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The Pelosi October Surprise notwithstanding, the Red wave continues to come rushing towards shore, it’s exact size upon impact still not fully understood by anyone.
But even most Democrats will tell you it will be sizeable.
By Friday, the course of most of the competitive races will be set, so there are just a handful of days left for both sides to hit with their best shots.
Given we are a week out, there is shockingly little news reporting out there about the campaign, with a handful of notable exceptions, including some new New York Times Senate polls (which are old!) and this Washington Post story with some clever reporting about the closing messages, in which the paper says there is
[G]rowing Republican confidence about winning back control of the House and the Senate on Nov. 8, and rising concerns among Democrats about blue states such as Washington, and battleground congressional districts within them, being at greater risk of turning red compared with earlier in the year. Republicans also have recalibrated their closing pitches, focusing more aggressively on crime, according to a review of ad data, an issue they have run on but see as especially potent down the stretch.
While Democrats still put abortion at the forefront of their campaign and Republicans continue to hammer them over rising prices, the strategies reflect a belief in both parties near the end of the campaign that other issues could factor heavily into tight races with dwindling pools of undecided voters….
Helen Kalla, a spokeswoman for the DCCC, argued Democrats have “succeeded in defining Republicans as antiabortion extremists.” She added, “We know that the right to abortion is not the only issue at stake in this election, which is why it’s also important to communicate to voters about Republicans’ extreme views and their plans to gut Social Security and Medicare.” Recent updates to Democratic guidance in several other races also have removed or de-emphasized abortion in favor of other messages — though many of those messages were already in rotation.
The shift in the Democratic attacks comes as the economy remains Americans’ top concern and as Democrats look for ways to counter GOP arguments on the issue. Republicans have regularly blamed Democrats for the sharp rise in prices on their watch.
Nationally, the share of Democratic ads in races up and down the ballot mentioning abortion has ticked down 10 percentage points from a high mark of close to 50 percent in early October, according to AdImpact, which tracks commercials. A growing number of party strategists and candidates have warned that a narrow focus on the issue will not be enough to withstand the stiff head winds the party is confronting….
And this:
Democratic candidates in closely contested races have been talking more about Social Security and Medicare in the past few weeks, according to a Washington Post analysis of their social media posts, newsletters and TV ads. President Biden sharply warned last week that a Republican-controlled Congress would be a threat to Social Security and Medicare.
Former president Barack Obama also lingered on Social Security at a rally Saturday for Democratic candidates in Wisconsin, drawing extended applause. “They worked hard jobs for it,” he said of people on Social Security. “They have chapped hands for it.”
For their part, Republicans have increasingly poured money into ads on crime, the AdImpact data shows. Even as many GOP campaigns have been running on the issue for months, the party has more fully saturated the airwaves in the final stretch: Nationwide, the weekly share of GOP ads mentioning crime hit 34 percent the week of Oct. 25 — the highest tally of the entire election cycle, except for a period in March.
So, how does each side see the final days?
Here is a fiery stew of reporting, analysis, spin, conventional wisdom, and truthiness; you get to decide which is what:
WHAT DEMOCRATS ARE COUNTING ON TO LIMIT THE OUTCOME TO A MINI SHELLACKING
* Abortion: Still an issue Democrats believe is providing emotional pull, with a secret vote among Republican and independent women.
* Barack Obama: Politico compares him to Superman, and he certainly can drive the news cycle unlike anyone else.
* Donald Trump: He might have his head (mostly) down, but Democrats are invoking him to get their folks energized.
* Salvage a few key ones: Democrats are still on track to win gubernatorial contests in places such as Kansas and Pennsylvania, which will at a minimum provide them some talking points.
* Saving the Senate: The fact that it is plausible that Democrats can keep majority control is testament more to candidate quality (on both sides) than anything iffy about the environment, but it is what it is. Tim Ryan could still win in Ohio, for instance.
And this quote from a GOPer is true (via Politico):
Chris Mottola, a Republican consultant, described the state of play in the top Senate battlegrounds as “a lot of coin flips.”
“It’s murkier than usual because of the bizarre nature of a number of races,” he said. “At this point, races are usually baked in.”
And here are those New York Times Senate polls:
Since Joe Biden’s approval ratings are not going up dramatically this week, this is key:
For Democrats, much of their success will depend on whether their Senate candidates can continue to rise above President Biden’s low approval ratings and the national environment. Mr. Biden’s standing is at or below his national average in the four states, with the president at 36 percent in Arizona, 38 percent in Nevada, 39 percent in Georgia and 42 percent in Pennsylvania.
In all the races surveyed, the candidates outpace the president, with Mr. Kelly beating Mr. Biden’s approval rating by 15 points and winning nearly one-quarter of the people who disapprove of Mr. Biden’s job performance in the state. Mr. Fetterman is the closest to the president, but still ahead of him by eight points.
* Candidate quality: Mitch McConnell was right. Oz’s fav/unfav remains horrible; Herschel Walker, J.D. Vance, and Blake Masters are all flawed in their own ways. Democrats can still pick up a seat (or two!) here.
* Excessive Republican ambition: It is possible Team Red has gotten greedy and spread its money around to races that are, in the end, not winnable, thereby indirectly hindering their chances in more flippable seats.
* Candidate money: Although Republican party committees and outside groups are flush, Democratic candidates still are raking in the dough, allowing them to protect themselves more efficiently.
* A better turnout operation: Might be true or not, but Democrats say it is (again, via Politico)
Democrats are hoping another factor that can help them outpace the dour national mood is a solid ground game. Sen. Gary Peters, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said that it has invested “significantly” in its get-out-the-vote operation.
* Early voting: As written here before, beware overinterpretation of these numbers, but it is not impossible that Democrats are banking votes now that will be dispositive in some contests.
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WHY THE WAVE SEEMS LARGE
* History: ‘nuff said.
* The environment (again, again, via Politico):
“The movement has been to Republicans,” said Neil Oxman, a Pennsylvania-based Democratic strategist, referring to Senate and House contests. “Because the Biden administration is inept, period. Forgetting about the political crap, the problems of this country that are real have not been solved. … Gas is now close to $4 a gallon and food is still up. … I don’t have any idea what the policy of this administration is on the border.”
“Mr. Oxman, the White House is on line 2.”
* President Biden’s limited capacity to shape the key races: Look at where he is scheduled to go this week:
* Wrong track:
* Democratic underperformance with key groups: The data is mixed but don’t be surprised if the exit polls show Democrats doing significantly worse than needed in terms of vote share and turnout among the groups it relies on (young, union, Black, Hispanic, women).
* Unity: Republican leaders are putting aside their past differences and getting behind their candidates of all sorts (with few exceptions), including, for example, Don Bolduc in New Hampshire, Tudor Dixon in Michigan, even their secretary of state candidate in Arizona, and especially their great hope to win a Rhode Island House seat for the first time in years. Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump are both all on board for these candidates to win and that is a level of agreement not normally seen lately.
* Education: A sleeper issue.
* The math: Democrats are in many places well under 50% and if the tide is the tide, Republicans are going to win a lot of contests in which (sometimes skewed) public polls show the GOP candidate within 5 points (which is a lot of races).
* Emotion: Winning campaigns, especially in a midterm, is about finding issues and other stuff around which to energize folks to turn out to vote with passion and excitement (and anger). This paragraph from the New York Post about the left only scratches the surface of all the messages Team Red has to rev:
[T]hey’ve successfully coopted Big Tech to censor speech they don’t like or stories politically damaging to Democratic candidates. They’ve successfully harnessed the FBI to bury inconvenient evidence like Hunter Biden’s laptop, and harass people committing wrongthink, like parents at school-board meetings, or Christian pro-lifer Mark Houck, raided by a SWAT team in front of his seven children.
So, the Red wave chugs, but how hard and wide it will hit is still an open question.
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Whatever your point of view regarding what happened at the Pelosi home, one reality is now clear: If the anonymous sources “familiar with the investigation” (or “a person briefed on the case”) can make the Third Man (or First Woman….) just disappear – going from saying another, unidentified party opened the door for police to saying that there was no such person – well, then, let’s assume that those sources “familiar with the investigation” (or “a person briefed on the case”) might be at best hugely unreliable and at worst perhaps overly familiar with the investigation (and the stakes involved).
In the Age of Trump, what Elon Musk did this weekend using his new toy to amplify a theory about Paul Pelosi is neither shocking nor surprising.
But it is quite something.
And it got not just the Daily Mail but also the Washington Post to write about it.
Watch this space:
In an interview on Sunday, Brooke Jenkins, the San Francisco district attorney, said she had seen nothing to support the idea that Mr. Pelosi and the attacker knew each other. (New York Times)
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