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President Joe Biden announced that womens soccer player Megan Rapinoe will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor for individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.

Rapinoe, an Olympic gold medalist and two-time Womens World Cup champion is a prominent advocate for gender pay equality, racial justice, and LGBTQI+ rights, the White House said. More famously, she has repeatedly kneeled in protest during the playing of the National Anthem.

President Biden has long said that America can be defined by one word: possibilities. These seventeen Americans demonstrate the power of possibilities and embody the soul of the nation hard work, perseverance, and faith, the statement continued. They have overcome significant obstacles to achieve impressive accomplishments in the arts and sciences, dedicated their lives to advocating for the most vulnerable among us, and acted with bravery to drive change in their communities and across the world while blazing trails for generations to come.

Another controversial pick for the medal is late AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, who took the Fifth Amendment to not incriminate himself in his role in the 1996 Teamster election, which was tainted with corruption.

Trumka in 2010 in Anchorage said that there was something just not right with former Gov. Sarah Palin.

Trumka said Palin would go down in history like McCarthy, a reference to Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

Palinism will become an ugly word, Trumka said at an AFL-CIO convention in Anchorage. Who is this woman, anyway? What happened to her?

She used to have a job, your governor. You knew her. Or thought you did. I know I thought I did. She seemed like a decent person, an outdoorswoman. Her husbands a steelworker. She seemed to take some OK stands for working families.And then things got weird. After she tied herself to John McCain and they lost, she blew off Alaska. I guess she figured shed trade up shoot for a national stage. Alaska was too far from the Fox TV spotlight, Trumka said in Anchorage.

Instead, shes hanging out on cable TV, almost a parody of herself, coming out with conspiracy theories about Obama and his death panels. Talking about the real America. Talking about building schools in our neighboring country of Afghanistan. Writing speech notes to herself on her hands. Sometimes about Sarah Palin you just have to laugh. But its not really funny, he said.

He also attacked those who supported Palin: To me, it just doesnt seem OK to go where shes going. It sits wrong with me. The Mama Grizzlies, Sarah Palin says, just sense when somethings not right. Well I wonder if those Mama Grizzlies can sense somethings just not right with her.

He then blamed Palins crazy magnet for pulling Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski to the right.

The National Right to Work Foundation issued a fact sheet about Trumkas history with violent strikes.

As president of the United Mine Workers (UMW) union, Trumka led multiple violent strikes. Trumkas fiery rhetoric often appeared to condone militancy and violence, especially against workers who dared to continue to provide for their families by working during a strike. As a Virginia judge ruled in 1989, violent activities are being organized, orchestrated and encouraged by the leadership of this union,' NRTW wrote.

Take the murder of Eddie York, a nonunion contractor, who was shot in the back of the head and killed while leaving a worksite in 1993. Trumka and other UMW officials were charged in a $27 million wrongful death suit by Eddie Yorks widow. After fighting the suit intensely for four years, UMW lawyers settled suddenly in 1997 just two days after the judge in the case ruled evidence in the criminal trial would be admitted.

Later, as Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, Trumka pleaded the Fifth Amendment before Congress and a court-appointed election monitor over his role in an illegal fundraising schemeto benefit the Teamsters president Ron Careys re-election. Trumka has remained in his position ever since despite an AFL-CIO rule (adopted in 1957) which held that union officials who plead the Fifth have no right to continue to hold office in the union umbrella organization, the group wrote.

Read more about Trumkas history of condoning union violence and corruption in the FoundationsFact Sheet.

The others being awarded the medal, as described by the White House, are:

Simone Biles

Simone Biles is the most decorated American gymnast in history, with a combined total of 32 Olympic and World Championship medals. Biles is also a prominent advocate for athletes mental health and safety, children in the foster care system, and victims of sexual assault.

Sister Simone Campbell

Sister Simone Campbellis a member of the Sisters of Social Service and former Executive Director of NETWORK, a Catholic social justice organization. She is also a prominent advocate for economic justice, immigration reform, and healthcare policy.

Julieta Garca

Dr. Julieta Garca is the former president of The University of Texas at Brownsville, where she was named one ofTimemagazines best college presidents. Dr. Garca was the first Hispanic woman to serve as a college president and dedicated her career to serving students from the Southwest Border region.

Gabrielle Giffords

Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was the youngest woman ever elected to the Arizona State Senate, serving first in the Arizona legislature and later in the U.S. Congress. A survivor of gun violence, she co-founded Giffords, a nonprofit organization dedicated to gun violence prevention.

Fred Gray

Fred Gray was one of the first black members of the Alabama State legislature since Reconstruction. As an attorney, he represented Rosa Parks, the NAACP, and Martin Luther King, who called him the chief counsel for the protest movement.

Steve Jobs(posthumous)

Steve Jobs (d. 2011) was the co-founder, chief executive, and chair of Apple, Inc., CEO of Pixar and held a leading role at the Walt Disney Company. His vision, imagination and creativity led to inventions that have, and continue to, change the way the world communicates, as well as transforming the computer, music, film and wireless industries.

Father Alexander Karloutsos

Father Alexander Karloutsos is the former Vicar General of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. After over 50 years as a priest, providing counsel to several U.S. presidents, he was named by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew as a Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Khizr Khan

Khizr Khanis a Gold Star father and founder of the Constitution Literacy and National Unity Center. He is a prominent advocate for the rule of law and religious freedom and served on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom under President Biden.

Sandra Lindsay

Sandra Lindsayis a New York critical care nurse who served on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic response. She was the first American to receive a COVID-19 vaccine outside of clinical trials and is a prominent advocate for vaccines and mental health for health care workers.

John McCain(posthumous)

John McCain (d. 2018) was a public servant who was awarded a Purple Heart with one gold star for his service in the U.S. Navy in Vietnam. He also served the people of Arizona for decades in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate and was the Republican nominee for president in 2008.

Diane Nash

Diane Nash is a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee who organized some of the most important civil rights campaigns of the 20thcentury. Nash worked closely with Martin Luther King, who described her as the driving spirit in the nonviolent assault on segregation at lunch counters.

Alan Simpson

Alan Simpson served as a U.S. Senator from Wyoming for 18 years. During his public service, he has been a prominent advocate on issues including campaign finance reform, responsible governance, and marriage equality.

Wilma Vaught

Brigadier General Wilma Vaughtis one of the most decorated women in the history of the U.S. military, repeatedly breaking gender barriers as she rose through the ranks. When she retired in 1985, she was one of only seven women generals in the Armed Forces.

Denzel Washington

Denzel Washington is an actor, director, and producer who has won two Academy Awards, a Tony Award, two Golden Globes, and the 2016 Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award. He has also served as National Spokesman for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America for over 25 years.

Ral Yzaguirre

Ral Yzaguirre is a civil rights advocate who served as CEO and president of National Council of La Raza for thirty years. He also served as U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic under President Barack Obama.

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Biden bestows Presidential Medal of Freedom on radical soccer player and deceased union thug - Must Read Alaska

News Editorial Board

Americans who love their country have something both frightening and reassuring to contemplate today, as the nation celebrates the 246th anniversary of its unlikely birth. Playing out before them in dramatic fashion is clear and credible evidence of both the fragility of our democracy and of the kind of steadfast courage that has rallied patriots for almost 2 centuries.

From the violence of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection to the hearings of the Jan. 6 House committee, Americans with open minds are being shown how the democracy won by the soldiers of 1776 can be swept away by an authoritarian who cares only for himself.

But they are also seeing the extraordinary determination of Americans who are in a position to stand up for the country and who then do it. Those individuals are risking their careers, their safety and, in some cases, their reputations, as former President Donald Trump attempts to smear them. Some, as the committee revealed last Tuesday, are telling their truth, despite intimidation by Trumps pack of wolves.

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Look at the courage of Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trumps chief of staff, Mark Meadows. Shes 26 years old and, last Tuesday, was the committees first live witness who was inside the West Wing on Jan. 6. She brought viewers of last Tuesdays hearing into the White House, to the edge of the insurrection and to its immediate aftermath.

She told the committee and the country that Trump knew the crowd at the Jan. 6 insurrection was armed before he sent it streaming to the Capitol, pumped up with lies about a stolen election. She heard Meadows tell White House Counsel Pat Cipollone that Trump agreed with protesters calling to hang Vice President Mike Pence, who had enraged the president by refusing to illegally block the certification of electors for Joe Biden.

She testified that she saw Trumps incendiary tweet attacking Pence at 2:24 p.m., in the midst of the riot. As a staffer that works always to represent the administration to the best of my ability to showcase the good things he had done for the country, I remember feeling frustrated, disappointed ... I was really sad, she told the committee.

As an American, I was disgusted. It was unpatriotic. It was un-American. We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie.

Thats a patriot. Imagine the pressures she set aside to do her duty, not as a Republican or a White House staffer or a defender of Trump, but as an American. Anyone paying attention to the committee has seen that kind of courage before from others who worked for, or were smeared by, the former president. They saw it in two Georgia poll workers whose lives were upended by Trump and his acolytes. Any of them maybe all of them could face new threats because they had the courage and the patriotism to tell the world what they know.

Thats what defending a democracy takes, when the president cares nothing for the democracy. Not everyone has been as brave. Some are too cowardly even to appear. Others show up only to invoke their right against self-incrimination. Among them was Trumps former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Once a general in the United States Army, Flynn couldnt even bring himself to say that he believed in the peaceful transfer of power. As he did with questions about whether the violence on Jan. 6 was morally or legally justified, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment. OK, but not even the peaceful transfer of power? Thats fundamental to the U.S. Constitution. Flynn swore fealty to it in his oath as a soldier. We fought a revolution so we could have it.

This is how our democracy one for which millions have laid down their lives can be lost. Its how this one can still be lost, with the former president continuing to command the loyalty of millions who are willing to be misled willing to support a would-be American despot who lied in an effort to illegally maintain power, who was reluctant to call off the mob that surged into the Capitol and who was content to see his vice president threatened with murder. It was a dark moment in our history.

Thankfully, Americans are also seeing how a democracy can be preserved: by public airing of evidence; by a determined effort to peel back layers of lies and deception; by courageous devotion to the Constitution.

Thats what Americans are seeing in the members of this bipartisan committee and especially among the witnesses who are brave enough and patriotic enough to testify truthfully before an audience of millions, despite the threats many of them have reported.

With them, Americans are being reminded this Independence Day of who they are, where they came from and what they should be celebrating.

Whats your opinion? Send it to us at lettertoeditor@buffnews.com. Letters should be a maximum of 300 words and must convey an opinion. The column does not print poetry, announcements of community events or thank you letters. A writer or household may appear only once every 30 days. All letters are subject to fact-checking and editing.

Get opinion pieces, letters and editorials sent directly to your inbox weekly!

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The Editorial Board: There are patriots among us this Independence Day - Buffalo News

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) The polls were closed in Iowa for less than 48 hours when South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott was shaking hands and posing for pictures with eastern Iowa Republicans at a Cedar Rapids country club last week.

Scott, one of the many Republicans testing their presidential ambitions, hardly has the state to himself.

At least a half-dozen GOP presidential prospects are planning Iowa visits this summer, forays that are advertised as promoting candidates and the state Republican organization ahead of the fall midterm elections. But in reality, the trips are about building relationships and learning the political geography in the state scheduled to launch the campaign for the party's 2024 nomination.

While potential presidential candidates have dipped into Iowa for more than a year, the next round of visits marks a new phase of the ritual. With Iowa's June 7 primary out of the way, Republicans eyeing the White House can step up their travel and not worry about stepping into the state's intraparty rivalries.

Now that its done, its full-bore," state GOP Chairman Jeff Kauffman said. "Its unfettered.

Beyond Scott, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley is expected to visit late this month, and plans to campaign with as many Iowa congressional Republican candidates as she can in a little more than two days.

Haley, who is also the former governor of South Carolina, another early-voting state in the presidential calendar, plans to begin her trip in eastern Iowa on June 29 with first-term Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks. She'll also headline a state GOP fundraiser in Dubuque.

Working from the Mississippi Valley westward, she plans to keynote a fundraiser for Gov. Kim Reynolds. Haley will also campaign with Zach Nunn, chosen to face two-term Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne, who is among the most vulnerable House members this year. Haley's still-fluid schedule also includes attending Rep. Randy Feenstra's annual fundraiser in GOP-heavy western Iowa.

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who visited several times in 2021, is expected the first week in July to speak at the county GOP dinner in Story County in central Iowa.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has visited Iowa more often than any GOP prospect, is working out details for a late summer return, aides said, likely timed to the Iowa State Fair in August, a storied draw for would-be candidates.

Pompeo did endorse Nunn before the primary, a nod to their shared military experience, Pompeo aides said.

The plans also come in light of the Republican National Committee's unanimous decision in April to open the 2024 presidential selection sequence in Iowa, a question still hanging over Iowa Democrats.

In 2020, a smartphone app designed to calculate and report the Democratic caucuses results failed, prompting a telephone backlog that prevented the party from reporting final results for nearly a week after the Feb. 3 contest. The Associated Press announced it was unable to declare a winner after irregularities and inconsistencies marred the results.

Stripped of their automatic special status in April, Iowa Democrats are trying to salvage their leadoff spot with a plan to allow early participation by mail and streamline the sometimes time-consuming process.

With Joe Biden in the White House, Democrats with White House ambitions have largely kept their distance from Iowa.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who won the 2016 caucuses and was the final candidate to drop from the 2020 Democratic contest, was in southeastern Iowa Friday to rally support for United Auto Workers striking at a CNH agricultural machinery plant. Sanders plans, which also included a stop in southeastern Wisconsin, sparked questions about whether the 80-year-old has a third White House bid in mind. He has said he wouldnt challenge Biden if the president sought reelection, and Sanders advisers said there had been no stated changes in his plans.

On the GOP side, Scott's return was not only timely. It reflected the dual aims of these early appearances, part introduction and part demonstration of support for the local party.

The 56-year-old sketched his childhood as one influenced by grandparents who helped raise him. Of his grandfather, Scott said, For a guy who picked cotton in the 1920s, he lived long enough to watch me pick out a seat in the United States Congress.

Sprinkled with lighthearted contrasts of his Southern home and Midwestern hosts, Scott also wasted no time noting he had contributed money from his campaign fundraising account to Iowa Republican candidates, including targeted eastern Iowa GOP House freshmen members Miller-Meeks and Ashley Hinson.

It's going to take us all pulling together," he told a table of about 10 eating barbecue sandwiches, as he worked the dining room before the event.

Even before Scott's arrival, former Vice President Mike Pence was on the phone that day to Chairman Kauffman and Steve Scheffler, Iowa's Republican National Committeeman, to talk about the primaries and the summer ahead, they said.

Pence was planning a summer trip to Iowa, though the date was not yet confirmed, a senior aide to the former vice president said.

Notably missing from the Iowa travel schedule is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, among the most often mentioned rising national Republican figures in conversations with Iowa party activists this year. DeSantis' priority is running for reelection this year, aides said.

I love DeSantis, said Emma Aquino-Nemecek, a Linn County Republican Central Committee member who attended the Tim Scott event. Can you imagine if he comes? He would pack the place."

DeSantis got within shouting distance of Iowa in September, when he helped headline a fundraiser for Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, but he did not cross the Missouri River to touch Iowa soil.

Even more notably missing from the summer schedule so far is former President Donald Trump, who staged a massive rally in Des Moines last year at the Iowa state fairgrounds, and has endorsed several Iowa Republicans.

Kauffman said he had not heard from Trumps team. Likewise, Iowa operatives for Trump did not return messages.

Still, Trump sent signals to Iowa Republicans by paying for print ads in the program circulated at the Iowa Republican Partys state convention Saturday, as did Scott, Pompeo and Florida Sen. Rick Scott.

Scheffler said non-Trump Republicans may feel emboldened in light of Georgia Republicans' resounding rejection in last month's primary elections of the former president's endorsed candidate for governor.

Gov. Brian Kemp won the GOP primary comfortably over David Perdue, whom the former president endorsed after Trump narrowly lost Georgia in the 2020 presidential election, claiming without evidence the results were invalid due to rampant voter fraud.

The speed bump for Trump's influence in the primary elections could signal to other 2024 prospects that the former president is not invincible, Scheffler said.

If Trump keeps making these endorsements and they go south, like he did in Georgia, who knows?" Scheffler said.

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lancasteronline.com

By Antonio Ray Harvey, California Black Media

On June 23, the California Senate rejected a constitutional amendment to remove language in the state Constitution that allows involuntary servitude as punishment to a crime with a 21-6 vote.

The 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865, prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude with one exception: if involuntary servitude was imposed as punishment for a crime.

The state of California is one of nine states in the country that permits involuntary servitude as a criminal punishment.

Article I, section 6, of the California Constitution, describes the same prohibitions on slavery and involuntary servitude and the same exception for involuntary servitude as punishment for crime.

The number of votes cast in favor of Assembly Constitutional Amendment (ACA) 3, the California Abolition Act, fell short of the two-thirds vote requirement needed to move the bill to the ballot for Californians to decide its fate in the November General Election.

The Senate is expected to hold another floor vote on the legislation this week.

Sen. Sydney Kamlager (D-Los Angeles), who authored ACA 3 in 2021 while serving in the Assembly, said she focused the language in the bill on the slavery ban and vowed to bring it back for a vote when Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Gardena), chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus, asked her about it June 23.

The CA State Senate just reaffirmed its commitment to keeping slavery and involuntary servitude in the states constitution, Kamlager tweeted.

Jamilia Land, a member of the Anti-Violence Safety, and Accountability Project (ASAP), an organization that advocates for prisoners rights, said she remains committed to making sure slavery is struck out of the California constitution.

All we needed was 26 votes, Land said. But we have made amendments to ACA 3 on (June 24). Now it could either go back to the Senate on (June 27) or Thursday, June 30.

Five Republicans and one Democrat, Steve Glazer (D-Orinda), voted against the amendment.

He stated that the issue is certainly a question worthy of debate and can be addressed without a constitutional amendment.

Slavery was an evil that will forever be a stain on the history of our great country. We eliminated it through the Civil War and the adoption of the 13th Amendment, Glazer said in a June 23 statement. Involuntary servitude though lesser known also had a shameful past. ACA 3 is not even about involuntary servitude at least of the kind that was practiced 150 years ago. The question this measure raises is whether or not California should require felons in state or local jails prisons to work.

Glazer said that the Legislative Counsels office gave him a simple amendment that involuntary servitude would not include any rehabilitative activity required of an incarcerated person, including education, vocational training, or behavioral or substance abuse counseling.

The Counsel also suggested that the amendment does not include any work tasks required of an incarcerated person that generally benefit the residents of the facility in which the person is incarcerated, such as cooking, cleaning, grounds keeping, and laundry.

Lets adopt that amendment and then get back to work on the difficult challenge of making sure our prisons are run humanely, efficiently and in a way that leads to the rehabilitation of as many felons as possible, Glazer added.

Kamlager says involuntary servitude is a euphemism for forced labor and the language should be stricken from the constitution.

The states Department of Finance (DOF) estimated that the amendment would burden California taxpayers with $1.5 billion annually in wages to prisoners, DOF analyst Aaron Edwards told Senate the Appropriations Committee on June 16.

These are facts that we think would ultimately determine the outcome of future litigation and court decisions, Edwards said. The largest potential impact is to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which currently employs around 65,000 incarcerated persons to support central prison operations such as cooking, cleaning, and laundry services.

Right before the Juneteenth holiday weekend, the appropriations committee sent ACA 3 to the Senate floor with a 5-0 majority vote after Kamlager refuted Edwards financial data.

This country has been having economic discussions for hundreds of years around slavery, involuntary servitude, and indentured servants and enslavement still exists in the prison system, Kamlager said. She also added that a conflict was fought over the moral issue of slavery.

This bill does not talk about economics. Its a constitutional amendment, Kamlager said. The (DOF) is not talking about any of this in this grotesque analysis about why it makes more sense for the state of California to advocate for and allow involuntary servitude in prisons. I think (this conversation) is what led to the Civil War.

Three states have voted to abolish slavery and involuntary servitude Colorado, Utah, and Nebraska and in all three cases, the initiative was bipartisan and placed on the ballot by a unanimous vote of legislators, according to Max Parthas, the co-director of the Abolish Slavery National Network (ASNN).

ACA 3 is already attached to a report that addresses the harms of slavery. The Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans issued its interim report to the California Legislature on June 1.

The report included a set of preliminary recommendations for policies that the California Legislature could adopt to remedy those harms, including its support for ACA 3. It examines the ongoing and compounding harms experienced by African Americans as a result of slavery and its lingering effects on American society today.

One of the preliminary recommendations in our report was to support ACA 3, said Los Angeles attorney Kamilah V. Moore, chairperson of Task Force. The Task Force saw how that type of legislation aligns perfectly with the idea of reparations for African Americans.

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COMMENTARY: Will Cassidy Hutchinson Shame Republicans to Tell the Truth? - Post News Group

Data from the N.C. State Board of Elections show that 41,795 N.C. voters have changed their party affiliation since the beginning of 2022. More than half of those, 23,374, are now unaffiliated voters, instead of a Democrat, Republican, or Libertarian.

Republicans are the only N.C. party to gain more voters than theyve lost so far this year, with nearly 5,000 Democrats becoming Republicans.

Of political parties, Democrats have lost the most voters since January 2022 with nearly 20,000 registered Democrats leaving the party and only 6,253 joining. The data show that of those who left, one quarter (4,999) became Republicans, 14,447 became unaffiliated, and 207 switched to the Libertarian Party.

About 9,830 voters have left Republican affiliation, and 11,341 switched to it. Of the Republican voters who changed their affiliation, most (8,348) became unaffiliated, 1,211 became Democrats, and 271 switched to Libertarian.

Libertarians lost 936 affiliated voters. Of those, 579 became unaffiliated, 220 became Republicans, and 137 became Democrats.

This year seems to have a slight uptick in registration changes when comparing it to the election years of the last decade, said Jim Stirling, research fellow at the John Locke Foundations Civitas Center for Public Integrity. 2020 had a massive number of registration changes, totaling 237,611 changes.This includes the now removed Green and Constitutional parties only having received 2,477 registrant changes.While we may not reach 2020 registration changes, we will likely see a large uptick in registrations as we get closer to November.

There has been speculation that voters are switching parties to manipulate another groups primary race and might switch back in time for the general election.

Short-term party switching is often talked about but is pretty rare in practice, said Andy Jackson, director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity. It was popularized by Rush Limbaughs Operation Chaos in 2008, when he encouraged Republicans to change registration to vote in Democratic presidential primaries. More recently, there was an effort by progressives to change party registration to vote in the Republican 11th Congregssional District primary against Madison Cawthorn.

Only an estimated 2,000 Democrats made the switch in that race, not enough to have swayed the outcome.

North Carolina has more than 7 million registered voters, with about 2.5 million Democrats, 2.2 million Republicans, and 50,000 Libertarians. There is a meeting at the State Board of Elections scheduled for Thursday June 28, that would consider adding the Green Party to N.C. ballots. Controversy has erupted lately, though, that citizens whove signed the Greens petition are being contacted by a group associated with national Democrat operative Marc Elias. The group is encouraging them to remove their names from the petition. If the Green Party is allowed on N.C. ballots for November, it could erode Democrat affiliations even further.

The data illustrate a national trend with more voters switching to the Republican Party ahead of 2022 general elections. Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported that 1 million voters in 43 states have switched to Republican affiliation this year, while only 63,000 switched to become Democrats. AP cited Raleigh as one of the key cities in the study where Republicans are gaining ground.

Democrats are hoping that last weeks U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wades constitutional right to an abortion will change the voter exodus from their party and force Democrats focus onto the state legislative races, where abortion law would now be set.

I think this is an earthquake in the midterms, said N.C. Democrat political strategist Morgan Jackson on Front Row with Marc Rotterman over the weekend, calling it a base motivator.

Both sides of the aisle think the Roe decision from the U.S. Supreme Court could benefit Democrats, with a recent Civitas Poll of likely N.C. voters finding that 40% of respondents identified as pro-life, while 43% of respondents said they are pro-choice. Among women 18-34 years old, 22% say they are pro-life, while 63% say they are pro-choice.

One of the reasons Democrats are having trouble in polls right now is because Democrats are not motivated, Jackson said. This changes all of that.

Republicans are working to wrest control of Congress from Democrats after losing majority power in 2020. They say that historic inflation in food, housing, energy, and gasoline costs combined with dropping wages will set the pace for November elections, giving Republicans the wind at their back. In Junes Civitas poll, only 41% of respondents say they plan on voting for Democrats at the national level and 39% at the state level.

Unaffiliated voters were the second-largest group to change parties, behind Democrats. Of the 11,376 unaffiliated voters to change, 6,122 became Republicans, 4,905 became Democrats, and 349 became Libertarians.

The general election is scheduled for Nov. 8. Voters must be registered by Oct. 14.

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More than 40000 NC voters have changed their political party this year - Carolina Journal