm elections who would likely have run in competitive congressional districts, by the seat they would have been most likely to run in and the partisan lean of that district

*In February, Deutch announced he wouldnt seek another term and would resign from his seat this fall.

The partisan lean is based on the district maps that will be used in the 2022 election, with outgoing representatives assigned to the seat that they most likely would have run in had they sought reelection. Partisan lean is the average margin difference between how a state or district votes and how the country votes overall. This version of partisan lean, meant to be used for congressional and gubernatorial elections, is calculated as 50 percent the state or districts lean relative to the nation in the most recent presidential election, 25 percent its relative lean in the second-most-recent presidential election and 25 percent a custom state-legislative lean based on the statewide popular vote in the last four state House elections.

Source: House of Representatives

Not every House departure gives Republicans a leg up, as most districts are relatively safe for one party, which you can see at the end of this article where we present the data for all 49 outgoing members. However, if we look at the most competitive districts that are up for election defined as having partisan leans between D+15 and R+15 we can clearly see that Democrats were more likely to have abandoned these seats than Republicans. In total, 13 Democrats left these kinds of seats versus just five Republicans, which means more Democratic-held seats are now in danger. Incumbency isnt nearly as strong of an electoral boon as it was in the past, but its still likely that Democratic incumbents would have outperformed a replacement-level nominee from their party.

To put this into context, I looked back at the terrain in 2018, when Democrats won 40 seats to take back the House amid a strongly pro-Democratic environment. That year, far more Republicans (39) than Democrats (18) retired or sought another office; however, there wasnt quite the same pattern in Republicans vacating competitive turf Republicans left 14 seats open with a partisan lean between D+15 and R+15, while Democrats left 10. But thanks to the especially strong environment for Democrats, who won the House popular vote by almost 9 percentage points, Democrats captured 11 of those 14 formerly Republican seats while losing just two of the other 10.

Compared with 2018, though, the 2022 generic ballot polling points to a far more competitive environment, which means Republicans cant count on sweeping these competitive seats. (Although, we should note that the generic ballot tends to underestimate Republicans.) That said, this cycles Democratic departures have still presented Republicans with a number of flippable seats.

To name a few: Arizonas independent redistricting commission shifted the states southeastern district to the right, and while Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick retired well before the map was finalized, Democrats might wish shed stuck around to defend an R+7 seat that now looks like a good bet to go Republican. Meanwhile, Democratic Rep. Ron Kinds GOP-leaning 3rd District in western Wisconsin didnt change much in redistricting, but Kinds close 2020 victory over Republican Derrick Van Orden suggested itd be tough to hold, and with the 13-term incumbent now retiring, Van Orden looks favored to win the seat this November. Finally, in western Illinois, Democratic mapmakers actually made Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustoss 17th District bluer it shifted from R+5 to D+4 but Bustos had already announced her retirement, and now the seat is rated as a toss-up in our forecast with Bustoss 2020 opponent, Republican Esther Joy King, facing Democrat Eric Sorensen.

Its true that Democrats are also slight favorites in some competitive seats their incumbents left behind, but those districts are far from safe especially if the environment gets better for the GOP as we get into the fall, which often happens for the out party in midterm elections.

Failed runs for higher office by Reps. Conor Lamb (U.S. Senate) and Tom Suozzi (governor) have still left marginally Democratic-leaning seats open in Pennsylvanias 17th District and New Yorks 3rd District. Meanwhile, Colorado Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter announced his retirement from the suburban-Denver-based 7th District after the states independent redistricting commission made it a D+6 seat. As such, its favored to remain Democratic, although it is still far more competitive than it would have been under the old D+15 lines. Finally, in eastern North Carolina, Democratic Rep. G.K. Butterfield left behind the states 1st District when the GOP-controlled legislature erased its Democratic-leaning advantage, but the court-drawn map that replaced the legislatures lines gave Democrats a bit of a reprieve, giving the formerly D+7 seat a partisan lean of D+5.

There are limits to incumbency, though, as its unlikely incumbency would have saved Democrats chances in four seats in Florida, Ohio and Tennessee, where Republican-drawn maps have probably ensured GOP wins. For instance, Reps. Charlie Crist and Stephanie Murphys seats sharply shifted to the right in Florida, while Rep. Tim Ryans seat was obliterated in Ohio and Rep. Jim Coopers Nashville-area seat swung all the way from D+17 to R+15. (As some of these districts fell outside the competitive range, you can see some of these members in the table below.)

Republicans, meanwhile, just dont have as many departures that threaten GOP control. Just two seats in New York might cost Republicans: Rep. John Katkos seat in the 22nd, which has a slight Democratic lean, though Katko had prevailed under these conditions before, and Rep. Lee Zeldins seat in the 1st District, which ultimately retained a partisan lean of R+5 and is somewhat favored to remain in GOP hands.

All told, were not talking about a huge number of seats affected by departures this year, but every seat counts in a political universe with fewer swing seats and more dark-blue and dark-red turf. Moreover, the disproportionate number of Democratic departures and the fact that many have come in potentially competitive seats could give the GOP a boost in November. Republicans only need to flip four seats to gain the barest of majorities, so anything that bolsters their chances is meaningful.

Here is the full list of all 49 outgoing members:

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives who are retiring or seeking another office ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, by the district they likely would have sought reelection in and the partisan lean of that seat

*In February, Deutch announced he wouldnt seek another term and would resign from his seat this fall.

The partisan lean is based on the district maps that will be used in the 2022 election, with outgoing representatives assigned to the seat that they most likely would have run in had they sought reelection. Partisan lean is the average margin difference between how a state or district votes and how the country votes overall. This version of partisan lean, meant to be used for congressional and gubernatorial elections, is calculated as 50 percent the state or districts lean relative to the nation in the most recent presidential election, 25 percent its relative lean in the second-most-recent presidential election and 25 percent a custom state-legislative lean based on the statewide popular vote in the last four state House elections.

Source: House of Representatives

More:
More Democrats Are Leaving The House And That Could Help Republicans Win - FiveThirtyEight

On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre received a question from a reporter asking for the Biden administration's response to newly released reports indicating significant learning loss for the nation's schoolchildren over the course of the pandemic, specifically in the realms of math and reading.

"What is the administration going to do about this severe learning loss, and does the administration shoulder any blame for not pushing schools to reopen sooner?" asked the reporter.

"Let's step back to where we were not too long ago when this president walked into this administration, how mismanaged the response to the pandemic was," replied Jean-Pierre. In under six months, she says, schools in the nation went from being about 46 percent open to nearly all of them being openbut this is due more to the function of time passing since the onset of the pandemic and to the rollout of vaccines than a specific action by a presidential administration.

"That was the work of this president and that was the work of Democrats in spite of Republicans not voting for the American Rescue Planwhich $130 billion went to school to have the ventilation to be able to have the tutoring and the teachers and be able to hire more teachers. And that was because of the work this administration did," added Jean-Pierre, who richly noted that "schools were not open, the economy was shut down, businesses were shut down."

"It shows you how mismanaged the pandemic was," she said, adding herself to the growing list of Democrats who have tried this week to distance their party and themselves from prior support of lockdowns.

Jean-Pierre, of course, neglected to say which party led the charge on shutting schools and the economy down, littering her response with debunkable revisionism. So fact-checkers at major publications hurried to add context to her remarks and correct the record.

Just kidding! Nary a fact-check graced the pages of major publications by Friday morning. Instead, conservative pundits and journalists took to Twitter with screenshots of headlines to remind people which party so fervently opposed school reopening throughout 2020 and much of 2021, even after more information had quickly emerged about COVID risk to kids and other countries' experiments in resuming in-person schooling.

Jean-Pierre's comments attempt to sweep under the rug the anti-reopening lefty consensus that dominated news media for so many months of the pandemic. CNN's Chris Cillizza, for example, wrote about "the very clear dangers of Donald Trump's push to reopen schools" in July 2020. "Trump pushes and threatens in bid to fully reopen schools," wroteThe Washington Post's Laura Meckler that same month. It wasn't just that reporters and public health experts had concerns about Trump's disinterest in well-placed COVID mitigation measures; it was that the industry as a whole carried an awful lot of water for the pro-lockdown side while broadly failing to pay attention to the obvious, predictable consequenceslearning loss, increased deaths of despair, economic hardship for business ownersthat anti-lockdowners had been warning about.

"NPR and other national news outlets were not chock-full of stories about the ways remote learning exacerbated existing inequities," wrote Mary Katharine Ham forReasonlast month. "Public radio didn't send warnings in its sonorous tones commensurate with what [reporter Anya] Kamenetz knew was generational damage, hitting poor and minority students hardest. It didn't extensively profile the politically and ethnically diverse coalition of parents who fought for a year to open urban and suburban schools' doors. It didn't press large districts and teachers union leaders about their insistence on staying closed while the rest of the world opened safely."

"Across the country, teachers unions did everything they could to stop reopening," detailed Peter Suderman in Reason's March 2021 issue. "In July, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten threatened 'protests,' 'grievances or lawsuits,' and even 'safety strikes.' The following month in Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot reversed a plan to partially reopen schools two days after the Chicago Teachers Unionwhich went on strike in 2019marched against resuming in-person instruction."

Let's not forget the body bag protests (done by Washington, D.C.'s teachers union) and obituary templates (distributed by Arizona's teachers union) so creatively concocted by teachers who, after all these antics, got to hop to the front of the vaccine line in many statesa concession offered by public health authorities in hopes that schools would be able to reopen faster if teachers were vaccinated. This did not satisfy all the unions pushing to remain closed, and some school districts, like San Francisco's, refused to reopen until August 2021.

It makes sense that Jean-Pierre, the mouthpiece of the administration, would be interested in clearing her party's name in advance of the midterm elections. It makes no sense why the news media, teeming with fact-checkers, hasn't hurried to call this nonsense out.

See the original post:
White House: School Reopening 'Was the Work of Democrats In Spite of Republicans' - Reason

The Biden administration is closing out a summer of tremendous legislative accomplishments. From a bipartisan gun-responsibility package to the Inflation Reduction Act and a push to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to American shores, Biden and Congressional Democrats have managed to pass a thick docket of laws that pundits in January 2022 would have sworn were outright impossible.

But in the months of secret negotiations between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Joe Manchin that eventually turned President Biden's huge Big Back Better bill into the leaner Inflation Reduction Act, a number of important economic policies, including quality, affordable childcare and a federal paid family and medical leave, were cut.

Those popular policies should be moved to the top of the priority list for Democrats moving forward. After all, if they've learned anything over the last month of victories, it's that doing popular things is popular.

We saw in the early days of the pandemic that the American economy collapses if families don't have access to quality, affordable childcare.

More than 2 million women almost half of whom were women of color dropped out of the workforce in 2020, when lockdowns shuttered schools and children had to stay home. And while that's the most dramatic and obvious representation of how important childcare is to a functioning workforce, millions of women have for decades paid the economic cost of our nation's lack of basic support for families with children.

A recent World Economic Forum report showed that 80% of the gender pay gap is made up of the "motherhood penalty," in which women's paychecks start to shrink compared to their male peers after they have children.

Policies enacting or subsidizing quality, affordable childcare would help close the gender pay gap in two ways: First, its reliability would level the playing field between working mothers and men who aren't stereotypically expected to sacrifice their jobs for parenthood in the same way that women are. And second, the Build Back Better Act expanded access to preschool and limited costs of childcare while also raising the wages of childcare providers 95% of whom are women.

A federal paid-family-leave program, on the other hand, would make it easier for parents to stay home with sick children. But the long-term effects of the policy could also change millions of lives: Studies have shown that paid family leave could lower the amount of infant deaths per year, lower the risk of poverty for mothers, and increase the average household income. It would also allow more women to fully participate in the economy, creating jobs with their consumer spending.

And if lawmakers were serious about improving outcomes for all children, they would also revive the child tax credit, which cut child poverty by nearly 30%. This program, which sent every parent monthly payments of $250 to $300 per child, immediately raised almost 3 million children out of poverty, making it one of the most efficient and successful antipoverty programs in United States history.

In order to show real progress to the American people, Democratic lawmakers were forced to make compromises with their own trickle-down colleagues. But just because Schumer couldn't get Manchin to agree on the importance of economically empowering women and providing quality care to all children doesn't mean that Democrats should give up on these policies. By ensuring that families can afford to have children, and that women can participate fully in the workforce without being penalized for their motherhood, Democrats will invest in the future by building an economy that truly works for everyone.

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Democrats need to push more policies on childcare and paid leave - Business Insider

With just a little more than two months to go before the 2022 midterm elections, one issue is emerging as a top turnout driver. And if Democrats do the historically unimaginable in November, staving off what was predicted to be an off-year Republican bloodbath, we can likely trace the root cause back to one fateful night in the spring of 2022.

On May 2 at 8:32 p.m., Politico published a leaked draft of the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization that would overturn Roe v. Wade and nearly 50 years of what was considered law of the land.

That moment, followed by the courts final overturning of Roe in June, changed the political landscape for both parties in a midterm election year that was looking likely to be like any other, in which the party in power is punished at the ballot box.

And there were plenty of reasons for voters to want to punish Democrats even forgetting all the nonsensical, conspiratorial, own-the-libs reasons animating the MAGA-world crowd.

Record-high gas and consumer goods prices, inflation, supply-chain stagnation, a looming recession, an immigration crisis at the southern border, a bungled Afghanistan pullout, and several big-ticket legislative losses had President Joe Bidens approval rating at a measly 35% in January.

Fast-forward to now, when Bidens approval is at 44% his highest in a year and mostly due to rising support among independents.

While he can certainly thank lower gas prices and some other political wins, including passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, for the boost, the overturning of Roe v. Wade and subsequent attempts to effectively ban abortions in numerous states is benefiting Democrats all over the country, and in some cases for the first time.

In Michigan, Democrats are leading in the gubernatorial race, and a new poll finds that abortion is the top issue voters are contemplating.

In Georgia, a recent poll found that more than half of voters do not support the states new abortion law banning most abortions around six weeks of pregnancy, and Democrats there are hoping the issue can bring them over the finish line.

In California, abortion is emerging as a driving issue, as a whopping 81% of voters list it as very important, a full quarter higher than the national rate.

In Texas Texas! Democratic gubernatorial nominee Beto ORourkes first ads of the general election cycle focus on his states archaic abortion restrictions. One ad features a damning poll showing only 13% of Texas voters said they supported no exceptions in cases of rape.

And for the first time, abortion is among the top five issues of concern to Latino voters, according to a new poll, with more than 70% saying abortion should be legal, regardless of their personal beliefs.

All of this coincides, unsurprisingly, with an improvement in the Democrats odds of keeping the Senate. FiveThirtyEights predictor now gives them a 64% chance, up from 50% a few weeks ago.

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For all the giddiness among many right-wing lawmakers and personalities at the courts decision to overturn Roe, it was clear from the get-go that this would be bad for Republicans. Thats because, unlike many other hot-button issues, American support for access to legal abortion has remained practically unchanged for decades.

From 1976, when Gallup first started polling abortion, to 2022, a comfortable majority of Americans have agreed abortion should be legal, with some restrictions.

That group was at 54% in 1976 and is now at 50%, 46 years later. In between, it reached as high as 61% and as low as 48%, but always remained the dominant opinion.

In contrast, the number of Americans who believe abortion should be illegal in all circumstances has decreased, from 22% in 1976 to 13% in 2022. That group has remained the minority since 1978.

And the number of Americans who believe abortion should be legal with no restrictions went up, from 21% in 1976 to 35% in 2022.

So, the majority of Americans have not changed their views on abortion, and where they have, theyve grown more comfortable with it, not less.

The courts overturning of Roe left Republicans with two choices: support the ruling and risk losing moderates, independents and even some Republican voters, or oppose it and risk losing a minority of American voters who have no other party to support. Republicans chose the former.

Now theyre tied to a very unpopular decision and in some cases are responsible for implementing it in states like Texas and Georgia.

Theres no doubt in my mind that Democrats can beat the odds and keep the Senate and maybe even the House in a year they were supposed to lose both. And if they do, Republicans can yet again blame Donald Trump, and his three Supreme Court appointees.

S.E. Cupp is the host of S.E. Cupp Unfiltered on CNN.

2022 S.E. Cupp. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Here is the Democrats' real November abortion advantage | Column - Tampa Bay Times